 After years of struggling to make ends meet as a private lecturer and freelance writer, Scheler received an invitation in 1918 from Konrad Adenaur to join the faculty of the newly founded research institute for the social sciences in Cologne. The intent was to have Scheler serve as the Catholic thinker for the institute. Scheler, officially joining the faculty in 1919, was once again allowed to teach at a German university. During his time in Cologne, he wrote his major work on religion, On the Eternal in Man (1921).