To be of use to the men of his time, to make a way out of untenable contradictions for them, to free the sacredness of genuine inward religion from external fetters of falsehood, was what had constrained him to write. And he felt himself doubly bound to continue the work that he had begun after a multitude had flocked to him waiting for his further leading.
The sentence above, “Where he had posted himself he kept his stand,” is in reality inaccurate, for Egidy went on from this place step by step in the same direction—that is, along the upward path of knowledge—with the same resolute gait, and where he stood a few years later he had immeasurably widened his field of view, and consequently his field of influence also. Although he remained true to himself, or rather by remaining true to himself, he had become almost another man since his first appearance with his “Serious Thoughts”; he had gone on thinking with the same seriousness, gone on willing with increasing power, and the domain which he surveyed at the end of his career, the ideal toward which he was then striving, went as far beyond his first announcement as that went beyond the narrow dogmatic track which he had originally renounced. And yet he did not for a moment need to disavow the basis of his endeavor; the watchword that he followed was from first to last “Religion no longer beside our life, our life itself religion!” Only his religion was then no longer “Mere Christianity,” but the push toward goodness, inner consecration; the striving for knowledge, for development. “Love is power” was another of Egidy’s maxims. He had begun with the demand for a change in the religious sphere, because there first he felt the discrepancy between old canons and new needs of the spirit; but gradually his demands had extended to the bettering of all—especially social and political—conditions.
He had put himself at the service of his convictions with a strength of character that was matched only by his strength for work. He went on lecture tours, published a weekly entitled Die Versöhnung (“Reconciliation”), gave an answer to every one who in person or by letter came to meet him either as a seeker for advice or as an opponent; he took a stand publicly with regard to all problems and events of the day, and when election time came he announced himself a candidate for the Reichstag.
But the election went against him. One who subscribes to no party programme does not get the voters, for they too have been drilled into partisan politics.
Here are a few passages which I have extracted from his appeal to the electors, premising only that this man was never an opportunist, that he forever scorned to say A and insinuate B, or to show gray in order to attain white. Certainly this method is unpolitical according to prevalent customs, and apparently Egidy’s attempt to enter political life was wrecked on that reef. The worship of party and special interests in which our life is swamped comports but ill with a series of declarations in which the first sentence ran, “I belong to no party and to no group of interests,” and where a little further on it says:
The question does not concern the advantage of a group or class, or the principles of a party; the question is to serve the community—without any limitation of the concept. He who cannot take into his heart and brain the concept community (Gemeinsamkeif) in all its completeness and elevation, is no such representative of the people as the times require.
The goal which Egidy saw before him was,
for every individual an intellectual independence limited by nothing, and an existence secured against all material oppression, for these are the conditions of inner freedom. There is no such thing as a welfare outside of freedom, at least for any one who feels himself a man. Until all are free, none is free. The ruling portion of the people is just as little free as the ruled. The continual fear of losing the rule paralyzes the sense of welfare—makes unfree.
We need conditions which shall make it possible for every one of the people to lead a life worthy of humanity. We are a people no longer under guardians, and we shall get ourselves these conditions. The way to this end: a peaceable transformation of our circumstances, from the present as starting-point, with the unselfish coöperation of all. No tabula rasa, not a “future society” to begin day after to-morrow; but a resolution of the people, clearly expressed in some form or other, that from now on other fundamental conceptions sway our institutions and consequently our existence. The change of conditions takes place in proportion to the progressive development in ourselves.
We all, without exception, are in a process of development. The transition to a new view of the world, which has long been on the way, is to take place during the next few years in the soul of the people. Whoever hampers this development commits a crime against the ordinances of God. Only when rationality and natural sensibility rule the thought of the majority, can we dare think of actual upbuilding. All enterprises undertaken in the meantime are only barracks which will be crushed by the spirit of the new time as it will soon appear with elemental power.