Thus the thinkers rule in the world as long as the age of priests or of schoolmasters lasts, and what they think of is possible, but what is possible must be realized. They think an ideal of man, which for the time is real only in their thoughts; but they also think the possibility of carrying it out, and there is no chance for dispute, the carrying out is really—thinkable, it is an—idea.
But you and I, we may indeed be people of whom a Krummacher can think that we might yet become good Christians; if, however, he wanted to "labor with" us, we should soon make it palpable to him that our Christianity is only thinkable, but in other respects impossible; if he grinned on and on at us with his obtrusive thoughts, his "good belief," he would have to learn that we do not at all need to become what we do not like to become.
And so it goes on, far beyond the most pious of the pious. "If all men were rational, if all did right, if all were guided by philanthropy, etc."! Reason, right, philanthropy, etc., are put before the eyes of men as their calling, as the goal of their aspiration. And what does being rational mean? Giving oneself a hearing?[221] No, reason is a book full of laws, which are all enacted against egoism.
History hitherto is the history of the intellectual man. After the period of sensuality, history proper begins; i. e., the period of intellectuality,[222] spirituality,[223] non-sensuality, supersensuality, nonsensicality. Man now begins to want to be and become something. What? Good, beautiful, true; more precisely, moral, pious, agreeable, etc. He wants to make of himself a "proper man," "something proper." Man is his goal, his ought, his destiny, calling, task, his—ideal; he is to himself a future, otherworldly he. And what makes a "proper fellow" of him? Being true, being good, being moral, and the like. Now he looks askance at every one who does not recognize the same "what," seek the same morality, have the same faith; he chases out "separatists, heretics, sects," etc.
No sheep, no dog, exerts itself to become a "proper sheep, a proper dog"; no beast has its essence appear to it as a task, i. e. as a concept that it has to realize. It realizes itself in living itself out, i. e. dissolving itself, passing away. It does not ask to be or to become anything other than it is.
Do I mean to advise you to be like the beasts? That you ought to become beasts is an exhortation which I certainly cannot give you, as that would again be a task, an ideal ("How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour.... In works of labor or of skill I would be busy too, for Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do"). It would be the same, too, as if one wished for the beasts that they should become human beings. Your nature is, once for all, a human one; you are human natures, i. e. human beings. But, just because you already are so, you do not still need to become so. Beasts too are "trained," and a trained beast executes many unnatural things. But a trained dog is no better for itself than a natural one, and has no profit from it, even if it is more companionable for us.
Exertions to "form" all men into moral, rational, pious, human, etc., "beings" (i. e. training) were in vogue from of yore. They are wrecked against the indomitable quality of I, against own nature, against egoism. Those who are trained never attain their ideal, and only profess with their mouth the sublime principles, or make a profession, a profession of faith. In face of this profession they must in life "acknowledge themselves sinners altogether," and they fall short of their ideal, are "weak men," and bear with them the consciousness of "human weakness."
It is different if you do not chase after an ideal as your "destiny," but dissolve yourself as time dissolves everything. The dissolution is not your "destiny," because it is present time.
Yet the culture, the religiousness, of men has assuredly made them free, but only free from one lord, to lead them to another. I have learned by religion to tame my appetite, I break the world's resistance by the cunning that is put in my hand by science; I even serve no man: "I am, no man's lackey." But then it comes, You must obey God more than man. Just so I am indeed free from irrational determination by my impulses, but obedient to the master Reason. I have gained "spiritual freedom," "freedom of the spirit." But with that I have then become subject to that very spirit. The spirit gives me orders, reason guides me, they are my leaders and commanders. The "rational," the "servants of the spirit," rule. But, if I am not flesh, I am in truth not spirit either. Freedom of the spirit is servitude of me, because I am more than spirit or flesh.
Without doubt culture has made me powerful. It has given me power over all motives, over the impulses of my nature as well as over the exactions and violences of the world. I know, and have gained the force for it by culture, that I need not let myself be coerced by any of my appetites, pleasures, emotions, etc.; I am their—master; in like manner I become, through the sciences and arts, the master of the refractory world, whom sea and earth obey, and to whom even the stars must give an account of themselves. The spirit has made me master.—But I have no power over the spirit itself. From religion (culture) I do learn the means for the "vanquishing of the world," but not how I am to subdue God too and become master of him; for God "is the spirit." And this same spirit, of which I am unable to become master, may have the most manifold shapes: he may be called God or National Spirit, State, Family, Reason, also—Liberty, Humanity, Man.