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THE EGO AND HIS OWN

of " things; therefore we spy out the weak points of
everybody, for which, it is well known, children have a
sure instinct; therefore we like to smash things, like to
rummage through hidden corners, pry after what is
covered up or out of the way, and try what we can do
with everything. When we once get at what is back
of the things, we know we are safe; when, e. g., we
have got at the fact that the rod is too weak against
our obduracy, then we no longer fear it, " have out-
grown it."

Back of the rod, mightier than it, stands our--ob-

duracy, our obdurate courage. By degrees we get at
what is back of everything that was mysterious and
uncanny to us, the mysteriously-dreaded might of the
rod, the father's stern look, etc., and back of all we
find our--ataraxy,

i. e.

imperturbability, intrepidity,

our counter force, our odds of strength, our invinci-
bility. Before that which formerly inspired in us fear
and deference we no longer retreat shyly, but take

courage.

Back of everything we find our

courage,

our superiority; back of the sharp command of
parents and authorities stands, after all, our courage-
ous choice or our outwitting shrewdness. And the
more we feel ourselves, the smaller appears that which
before seemed invincible. And what is our trickery,
shrewdness, courage, obduracy ? What else but--

mind!*

Through a considerable time we are spared a fight

that is so exhausting later--the fight against reason.
The fairest part of childhood passes without the ne-

* [Geist This word will be translated sometimes " mind " and sometimes
spirit" in the following pages ]

A HUMAN LIFE

cessity of coming to blows with reason. We care
nothing at all about it, do not meddle with it, admit
no reason. We are not to be persuaded to anything
by conviction, and are deaf to good arguments, princi-
ples, etc.; on the other hand, coaxing, punishment,
and the like are hard for us to resist.

This stern life-and-death combat with reason enter

later, and begins a new phase; in childhood we
scamper about without racking our brains much.

Mind is the name of the first self-discovery, the first

undeification of the divine, i. e. of the uncanny, the
spooks, the "powers above." Our fresh feeling of
youth, this feeling of self, now defers to nothing; the
world is discredited, for we are above it, we are mind.

Now for the first time we see that hitherto we have

not looked at the world intelligently at all, but only
stared at it.

We exercise the beginnings of our strength on

natural powers. We defer to parents as a natural
power; later we say : Father and mother are to be
forsaken, all natural power to be counted as riven.
They are vanquished. For the rational, i. e. " intel-
lectual " man there is no family as a natural power;
a renunciation of parents, brothers, etc., makes its ap-
pearance. If these are "born again" as intellectual,
rational powers, they are no longer at all what they
were before.

And not only parents, but men in general, are

conquered by the young man; they are no hindrance
to him, and are no longer regarded; for now he says:
One must obey God rather than men.

From this high standpoint everything " earthly "