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THE EGO AND HIS OWN

thoughts grew till they overtopped my head, whose
offspring they yet were; they hovered about me and
convulsed me like fever-phantasies--an awful power.
The thoughts had become corporeal on their own ac-
count, were ghosts, such as God, Emperor, Pope,
Fatherland, etc. If I destroy their corporeity, then
I take them back into mine, and say: " I alone am
corporeal." And now I take the world as what it is
to me, as mine, as my property; I refer all to myself.

If as spirit I had thrust away the world in the

deepest contempt, so as owner I thrust spirits or ideas
away into their " vanity." They have no longer any
power over me, as no " earthly might" has power
over the spirit.

The child was realistic, taken up with the things of

this world, till little by little he succeeded in getting at
what was back of these very things; the youth was
idealistic, inspired by thoughts, till he worked his way
up to where he became the man, the egoistic man, who
deals with things and thoughts according to his heart's
pleasure, and sets his personal interest above every-
thing. Finally, the old man ? When I become one,
there will still be time enough to speak of that.

MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 17

II.

MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE

NEW

How each of us developed himself, what he strove

for, attained, or missed, what objects he formerly pur-
sued and what plans and wishes his heart is now set
on, what transformations his views have experienced,
what perturbations his principles,--in short, how he
has to-day become what yesterday or years ago he was
not,--this he brings out again from his memory with
more or less ease, and he feels with especial vividness
what changes have taken place in himself when he has
before his eyes the unrolling of another's life.

Let us therefore look into the activities our fore-

fathers busied themselves with.

I.--THE ANCIENTS

Custom having once given the name* of " the

ancients " to our pre-Christian ancestors, we will not
throw it up against them that, in comparison with us
experienced people, they ought properly to be called
children, but will rather continue to honor them as our
good old fathers. But how have they come to be
antiquated, and who could displace them through his
pretended newness ?

We know, of course, the revolutionary innovator and