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THE EGO AND HIS OWN

friendly hand-shake; on the contrary, pure warm-
heartedness is Warm-hearted toward nobody, it is only
a theoretical interest, concern for man as man, not as a
person. The person is repulsive to it because of being
" egoistic," because of not being that abstraction, Man.
But it is only for the abstraction that one can have a
theoretical regard. To pure warm-heartedness or pure
theory men exist only to be criticised, scoffed at, and
thoroughly despised; to it, no less than to the fanatical
parson, they are only " filth " and other such nice
things.

Pushed to this extremity of disinterested warm-heart-

edness, we must finally become conscious that the spirit,
which alone the Christian loves, is nothing ; in other
words, that the spirit is--a lie.

What has here been set down roughly, summarily,

and doubtless as yet incomprehensibly, will, it is to be
hoped, become clear as we go on.

Let us take up the inheritance left by the ancients,

and, as active workmen, do with it as much as--can
be done with it! The world lies despised at our feet,
far beneath us and our heaven, into which its mighty
arms are no longer thrust and its stupefying breath
does not come. Seductively as it may pose, it can de-
lude nothing but our sense; it cannot lead astray the
spirit--and spirit alone, after all, we really are. Hav-
ing once got back of things, the spirit has also got
above them, and become free from their bonds, eman-
cipated, supernal, free. So speaks " spiritual
freedom."

To the spirit which, after long toil, has got rid of

the world, the worldless spirit, nothing is left after the

MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 33

loss of the world and the worldly but--the spirit and
the spiritual.

Yet, as it has only moved away from the world and

made of itself a being free from the world, without
being able really to annihilate the world, this remains
to it a stumbling-block that cannot be cleared away, a
discredited existence; and, as, on the other hand, it
knows and recognizes nothing but the spirit and the
spiritual, it must perpetually carry about with it the
longing to spiritualize the world, i. e. to redeem it
from the " black list." Therefore, like a youth, it
goes about with plans for the redemption or improve-
ment of the world.

The ancients, we saw, served the natural, the

worldly, the natural order of the world, but they in-
cessantly asked themselves whether they could not,
then, relieve themselves of this service; and, when they
had tired themselves to death in ever-renewed attempts
at revolt, then, among their last sighs, was born to
them the God, the " conqueror of the world." All
their doing had been nothing but wisdom of the world,
an effort to get back of the world and above it. And
what is the wisdom of the many following centuries ?
What did the moderns try to get back of ? No
longer to get back of the world, for the ancients had
accomplished that; but back-of the God whom the
ancients bequeathed to them, back of the God who " is
spirit," back of everything that is the spirit's, the
spiritual. But the activity of the spirit, which
" searches even the depths of the Godhead," is
theology. If the ancients have nothing to show but
wisdom of the world, the moderns never did nor do