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THE EGO AND HIS OWN

and slaps immorality in the mouth; he listens only to
legality, and gags the lawless word. The spirit of
morality and legality holds him a prisoner; a rigid,
unbending master. They call that the " mastery of
the spirit,"--it is at the same time the standpoint of
the spirit.

And now whom do the ordinary liberal gentlemen

mean to make free ? Whose freedom is it that they
cry out and thirst for ? The spirit's ! That of the
spirit of morality, legality, piety, the fear of God, etc.
That is what the anti-liberal gentlemen also want, and
the whole contention between the two turns on a mat-
ter of advantage,--whether the latter are to be the
only speakers, or the former are to receive a " share in
the enjoyment of the same advantage." The spirit re-
mains the absolute lord for both, and their only quar-
rel is over who shall occupy the hierarchical throne
that pertains to the " Viceregent of the Lord." The
best of it is that one can calmly look upon the stir
with the certainty that the wild beasts of history will
tear each other to pieces just like those of nature;
their putrefying corpses fertilize the ground for--our
crops.

We shall come back later to many another wheel in

the head,--for instance, those of vocation, truthful-
ness, love, etc.

When one's own is contrasted with what is imparted

to him, there is no use in objecting that we cannot
have anything isolated, but receive everything as a
part of the universal order, and therefore through the
impression of what is around us, and that consequently

MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 83

we have it as something " imparted "; for there is a
great difference between the feelings and thoughts
which are aroused in me by other things and those
which are given to me. God, immortality, freedom,
humanity, etc., are drilled into us from childhood as
thoughts and feelings which move our inner being
more or less strongly, either ruling us without our
knowing it, or sometimes in richer natures manifesting
themselves in systems and works of art; but are al-
ways not aroused, but' imparted, feelings, because we
must believe in them and cling to them. That an
Absolute existed, and that it must be taken in, felt,
and thought by us, was settled as a faith in the minds
of those who spent all the strength of their mind on
recognizing it and setting it forth. The feeling for
the Absolute exists there as an imparted one, and
thenceforth results only in the most manifold revela-
tions of its own self. So in Klopstock the religious
feeling was an imparted one, which in the " Messiad"
simply found artistic expression. If, on the other
hand, the religion with which he was confronted had
been for him only an incitation to feeling and
thought, and if he had known how to take an attitude
completely his own toward it, then there would have
resulted, instead of religious inspiration, a dissolution
and consumption of the religion itself. Instead of
that, he only continued in mature years his childish
feelings received in childhood, and squandered the
powers of his manhood in decking out his childish
trifles.

The difference is, then, whether feelings are im-

parted to me or only aroused. Those which are