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120
THE EGO AND HIS OWN
peror Henry VII the poisoned wafer for the--church's
welfare ?
The genuinely--churchly Protestants inveighed
against every " innocent pleasure," because only the
sacred, the spiritual, could be innocent. What they
could not point out the holy spirit in, the Protestants
had to reject,--dancing, the theatre, ostentation (e. g.
in the church), and the like.
Compared with this puritanical Calvinism, Luther-
anism is again more on the religious, i. e. spiritual,
track,--is more radical. For the former excludes at
once a great number of things as sensual and worldly,
and purifies the church; Lutheranism, on the con-
trary, tries to bring spirit into all things as far as pos-
sible, to recognize the holy spirit as an essence in
everything, and so to hallow everything worldly.
("No one can forbid a kiss in honor." The spirit of
honor hallows it.) Hence it was that the Lutheran
Hegel (he declares himself such in some passage or
other : he " wants to remain a Lutheran ") was com-
pletely successful in carrying the idea through every-
thing. In everything there is reason, i. e. holy spirit,
or " the real is rational." For the real is in fact
everything, as in each thing, e. g. each lie, the truth
can be detected: there is no absolute lie, no absolute
evil, and the like.
Great " works of mind " were created almost solely
by Protestants, as they alone were the true disciples
and consummators of mind.
How little man is able to control ! He must let
the sun run its course, the sea roll its waves, the
MEN OK THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 121
mountains rise to heaven. Thus he stands powerless
before the uncontrollable. Can he keep off the im-
pression that he is helpless against this gigantic world?
It is a fixed law to which he must submit, it deter-
mines his fate. Now, what did pre-Christian human-
ity work toward ? Toward getting rid of the irrup-
tions of the destinies, not letting oneself be vexed by
them. The Stoics attained this in apathy, declaring
the attacks of nature indifferent, and not letting them-
selves be affected by them. Horace utters the famous
Nil admirari, by which he likewise announces the in-
difference of the other, the world ; it is not to influence
us, not to arouse our astonishment. And that
impavidum ferient ruinae expresses the very same im-
perturbability as Ps. 46. 3: " We do not fear, though
the earth should perish." In all this there is room
made for the Christian proposition that the world is
empty, for the Christian contempt of the world.
The imperturbable spirit of " the wise man," with
which the old world worked to prepare its end, now
underwent an inner perturbation against which no
ataraxy, no Stoic courage, was able to protect it.
The spirit, secured against all influence of the world,
insensible to its shocks and exalted above its attacks,
admiring nothing, not to be disconcerted by any
downfall of the world,--foamed over irrepressibly
again, because gases (spirits) were evolved in its own
interior, and, after the mechanical shock that comes
from without had become ineffective, chemical tensions,
that agitate within, began their wonderful play.
In fact, ancient history ends with this.--that I have
struggled till I won my ownership of the world.