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138
THE EGO AND HIS OWN
posed to be pronounced in its honor, characterizes it
completely: " Liberalism is nothing else than the
knowledge of reason, applied to our existing rela-
tions."* Its aim is a " rational order," a " moral be-
havior," a " limited freedom," not anarchy, lawless-
ness, selfhood. But, if reason rules, then the person
succumbs. Art has for a long time not only acknowl-
edged the ugly, but considered the ugly as necessary
to its existence, and taken it up into itself; it needs
the villain, etc. In the religious domain, too, the ex-
tremest liberals go so far that they want to see the
most religious man regarded as a citizen--i. e. the
religious villain ; they want to see no more of trials
for heresy. But against the " rational law " no one is
to rebel, otherwise he is threatened with the severest--
penalty. What is wanted is not free movement and
realization of the person or of me, but of reason,--i. e.
a dominion of reason, a dominion. The liberals are
zealots, not exactly for the faith, for God, etc., but
certainly for reason, their master. They brook no
lack of breeding, and therefore no self-development
and self-determination ; they play the guardian as
effectively as the most absolute rulers.
" Political liberty," what are we to understand by
that? Perhaps the individual's independence of the
State and its laws? No ; on the contrary, the individ-
ual's subjection in the State and to the State's laws.
But why "liberty"? Because one is no longer sep-
arated from the State by intermediaries, but stands in
direct and immediate relation to it; because one is
* " Ein und zwanzig Bogen," p 12
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW
139
a--citizen, not the subject of another, not even of the
king as a person, but only in his quality as " su-
preme head of the State." Political liberty, this fun-
damental doctrine of liberalism, is nothing but a sec-
ond phase of--Protestantism, and runs quite parallel
with "religious liberty."* Or would it perhaps be
right to understand by the latter an independence of
religion? Anything but that. Independence of
intermediaries is all that it is intended to express, in-
dependence of mediating priests, the abolition of the
" laity," and so direct and immediate relation to re-
ligion or to God. Only on the supposition that one
has religion can he enjoy freedom of religion ; free-
dom of religion does not mean being without religion,
but inwardness of faith, unmediated intercourse with
God. To him who is " religiously free " religion is an
affair of the heart, it is to him his own affair, it is to
him a "sacredly serious matter." So, too, to the
"politically free" man the State is a sacredly serious
matter; it is his heart's affair, his chief affair, his own
affair.
Political liberty means that the polis, the State, is
free; freedom of religion that religion is free, as free-
dom of conscience signifies that conscience is free;
not, therefore, that I am free from the State, from reli-
gion, from conscience, or that I am rid of them. It
does not mean my liberty, but the liberty of a power
that rules and subjugates me; it means that one of my
despots, like State, religion, conscience, is free. State,
religion, conscience, these despots, make me a slave,
*Louis Diane says ("Histoire des Dix Ans "I p 138) of the time of the
Restoration " Le protestantisme devint le fond des idées et des moeurs."