Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/123

 possession of rare knowledge strengthened them in their position as a distinguished and educated class, and so they were quite willing that the great multitude, for whom they had no feeling, should remain under the sway of the deception and thus be more subservient to their purposes. This state of things—a people deceived, and their betters making use of the deception and laughing at them—might have continued; and it would probably have continued until the end of time, if there had been none but neo-Latins in the modern world.

Here you have a clear proof of what I said about the continuation of ancient culture by the new, and about the share the neo-Latins are able to have in it. The new light proceeded from the ancients and, falling first upon the central point of neo-Latin culture, was there developed into nothing more than an intellectual view of things, without taking hold of life and shaping it differently.

72. But it was impossible for the existing state of things to continue once this light had fallen upon a soul whose religion was truly earnest and concerned about life, when this soul was surrounded by a people to whom it could easily impart its more earnest view, and when this people found leaders who cared about its urgent needs. However low Christianity may fall, there always remains in it an essential part which contains truth and which is sure to stimulate life, if only it is real and independent life. That part is the question: What shall we do to be saved? When this question fell on barren soil, where either it remained undecided whether such a thing as salvation was really possible, or else, even if that was assumed, there was still no firm and decided will to be saved—on such soil religion from the very beginning did not affect life and will, but remained suspended in