Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/132

 with fervent daring, another problem of reason and philosophy for the modern world—the establishment of the perfect State. But, shortly afterwards, they abandoned this task so completely that they are compelled by their present condition to condemn the very thought of the problem as a crime, and they had to use every means to delete, if possible, those efforts from the annals of their history. The reason for this result is as clear as day; the State in accordance with reason cannot be built up by artificial measures from whatever material may be at hand; on the contrary, the nation must first be trained and educated up to it. Only the nation which has first solved in actual practice the problem of educating perfect men will then solve also the problem of the perfect State.

Since our reformation of the Church, the last-mentioned problem of education has more than once been attempted by foreign countries in a spirited fashion, but in accordance with their own philosophy; and among us a first result of their efforts has been to stimulate some to imitation and exaggeration. To what point the German spirit once more has finally brought this matter in our days we shall relate in more detail at the proper time.

81. In what has been said you have a clear conspectus of the whole history of culture in the modern world, and of the never-varying relationship of the different parts of the modern world to the world of antiquity. True religion, in the form of Christianity, was the germ of the modern world; and the task of the latter may be summed up as follows: to make this religion permeate the previous culture of antiquity and thereby to spiritualize and hallow it. The first step on this path was to rid this religion of the external respect of form which robbed