Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/186

 is left to us now but speech, and even it is checked and restrained in every way. Whoever feels this within him will be convinced; whoever does not feel it cannot be convinced, for my proof rests entirely on that supposition; on him my words are lost; but who would not stake something so insignificant as words?

129. That definite education, from which we expect the salvation of the German nation, has been described in general terms in our second and third addresses. We described it as a complete regeneration of the human race, and it will be appropriate to link up with this description a repetition of the general survey.

130. As a rule, the world of the senses was formerly accepted as the only true and really existing world; it was the first that was brought before the pupil in education. From it alone was he led on to thought and, for the most part, to thought that was about it and in its service. The new education exactly reverses this order. For it the world that is comprehended by thought is the only true and really existing world, and into this it wishes to introduce the pupil from the very beginning. It is only to this world of the spirit that it wishes to link his whole love and his whole pleasure, so that with him there will inevitably begin and develop a life in it alone. Formerly there lived in the majority naught but flesh, matter, and nature; through the new education spirit alone shall live in the majority, yea, very soon in all, and spur them on; the stable and certain spirit, which was mentioned before as the only possible foundation of a well-organized State, shall be produced everywhere.

131. Such an education undoubtedly achieves the object which we have specially set before us and from which our addresses started. That spirit which is to be produced includes the higher love of fatherland, the