Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/206

 approval, which he is directed by his spiritual nature, and accustomed by education, to need for his own satisfaction. As we have already mentioned in our second address, there are two very different ways of subordinating the personal self to the community. First of all, that way which absolutely must exist and can in no wise be omitted by anyone, subordination to the law of the constitution which is drawn up merely for the regulation of the community. He who does not transgress this law is not blamed, and that is all; he does not, however, receive approbation. Similarly, real displeasure and censure would fall upon him who transgressed; this would take place in public if the wrong were public, and if it remained ineffective, it could even be intensified by the addition of punishment. Secondly, there is that subordination of the individual to the community which cannot be demanded but can only be given voluntarily, viz., the raising and advancing of the well-being of the community by self-sacrifice. In order to impress correctly upon the pupils from youth upwards the mutual relationship of mere legality and this higher virtue, it will be appropriate to allow him only, against whom for a certain period there has been no complaint in regard to legality, to make these voluntary sacrifices as the reward, so to speak, of legality, but to refuse this permission to him who is not yet quite sure of himself in regard to regularity and order. The objects of such voluntary acts have already been pointed out in general, and will be indicated still more clearly later. Let this kind of sacrifice receive active approbation and real recognition of its merits, not in public in the form of praise, which might corrupt the heart, make it vain, and turn it from its independence, but in secret and with the pupil alone. This recognition ought to be nothing more than the outward expression of the pupil’s own good