Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/249

 sure of his own greatness and trusts thereto, he disdains to rule over a people with a wretched servile spirit or to be a giant among dwarfs; he disdains the thought that he must first degrade men in order to rule over them; he is oppressed by the sight of degeneration round about him. Not to be able to respect men causes him pain; but everything that elevates and ennobles his brother men and places them in a worthier light is a cause of satisfaction to his own noble spirit and is his greatest delight. Are we to believe that such a soul would note with displeasure that the upheavals which the present times have brought about are being used to arouse an ancient and honourable nation from its deep slumber—a nation that is the stem from which most of the peoples of modern Europe have sprung, and which is the creator of them all—and to induce it to lay hold of a sure means of preservation in order to raise itself from ruin—a means which ensures at the same time that it will never sink again, and that it will raise all the other peoples along with itself? We are here not inciting people to riotous measures; we are rather warning people against them as sure to lead to ruin. We are pointing out a firm and unchangeable foundation, on which the highest and purest morality, such as was never yet seen among men, may be built up at last for the world in one people and assured for all time to come, and which may thence be spread abroad among all other peoples. We are pointing the way to a regeneration of the human race, a way to turn earthly and sensuous creatures into pure and noble spirits. Does anyone think that such a proposal could be felt as an insult by a mind that is itself pure and noble and great, or by anyone who forms himself after that pattern?

What, on the other hand, would be the assumption of those who entertained this fear and admitted it by