Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/33

 it remains unperceived by that power, that it does not in any way arouse its jealousy; nay more, that the alien power itself is induced by its own interest to put no obstacle in the way of the formation of such a world. Now if, for a race which has lost its former self, its former age and world, such a world should be created as the means of producing a new self and a new age, a thorough interpretation of such a possible age would have to give an account of the world thus created.

Now for my part I maintain that there is such a world, and it is the aim of these addresses to show you its existence and its true owner, to bring before your eyes a living picture of it, and to indicate the means of creating it. In this sense, therefore, these addresses will be a continuation of the lectures previously given on the then existing age, because they will reveal the new era which can and must directly follow the destruction of the kingdom of self-seeking by an alien power.

3. But, before I begin this task, I must ask you to assume the following points so that they never escape your memory, and to agree with me upon them wherever and in so far as this is necessary.

(a) I speak for Germans simply, of Germans simply, not recognizing, but setting aside completely and rejecting, all the dissociating distinctions which for centuries unhappy events have caused in this single nation. You, gentlemen, are indeed to my outward eye the first and immediate representatives who bring before my mind the beloved national characteristics, and are the visible spark at which the flame of my address is kindled. But my spirit gathers round it the educated part of the whole German nation, from all the lands in which they are scattered. It thinks of and considers our common position and relations; it longs that part of the living