Page:Novalis Schriften - Volume 2.djvu/139

★ 129 ★ covenant of true thinkers rests on this. Herein lies the possibility of a universal republic which the Romans had begun to realize up to the emperors. Augustus first abandoned this foundation, and Hadrian completely destroyed it.

76. The leader, the first official of the state, has almost always been confused with the representative of the genius of humanity, which belongs to the unity of society or the people.

In the state everything is the acting of a show, the life of the people is a drama; hence the spirit of the people must also be displayed. This visible spirit either comes, as in the millennial kingdom, without our intervention, or it is chosen unanimously by loud or silent consent.

It is an irrefutable fact that most of the princes were not really princes, but usually more or less a kind of representative of the genius of their time, and that most of the time the government was as reasonably, in subordinate hands.

A perfect representative of the genius of humanity the real priest and the poet could easily be the poet κατ 'εξοχην.

77. Our everyday life consists of nothing but sustaining, recurring activities. This circle of routines is only the means to a principle medium, our mundane existence in general, which is mixed together from multifarious ways of existing.