Page:Novalis Schriften - Volume 2.djvu/177

★ 167 ★ to fewer, in a monarchy to a single arbitrary fate.

53. But doesn't reason require that everyone should be his own lawmaker? People should only obey their own laws. Because Solon and Lycurgus have given truly general laws, laws for humanity—where did they get them from? Hopefully from their humanity and its observation. If I am a person, like them, where do I get my laws? Most probably from the same source—and am I, if I then live according to Solon's and Lycurgus's laws, untrue to reason? Every true law is my law—Let everyone who want to, proclaim and establish it. But this proclamation and establishment is, or the observation of the original feeling and its representation, must accordingly not be so easy- otherwise would we stand in need of any specially written word at all? Must it also be an art? So applying the law in this way appears in fact to be preceded by a lengthy practice and sharpening of judgement. What gave rise to professions and guilds?—a lack of time and strength of the individual. Every person cannot yet learn all arts and knowledge and at the same bustle about—one cannot be all things in everything. Work and art were distributed. Why not also the art of government? The general demand of reason requires that all people should be doctors, poets, and so forth. For the rest of the arts, by the way, it has already been established for the most part that people make no demands regarding these—only the art of government and philosophy—everyone believes that these belong only to presumptuousness, and everyone misperceives themselves as an authority to speak thereof,