Page:Novalis Schriften - Volume 2.djvu/35

★ 25 ★ that reveals the inspiration of all human works, the harmonious development of all faculties; the immense height, that a single people can achieve in all fields in the science of life and the arts, and everywhere flourishing trade with spiritual and earthly goods, from the periphery of Europe and as far as most distant India.

These were the beautiful, essential features of the true Catholic or true Christian times. Humanity was not yet ripe for this glorious kingdom, not developed enough. It was a first love that slumbered in the pressures of business, their memory repressed through self-serving worries, and their bond afterward declaimed as deception and delusion and judged by later experiences,forever torn apart by a large segment of the Europeans. This inner division, which was accompanied by destructive wars, was a remarkable sign of the detrimental effect of culture on the sense of the unseen, at least a temporarily detrimental effect of culture at a certain stage. That immortal sense cannot be destroyed, but it can be clouded, paralyzed, and repressed by other senses.—A long-existing community of people loses the affection, the faith in their cultural heritage, and they get used to devoting all their thoughts and aspirations to the means of well-being alone; the needs and the arts of satisfying them come more involved, the avaricious person needs so much time to get to know them and to acquire the skills for them that there is not time left for gathering one's thoughts, for focused contemplation of one's inner world.—In cases of conflict it seems that the present interest is closer to him, and so