Facts call us now to bethink ourselves, just as movements of their capsizing vessel drive the crew up on to the deck and into the rigging. Belief in the spiritual progress of the individual and of mankind has already become almost impossible for us, but with the courage of despair we must force ourselves into it. That we shall all unanimously again will this spiritual progress and again hope for it: that is the reversal of the helm which we must succeed in making, if our vessel is at the last moment to be brought once more before the wind. Only through thoughtful reverence for life shall we become capable of this achievement. If that reverence begins anywhere to work in our thinking and in our spirit and temper, then the miracle is possible. The power of the elementary and living spirituality that is to be found in it is beyond calculation. Church and State as historical entities, and as ideals of civilization State and Church are only modified forms of the organization of men towards humanity. The ideals of social-political and religious organization are therefore determined by the necessity of these entities being made effective aids to the spiritualizing of men, and to their organization towards humanity. The fact that the ideals of State and Church among us are not at work in their true form is due to our historical sense. The men of the “Aufklärung” assumed that State and Church had come into existence by reason of estimates made of their usefulness. They sought to comprehend the nature of these two entities by means of theories about their origins, but in this proceeding they did nothing but read back their own view into history. Not feeling the least reverence for any natural historical entity, they [pg 279] found it easy to approach them with demands suggested by a rational ideal. We, on the contrary, have such a measure of this reverence that we feel shy of wishing to transform in accordance with theoretical ideas what had a quite different origin. But State and Church are not merely natural historical entities; they are also necessary ones. The only way in which reflexion can deal with them is to be always at work, transforming them from what they are as received, into organisms which are in accordance with reason and effective in every respect. Only in this capacity for development is their existence fully apprehended and justified.