On the contrary, they had been only thoughts that we had about a _thing_; we thought of the thing so or so. Thus we may have thought "God made the world that we see there," but we did not think of ("search") the "depths of the Godhead itself"; we may have thought "that is the truth about the matter," but we did not think of Truth itself, nor unite into one sentence "God is truth." The "depths of the Godhead, who is truth," we did not touch. Over such purely logical, _i. e._ theological questions, "What is truth?" Pilate does not stop, though he does not therefore hesitate to ascertain in an individual case "what truth there is in the thing," _i. e._ whether the _thing_ is true. Any thought bound to a _thing_ is not yet _nothing but a thought_, absolute thought. To bring to light _the pure thought_, or to be of its party, is the delight of youth; and all the shapes of light in the world of thought, like truth, freedom, humanity, Man, etc., illumine and inspire the youthful soul. But, when the spirit is recognized as the essential thing, it still makes a difference whether the spirit is poor or rich, and therefore one seeks to become rich in spirit; the spirit wants to spread out so as to found its empire--an empire that is not of this world, the world just conquered. Thus, then, it longs to become all in all to itself; _i. e._, although I am spirit, I am not yet _perfected_ spirit, and must first seek the complete spirit. But with that I, who had just now found myself as spirit, lose myself again at once, bowing before the complete spirit as one not my own but _supernal_, and feeling my emptiness. Spirit is the essential point for everything, to be sure; but then is every spirit the "right" spirit? The right and true spirit is the ideal of spirit, the "Holy Spirit." It is not my or your spirit, but just--an ideal, supernal one, it is "God." "God is spirit." And this supernal "Father in heaven gives it to those that pray to him."[7] The man is distinguished from the youth by the fact that he takes the world as it is, instead of everywhere fancying it amiss and wanting to improve it, _i. e_. model it after his ideal; in him the view that one must deal with the world according to his _interest_, not according to his _ideals_, becomes confirmed. So long as one knows himself only as _spirit_, and feels that all the value of his existence consists in being spirit (it becomes easy for the youth to give his life, the "bodily life," for a nothing, for the silliest point of honor), so long it is only _thoughts_ that one has, ideas that he hopes to be able to realize some day when he has found a sphere of action; thus one has meanwhile only _ideals_, unexecuted ideas or thoughts.