A society which I join does indeed take from me many liberties, but in return it affords me other liberties; neither does it matter if I myself deprive myself of this and that liberty (_e. g._ by any contract). On the other hand, I want to hold jealously to my ownness. Every community has the propensity, stronger or weaker according to the fulness of its power, to become an _authority_ to its members and to set _limits_ for them: it asks, and must ask, for a "subject's limited understanding"; it asks that those who belong to it be subject to it, be its "subjects"; it exists only by _subjection_. In this a certain tolerance need by no means be excluded; on the contrary, the society will welcome improvements, corrections, and blame, so far as such are calculated for its gain: but the blame must be "well-meaning," it may not be "insolent and disrespectful,"--in other words, one must leave uninjured, and hold sacred, the substance of the society. The society demands that those who belong to it shall not go _beyond it_ and exalt themselves, but remain "within the bounds of legality," _i. e._ allow themselves only so much as the society and its law allow them. There is a difference whether my liberty or my ownness is limited by a society. If the former only is the case, it is a _coalition_, an agreement, a union; but, if ruin is threatened to ownness, it is a _power of itself_, a power _above me_, a thing unattainable by me, which I can indeed admire, adore, reverence, respect, but cannot subdue and consume, and that for the reason that I _am resigned_. It exists by my _resignation_, my _self-renunciation_, my spiritlessness,[205] called--HUMILITY.[206] My humility makes its courage,[207] my submissiveness gives it its dominion.