And now whom do the ordinary liberal gentlemen mean to make free? Whose freedom is it that they cry out and thirst for? The _spirit's_! That of the spirit of morality, legality, piety, the fear of God, etc. That is what the anti-liberal gentlemen also want, and the whole contention between the two turns on a matter of advantage,--whether the latter are to be the only speakers, or the former are to receive a "share in the enjoyment of the same advantage." The _spirit_ remains the absolute _lord_ for both, and their only quarrel is over who shall occupy the hierarchical throne that pertains to the "Vicegerent of the Lord." The best of it is that one can calmly look upon the stir with the certainty that the wild beasts of history will tear each other to pieces just like those of nature; their putrefying corpses fertilize the ground for--our crops. We shall come back later to many another wheel in the head,--for instance, those of vocation, truthfulness, love, etc. * * * * * When one's own is contrasted with what is _imparted_ to him, there is no use in objecting that we cannot have anything isolated, but receive everything as a part of the universal order, and therefore through the impression of what is around us, and that consequently we have it as something "imparted"; for there is a great difference between the feelings and thoughts which are _aroused_ in me by other things and those which are _given_ to me. God, immortality, freedom, humanity, etc., are drilled into us from childhood as thoughts and feelings which move our inner being more or less strongly, either ruling us without our knowing it, or sometimes in richer natures manifesting themselves in systems and works of art; but are always not aroused, but imparted, feelings, because we must believe in them and cling to them. That an Absolute existed, and that it must be taken in, felt, and thought by us, was settled as a faith in the minds of those who spent all the strength of their mind on recognizing it and setting it forth. The _feeling_ for the Absolute exists there as an imparted one, and thenceforth results only in the most manifold revelations of its own self. So in Klopstock the religious feeling was an imparted one, which in the "Messiad" simply found artistic expression. If, on the other hand, the religion with which he was confronted had been for him only an incitation to feeling and thought, and if he had known how to take an attitude completely _his own_ toward it, then there would have resulted, instead of religious inspiration, a dissolution and consumption of the religion itself. Instead of that, he only continued in mature years his childish feelings received in childhood, and squandered the powers of his manhood in decking out his childish trifles.