Compared with this puritanical Calvinism, Lutheranism is again more on
the religious, _i. e._ spiritual, track,--is more radical. For the
former excludes at once a great number of things as sensual and worldly,
and _purifies_ the church; Lutheranism, on the contrary, tries to bring
_spirit_ into all things as far as possible, to recognize the holy
spirit as an essence in everything, and so to _hallow_ everything
worldly. ("No one can forbid a kiss in honor." The spirit of honor
hallows it.) Hence it was that the Lutheran Hegel (he declares himself
such in some passage or other: he "wants to remain a Lutheran") was
completely successful in carrying the idea through everything. In
everything there is reason, _i. e._ holy spirit, or "the real is
rational." For the real is in fact everything, as in each thing, _e. g._
each lie, the truth can be detected: there is no absolute lie, no
absolute evil, and the like.
Great "works of mind" were created almost solely by Protestants, as they
alone were the true disciples and consummators of _mind_.
* * * * *
How little man is able to control! He must let the sun run its course,
the sea roll its waves, the mountains rise to heaven. Thus he stands
powerless before the _uncontrollable_. Can he keep off the impression
that he is _helpless_ against this gigantic world? It is a fixed _law_
to which he must submit, it determines his _fate_. Now, what did
pre-Christian humanity work toward? Toward getting rid of the irruptions
of the destinies, not letting oneself be vexed by them. The Stoics
attained this in apathy, declaring the attacks of nature _indifferent_,
and not letting themselves be affected by them. Horace utters the famous
_Nil admirari_, by which he likewise announces the indifference of the
_other_, the world; it is not to influence us, not to arouse our
astonishment. And that _impavidum ferient ruinae_ expresses the very
same _imperturbability_ as Ps. 46.3: "We do not fear, though the earth
should perish." In all this there is room made for the Christian
proposition that the world is empty, for the Christian _contempt of the
world_.
The _imperturbable_ spirit of "the wise man," with which the old world
worked to prepare its end, now underwent an _inner perturbation_ against
which no ataraxy, no Stoic courage, was able to protect it. The spirit,
secured against all influence of the world, insensible to its shocks and
_exalted_ above its attacks, admiring nothing, not to be disconcerted by
any downfall of the world,--foamed over irrepressibly again, because
gases (spirits) were evolved in its own interior, and, after the
_mechanical shock_ that comes from without had become ineffective,
_chemical tensions_, that agitate within, began their wonderful play.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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