With the time of the _bourgeoisie_ begins that of _liberalism_. People want to see what is "rational," "suited to the times," etc., established everywhere. The following definition of liberalism, which is supposed to be pronounced in its honor, characterizes it completely: "Liberalism is nothing else than the knowledge of reason, applied to our existing relations."[72] Its aim is a "rational order," a "moral behavior," a "limited freedom," not anarchy, lawlessness, selfhood. But, if reason rules, then the _person_ succumbs. Art has for a long time not only acknowledged the ugly, but considered the ugly as necessary to its existence, and taken it up into itself; it needs the villain, etc. In the religious domain, too, the extremest liberals go so far that they want to see the most religious man regarded as a citizen--_i. e._ the religious villain; they want to see no more of trials for heresy. But against the "rational law" no one is to rebel, otherwise he is threatened with the severest--penalty. What is wanted is not free movement and realization of the person or of me, but of reason,--_i. e._ a dominion of reason, a dominion. The liberals are _zealots_, not exactly for the faith, for God, etc., but certainly for _reason_, their master. They brook no lack of breeding, and therefore no self-development and self-determination; they _play the guardian_ as effectively as the most absolute rulers. "Political liberty," what are we to understand by that? Perhaps the individual's independence of the State and its laws? No; on the contrary, the individual's _subjection_ in the State and to the State's laws. But why "liberty"? Because one is no longer separated from the State by intermediaries, but stands in direct and immediate relation to it; because one is a--citizen, not the subject of another, not even of the king as a person, but only in his quality as "supreme head of the State." Political liberty, this fundamental doctrine of liberalism, is nothing but a second phase of--Protestantism, and runs quite parallel with "religious liberty."[73] Or would it perhaps be right to understand by the latter an independence of religion? Anything but that. Independence of intermediaries is all that it is intended to express, independence of mediating priests, the abolition of the "laity," and so direct and immediate relation to religion or to God. Only on the supposition that one has religion can he enjoy freedom of religion; freedom of religion does not mean being without religion, but inwardness of faith, unmediated intercourse with God. To him who is "religiously free" religion is an affair of the heart, it is to him his _own affair_, it is to him a "sacredly serious matter." So, too, to the "politically free" man the State is a sacredly serious matter; it is his heart's affair, his chief affair, his own affair.