We can now understand that all earlier attempts to unite the nations of Europe, all those initiated in the middle ages and continued down to the nineteenth century, were rendered impossible of achievement by the lack of suitable material conditions. With the best will in the world, their realisation was impossible. But the requisite conditions exist to-day, and we may say that the organisation of contemporary Europe no longer corresponds to its biological development. Willy-nilly, Europe will have to adapt itself to the new conditions. The days of European unity have come. And the days of world-wide unity are at hand.[68] The new body of humanity, the "corpus magnum" of which Seneca spoke, needs a soul, and it needs a new faith. This faith, while retaining the absolute character of the old religions, must be wider and more plastic than they; it must not merely be adapted to the existing needs of the human mind, but must take into account the possibilities of future development. All previous religions, rooted in tradition and wishing to bind man to the past, were encased in dogmatism; and they one and all, as time passed, became hindrances to natural evolution. Where can we find a basis for faith and morals which shall be simultaneously absolute and mutable; shall be above man, and none the less human; shall be ideal, and none the less real?--We shall find what we want, says Nicolai, in humanity itself. For us, humanity is a reality which develops throughout the ages, but which at every moment represents for us an absolute entity. It evolves in a direction which may be fortuitous, but which, once taken, cannot be changed. It simultaneously embraces the past, the present, and the future. It is a unity in time, a vast synthesis of which we are but fragments. To be human, means to understand this development, to love it, to trust one's hopes to it, and to endeavour to participate in it consciously. Herein we find an ethical system, which Nicolai sums up as follows: 1. The community of mankind is the divine upon earth, and is the foundation of morals. 2. To be a man is to feel within one's self the reality of humanity at large. It is to feel, like a living law, that we are elements of that greater organism, in which (to quote Saint Paul's admirable intuition) we are all parts of one body and every one members one of another. 3. The love of our neighbour is a feeling of good health. A general love for humanity is the feeling of organic health in humanity at large, reflected in one of its members. Therefore we should love and honour the human community and everything which sustains and fortifies it--work, truth, good and sound instincts. 4. Fight everything which injures it. Above all, fight bad traditions, instincts that have become useless or harmful. * * * * * "Scio et volo me esse hominem," writes Nicolai at the close of his book. "I know that I am a man, and I wish to be one."