It might be possible at the outset of our journey towards strength of will that we should grope our way slowly--very slowly--back to the old problems of power. It does not matter if we do. Before we get there, the world will be changed, and will be pregnant with new thoughts. Let us fulfil the duties for which Germany was made what it is. Let us go in quest of the idea and the faculty that are laid upon us; let us do this in order to live, to recover our health, to shape ourselves anew, to remain a People, to become a Nation, to create a future and to serve the world. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 17: Geistigkeit. This is a difficult word to translate. It sometimes means merely intellectuality, sometimes in addition (as here) all that is implied in the phrase, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ([Greek: oiou pneumatos]) ye are of."] [Footnote 18: Referring to Werner Sombart's war-book, _Haendler und Helden_.] [Footnote 19: _Cf._ Thomas Mann's remarkable book on the real significance of the war: _Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen_ (1918).] [Footnote 20: Sachlichkeit. Rathenau seems to have in mind the German feeling for disinterested study and research as illustrated, for instance, by the fact that when the German Government heard of the genius of Einstein they brought him to Berlin with a salary of nearly L1000 a year and no duties except to think. Modern bigotry has expelled him.] [Footnote 21: Where Kant lived and taught, and published his _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_.] [Footnote 22: As opposed to the inward, intellectual and spiritual character.] [Footnote 23: Stein was the chief leader of Prussia from the Frederician into the modern era. His ministry of reform by which a peasant-proprietary was established, and municipal institutions created, lasted only from September 1807 to November 1808.] X On balance it seems that the endowments of the German people work out as follows:-- High qualities of intellect and heart. Ethics and mentality normal. Originative will-power and independent activity, weak. We give our devotion freely, and the heart rules in action. Our feelings are genuine and powerful. We have courage and endurance. Led by sentiment rather than by inspiration. We create no forms, are self-forgetful, seek no responsibility, obey rather than rule. In obedience we know no limit, and never question what is imposed upon us. Of its own accord the German people would never have adopted an ideal of force. It was imposed on us by the idolaters of the great war-machine and those who gained by it; even Bismarck did not share it. We are not competent to form an ideal of civilization, for the sense of unity, will to leadership, and formative energy are lacking to us. We have no political mission for the arrangement of other people's affairs, for we cannot arrange our own; we do not lead a full life, and are politically unripe.