We Learn From History That Man Can

What The English Call "comfortable" Is Something Endless And Inexhaustible. Every Condition Of Comfort Reveals In Turn Its Discomfort, And These Discoveries Go On For Ever. Hence The New Want Is Not So Much A Want Of Those Who Have It Directly, But Is Created By Those Who Hope To Make Profit From It.

If We Go On To Cast A Look At The Fate Of These World-historical Persons, Whose Vocation It Was To Be The Agents Of The World-spirit, We Shall Find It To Have Been No Happy One. They Attained No Calm Enjoyment; Their Whole Life Was Labour And Trouble; Their Whole Nature Was Nought Else But Their Master—passion. When Their Object Is Attained They Fall Off Like Empty Hulls From The Kernel. They Die Early, Like Alexander; They Are Murdered, Like Caesar.

We Assert Then That Nothing Has Been Accomplished Without Interest On The Part Of The Actors; And — If Interest Be Called Passion, Inasmuch As The Whole Individuality, To The Neglect Of All Other Actual Or Possible Interests And Claims, Is Devoted To An Object With Every Fibre Of Volition, Concentrating All Its Desires And Powers Upon It — We May Affirm Absolutely That Nothing Great In The World Has Been Accomplished Without Passion.

When We Walk The Streets At Night In Safety, It Does Not Strike Us That This Might Be Otherwise. This Habit Of Feeling Safe Has Become Second Nature, And We Do Not Reflect On Just How This Is Due Solely To The Working Of Special Institutions. Commonplace Thinking Often Has The Impression That Force Holds The State Together, But In Fact Its Only Bond Is The Fundamental Sense Of Order Which Everybody Possesses.

The Bud Disappears When The Blossom Breaks Through, And We Might Say That The Former Is Refuted By The Latter; In The Same Way When The Fruit Comes, The Blossom May Be Explained To Be A False Form Of The Plant's Existence, For The Fruit Appears As Its True Nature In Place Of The Blossom.