once, according to our tastes or gifts, and the best we can do during this interregnum is to be as much as possible our own ‘‘reges,"” and to found small experimental States. We are experiments: let us wish to be such.
454
Interlocution.—A book like this is not for perusal and reading out, but for reference, especially on our walks and travels; we have to go deeply into it, and must always be able to find our way out of it again, without finding anything familiar around ourselves.
455
Primary nature.—In conformity with our present education we begin by acquiring a secondary nature, which we have when the world calls us mature, of age, efficient. A few have enough of the serpent’s nature to strip off then skins some day or other: when their primary nature has matured under their hides. But in the majority the germ withers.
456
A growing virtue.—Assertions and promises, as, for instance, those of the ancient philosophers on the oneness of virtue and felicity, or that of Christianity— “Seek ye first the kingdom of God und His righteous-ness, and all these things shall be added unto you!”
