This law is a surplus of the figurative
which amalgamates directly with the surplus of the unfigurative
primitiveness in the phenomenon, and thus, precisely in the
phenomenon, both are then no longer separable. That law absolutely
determines and completes what has been called the national character
of a people--the law, namely, of the development of the primitive and
of the divine. From the latter it is clear that men who do not in the
least believe in a primitive being and in a further development of
it, but simply in an eternal circle of visible life, and who, through
their belief, become what they believe, are no nation whatsoever in
the higher sense; and since they do not, strictly speaking, actually
exist, they are equally powerless to possess a national character.
The belief of the noble-minded man in the eternal continuance of his
activity, even upon this earth, is based, accordingly, on the hope
for the eternal continuance of the nation from which he has himself
developed, and of its individuality in accordance with that hidden
law, without intermixture and corruption by any alien element and
by what does not appertain to the totality of this legislation.
This individuality is the permanent element to which he intrusts the
eternity of himself and of his continued action--the eternal order
of things in which he lays his perpetuity. He must desire its
continuance, for it is alone the releasing agency whereby the brief
span of his life here is extended to a continuous life upon the earth.
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