Very often too this is no misfortune; but those
who desire to penetrate human life with deeper insight
ought to know that these are not true Rulers, and that
?
who desire to penetrate human life with deeper insight
ought to know that these are not true Rulers, and that
?
Fichte - Nature of the Scholar
e.
from disre-
spect towards the Student-class: and we may leave it un-
determined by what influence the remnants of this system
are now maintained; for even were it admitted that the same
disrespect for the class, which still exists although in a less
degree, and perhaps want of opportunity to get rid of these
relics of another age, were its only supports, yet this is of no
moment to the true-minded Student, who judges of things
not by their outward form but by their inward spirit.
Whatever others may think of Academic Freedom, he, for
his part, takes it in its true sense:--as a means by which
he may learn to direct himself when outward precept leaves
him,--watch over himself when no one else watches over
him,--urge himself forward where there is no longer any
outward impulse,--and thus train and strengthen himself
for his future high vocation.
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? LECTURE VII.
OP THE FINISHED SCHOLAR IN GENERAL.
The true-minded Scholar looks upon his vocation--to be-
come a partaker of the Divine thought of the universe--as
the purpose of God in him; and therefore both his person
and his calling become to him, before all other things, ho-
nourable and holy; and this holiness shows itself in all his
outward manifestations. Such is the point at which we
have now arrived.
We have hitherto spoken of the Progressive Scholar--the
Student; and we have seen how the sense of the dignity
conferred upon his person by this exalted vocation expresses
itself in his life. How his conviction of the holiness of
Knowledge pervades and influences his studies we have
already noticed in one of the earlier lectures, and it is not
necessary to add anything to what we have said upon this
point. k
And it is the less necessary since this reverence for
Knowledge which is felt by the Student manifests itself
chiefly in the appropriate estimation and consecration of his
person and is therein exhausted; while it is quite otherwise
in the Finished Scholar. In the Progressive Scholar, that
which he strives after--the Idea--has yet to acquire a
form and an independent life:--these it does not yet
possess. As yet the Student does neither immediately
possess, nor is he thoroughly penetrated by, the Idea; he
reverences it only at a distance, and can comprehend it
only by means of his person, as the standard to which
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? 196
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
that person ought to raise itself, the spirit by which it
ought to be swayed. He can as yet do nothing directly
in its service; he can only live for it indirectly, by con-
secrating and devoting his person to its use as its appoint-
ed instrument; preserving himself pure in sense and
spirit because all impurity would mar and disqualify him
for that function; by giving himself up entirely to its in-
fluence and pursuing and executing with unwearied indus-
try everything which may become a means or opportunity
to the Idea of unfolding itself within him. It is other-
wise with the Finished Scholar. As surely as he is such,
the Idea has already commenced its proper and indepen-
dent life within him; his personal life has now actually
passed into the Life of the Idea, and is therein absorbed;--
an absorption of self in the Idea which was only striven
after by the Student. As surely as he is a perfect Scholar,
so surely is there now no longer in him any thought of self,
but his whole thought is henceforth absorbed in the
thought of the Idea. And thus the distinction which we
originally made between the holiness of his person and the
holiness of his vocation now becomes a point of transition
from the contemplation of the Progressive to that of the
Finished Scholar,--the portraiture of whom it is now my
purpose to place beside that of the Progressive Scholar.
Hitherto we have considered the Progressive Scholar
chiefly in the character of a Student at a University; and
these two Ideas have been almost constantly associated to-
gether in our previous lectures. Now, for the first time,
when we have to accompany the Student from the Academy
into Life, we must call to mind that the studies and cha-
racter of the Progressive Scholar are not necessarily com-
pleted with his residence at the University; nay, further on,
we shall even perceive a ground upon which we may say that, properly speaking, his studies have their true begin-
ning only after his academic course has closed. This much,
however, remains true, as the sure result of what has been
already said,--that the youth who during his residence at
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? OF THE FINISHED SCHOLAR.
197
the University is not at least inspired with respect for the
holiness of Knowledge, and does not at least learn to honour
his own person to such an extent as not to render it un-
worthy of his high vocation, will never afterwards attain to
any true sense of the dignity of Knowledge; and whatever
part he may be called to play in life, he will take to it as a
common handicraft and with the sentiment of an hireling
who has no other motive to his labour than the pay he is to
receive for it. To say anything more of such an one lies
beyond the boundaries of our present subject.
But the Student who is penetrated with the conviction
that the essential purpose of his studies will be defeated
unless the Idea acquire an intrinsic form and independent
life within him, and that in the highest perfection,--he will
by no means lay aside his studies and scientific labours
when he leaves the University. Even if he be compelled
by outward necessity to enter upon a secular employment,
he will devote to Knowledge all the time and ability he can
spare from that employment, and will neglect no opportu-
nity which presents itself of attaining a higher culture. The
exercise of his faculties in the pursuit of learning will be
profitable to him even in the transaction of his ordinary
business. And amid the brilliant distinctions of office, and
even in mature age, he will restlessly strive and labour to
master the Idea, never resigning the hope of becoming
greater than he now is, so long as strength permits him to
indulge it. Without this untiring effort, much true Genius
would be wholly lost, for scientific talent usually unfolds it-
self more slowly, the higher and purer its essential nature,
and its clear development waits for mature years and manly
strength.
The Student who is penetrated with deep respect for the
holiness of the Scholar's vocation, will be guided by that
respect in his choice of a civic profession; and, particularly,
in the province of learning, if he do not feel the deepest
conviction of his ability to fulfil its highest duties, he will
choose a subordinate occupation, restrained from assumption
by his reverence for the dignity of Knowledge. But a sub-
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? 198
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
ordinate Scholar-occupation is one in which the ends to be
attained have been prescribed by some other intellect pos-
sessed with a knowledge of the Idea, and in which the capa-
cities which have been acquired through study, pursued for
the attainment of the Idea, are employed only as means to
fulfil those purposes which have thus been prescribed from
without. His person is thus not degraded into a passive
instrument; he is for ever secured against that by the
general view he takes of human life and its significance;--
he serves God alone in spirit and in sense; and, under the
guidance of his superiors, whom he leaves to answer for the
direction which they give to his actions and their results, he
promotes God's purposes with men, which must embrace all
forms of human activity. Thus does he proceed in his
choice of a secular employment as surely as he has been
inspired in his youth with respect for the dignity of the
peculiar vocation of the Scholar. To undertake such an
employment without consciousness of possessing the needful
power and cultivation is to profane it, and manifests a want
both of delicacy and of principle. And it is impossible that
he should fall into error on this point; for if he has passed
through his academic course in a creditable manner, then
he has certainly acquired, in some degree, a perception of
what is worthy, and has obtained a standard by which he
can take his own intellectual dimensions. If a conscientious
course of study at a University secured no other advantage
than that of presenting to youth a picture of the dignified
calling of the Scholar as a model for life, and of repelling
from this sphere those who are not endowed with the requi-
site ability, such a course would, on account of this advan-
tage alone, be of the utmost importance to the Student.
We have thus generally described the nature of a subor-
dinate Scholar-occupation. It does not demand in him who
pursues it, the immediate possession of the Idea, but only
that knowledge which is acquired in striving after such pos-
session. It is to be understood that in this again there are
higher and lower grades, according as the occupation re-
quires a wider or narrower range of knowledge,--and that,
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? OF THE FINISHED SCHOLAR.
199
in this respect too, the conscientious man will not under-
take anything which exceeds his powers. It is unnecessary
to describe these subordinate Scholar-occupations in detail.
The higher and peculiar calling of the Scholar may be de-
scribed so as to exhaust all its particular forms, and it is
then easy to draw this consequence:--" All those pursuits
which are usually followed by educated men, but which do
not find a place in this all-comprehensive delineation of the
higher calling of the Scholar, but are excluded from it, are
subordinate Scholar-occupations. " We have therefore only
now to lay before you this perfect delineation.
In our first lecture we have already definitely character-
ized the life of him in whom Learned Culture has fulfilled
its end:--his life is itself the life of the Divine Idea in the
world, changing and reconstructing it from its very founda-
tion. In the same place we have said that this life may
manifest itself in two forms;--either in actual external Be-
ing and Action, or only in Idea; which two distinct modes of
manifestation together constitute the peculiar vocation of
the Scholar. The first class comprehends all those who, by
their own strength, and according to their own idea, assume
the guidance of human affairs, leading them on to ever-new
perfection in constant harmony with each succeeding age;
who, originally, as the highest free leaders of men, direct
their social relations, and the relation of the whole to pas-
sive nature;--not those only who stand in the higher places
of the earth, as kings, or the immediate councillors of kings,
but all without exception who possess the right and calling,
either by themselves or in concert with others, to think,
judge, and resolve independently concerning the original dis-
posal of these affairs. The second class embraces the Scho-
lars, properly and pre-eminently so called, whose vocation it
is to maintain among men the knowledge of the Divine
Idea, to elevate it unceasingly to greater clearness and pre-
cision, and thus to transmit it from generation to genera-
tion, ever growing brighter in the freshness and glory of re-
newed youth. The first class act directly upon the world,--
they are the immediate point of contact between God and
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? 200
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
reality;--the last are the mediators between the pure spiri-
tuality of thought in the God-head, and the material energy
and influence which that thought acquires through the in-
strumentality of the first class; they are the trainers of the
first class,--the enduring pledge to the human race that the
first class shall never fail from among men. No one can
belong to the first class without having already belonged to
the second,--without always continuing to belong to it
.
The second class of Scholars is again separated into sub-
divisions, according to the manner in which they communi-
cate to others their conceptions of the Idea. Either their
immediate object is, by direct and free personal communica-
tion of their ideal conceptions, to cultivate in future Scho-
lars a capacity for the reception of the Idea, so that they
may afterwards lay hold of it and comprehend it for them-
selves :--and then they are educators of Scholars, Teachers in
the higher or lower schools;--or, they propound their con-
ceptions of the Idea, in a complete and finished form, to
those who have already cultivated the capacity to compre-
hend it. This is at present done by books,--and they are
thus--Authors.
The classes which we have now enumerated, whose seve-
ral occupations are not necessarily portioned out to different
individuals, but may quite readily be united in one and the
the same person, comprise all true and proper Scholars, and
exhaust the whole vocation of those in whom Learned Cul-
ture has fulfilled its end. Every other function, whatever
name it may bear, which the Educated Man* (who may be
distinguished by this title from the True Scholar) is called
upon to fulfil, is a subordinate Scholar-occupation. The
Educated Man continues in it, only because he has not by
his studies been able to attain to the rank of the True
Scholar, but nevertheless finds here a useful purpose to
which those capacities and knowledge which he has ac-
quired may be applied. It is by no means the object of
* Germ. "Studirte," one who has studied,--contrasted with "Studirende," one
who studies. We have no single equivalent for "Studirte" in English. --Tr.
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? OF THE FINISHED SCHOLAR.
201
Learned Culture to train subalterns, and no one should study
with a view to the office of a subaltern; for then it may
happen that he shall not attain even to that rank. Only be-
cause it was certain that a majority of Students would fall
short of their proposed destination, have subordinate occu-
pations been set apart for them. The subaltern receives the
direction of his activity from a foreign intellect; he must
exercise judgment in the choice of his means, but in respect
of the end only the most punctual obedience. The acknow-
ledged sacredness of the peculiar vocation of the Scholar
restrains every honest 'Educated Man' who is not conscious
of the possession of the Idea, from undertaking it, and con-
strains him to content himself with a subordinate office:--
this and nothing more have we to say of him, for his busi-
ness is no true Scholar-employment. We leave him to the
sure guidance of that general Integrity and faithfulness to
Duty which already during his studies have become the
innermost principle of his life.
Such an one, by renunciation of the peculiar calling of the
Scholar, shows that he looks upon it as sacred; he also, who
with honesty and a good conscience accepts this calling in
any of its forms, shows by his actions and by his whole life
that he looks upon it as sacred. How this recognition of
the Holy specially manifests itself in each particular depart-
ment of the Scholar's vocation, as these have now been set
forth,--of this we shall speak in succession in the subse-
quent lectures. To-day we shall confine ourselves to show-
ing how it manifests and reveals itself in general--i. e. to
that form of its manifestation which is common to all the
departments of the Scholar's vocation.
The true-minded Scholar will not admit of any life and
activity within him except the immediate life and activity
of the Divine Idea. This unchangeable principle pervades
and determines all his inward thoughts;--it also pervades
and determines all his outward actions. With respect to
the first,--as he suffers no emotion within him that is not
the direct emotion and life of the Divine Idea which has
taken possession of him, so is his whole life accompanied
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? 202 THE NATURE OP THE SCHOLAR.
by the indestructible consciousness that it is at one with
the Divine Life,--that in him and by him God's work shall
be achieved and His Will accomplished; he therefore re-
poses on that Will with unspeakable love, and with the
immovable conviction that it is right and good. Thus does
his thought become holy, enlightened, and religious; bless-
edness arises within him,--and in it, changeless joy, peace,
and power,--as these may in like manner be acquired and
enjoyed by the unlearned, and even the lowliest among
men, through true devotion to God and honest performance
of duty viewed as the" Will of God. Hence these are no ex-
clusive property of the Scholar, but are noticed here only
with the view that he too may become a partaker in this
religious aspect of life, and become so by the way which we
have pointed out.
This principle pervades the conduct of the True Scholar.
He has no other purpose in action but to express his Idea,
and embody the truth which he recognises in word or work.
No personal regard, either for himself or others, can impel
him to do that which is not demanded by this purpose,--no
such regard can cause him to neglect anything which is re-
quired by this purpose. His person, and all personality in
the world, have long since vanished from before him, and
entirely disappeared in his effort after the realization of the
Idea. The Idea alone impels him; where it does not move
him, he rests and remains inactive. He does nothing with
precipitation, hurried forward by disquietude and restless-
ness; these may well be symptoms of unfolding power, but
they are never to be found in conjunction with true, deve-
loped, mature and manly strength. Until the Idea stands
before him clear and breathing, finished and perfect even to
word or deed, nothing moves him to action; the Idea rules
him entirely, governs all his powers, and exhausts all his
life and effort. To its manifestation he devotes his whole
personal being without reserve or intermission, for he looks
upon his life as only the instrument of the Idea.
Would that I could make myself intelligible to you,--
would that I could persuade you,--touching this one point
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? OF THE FINISHED SCHOLAR
203
which we now approach on every side! --Whatever man
may do, so long as he does it from himself as a finite being,
by himself, and through his own counsel,--it is vain, and
will sink to nothing. Only when a foreign power takes
possession of him, and urges him forward, and lives within
him in room of his own energy, does true and real existence
first take up its abode in his life. This foreign power is
ever the power of God. To look up to it for counsel,--
implicitly to follow its guidance,--is the only true wisdom in
every employment of human life, and therefore most of all
in the highest occupation of which man can partake,--the
vocation of the True Scholar.
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? 204
LECTURE VIII.
OF THE SCHOLAR AS RULER.
-
He in whom Learned Culture has actually accomplished its
end,--the attainment and possession of the Idea,--shows, by
the manner in which he regards and practises the calling of
the Scholar, that his vocation is to him, before all other
things, honourable and holy. The Idea, in its relation to
the progressive improvement of the world, may be expressed
--either, first, in actual life and conduct; or, secondly, in
ideas only. It is expressed in the first mode by those who,
as the highest free leaders of men, originally guide and
order their affairs:--their relations with each other, or the
legal condition,-and their relation to passive nature, or the
dominion of reason over the irrational world;--who pos-
sess the right and calling, either by themselves or in con-
cert with others, to think, judge, and resolve independently
concerning the actual arrangement of these relations. We
have to speak to-day of the worthy conception and practice
of this vocation. As we have already taken precautions
against misunderstanding by a strict definition of our mean-
ing, we shall, for brevity's sake, term those who practise this
calling-- Rulers.
The business of the Ruler has been described in our early
lectures,--and so definitely, that no further analysis is ne-
cessary for our present purpose. We have only to show
what capacities and talents must be possessed by the true
Ruler,--by what estimate of his calling, and what mode of
practising it, he proves that he looks upon it as sacred.
He who undertakes to guide his Age and order its consti-
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? THE XATUBK OF THE SCHOLAK.
205
tution, must be exalted above it,--must not merely possess
an historical knowledge of it, but must thoroughly under-
stand and comprehend it. The Ruler possesses, in the first
place, a living and comprehensive Idea of that relation of
human life which he undertakes to superintend;--he knows
what is its essential nature, meaning, and purpose. Further,
he perfectly understands the changing and adventitious
forms which it may assume in reality without prejudice to
its essential nature. He knows the particular form which it
has assumed at the present time, and through what new
forms it must be led nearer and nearer to its unattainable
Ideal. No part of its present form is, in his view, necessary
and unchangeable, but is only an incidental point in a pro-
gression by which it is constantly rising towards higher per-
fection. He knows the Whole of which that form is a part,
and of which every improvement of it must still remain a
part; and he never loses sight of this Whole in contemplat-
ing the improvement of individual parts. This knowledge
gives to his inventive faculty the means of accomplishing
the improvements he may devise; the same knowledge se-
cures him from the mistake of disorganizing the Whole by
supposed improvements of individual parts. His eye always
combines the part with the Whole, and the idea of the lat-
ter with its actual manifestation in reality.
He who can not look upon human affairs with this un-
fettered vision is never a Ruler, whatever station he may
occupy,--nor can he ever become one. Even his mode of
thought, his faith in the unchangeableness of the present,
places him in a state of subordination, makes him an in-
strument of him who created that arrangement of things in
the permanence of which he believes. This frequently
happens; and thus all times have not actual Rulers. Great
spirits of the fore-world often rule over succeeding Ages
long after their death, by means of men who in themselves
are nothing, but are only continuations and prolongations of
other lives.
Very often too this is no misfortune; but those
who desire to penetrate human life with deeper insight
ought to know that these are not true Rulers, and that
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? 206
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
under them the Age does not move forward, but rests,--
perhaps to gain strength for new creations.
The Ruler, I said, thoroughly comprehends that rela-
tion of human life which he undertakes to superintend; he
knows the essential character and idea of all its component
parts, and he looks upon it as the absolute will of God with
man. It is not to him a means to the attainment of any
/ 1end whatever, nor in particular to the production of human
happiness; but he looks upon it as in itself an end,--as the
absolute mode, order, and form in which the human race
should live.
Thus, in the first place, is his occupation ennobled and
dignified in proportion to the nobility of his mode of
thought. To direct his whole thoughts and efforts,--to
devote his whole life to the accomplishment of such a
purpose as this:--that mortal men may fall out as little as
possible with each other in the short span of time during
which they have to live together, that they may have some-
what to eat and drink, and wherewithal to clothe them-
selves, until they make way for another generation, which
again shall eat, and drink, and clothe itself,--this business
would appear to a noble mind a vocation most unworthy of
its nature. The Ruler, after our idea of him, is secure
against this view of his calling. Through the idea of
human life by which he is animated, the Race among
whom he practises his vocation is likewise ennobled. He
who has constantly to keep in view the infirmities and
weaknesses of men, who has to watch their daily course,
and who has frequent opportunities of observing their
general meanness and corruption, and who sees nothing
more than these, cannot be much disposed to honour or to
love them; and indeed those powerful spirits who have
filled the most prominent places among men, but have not
been penetrated by true religious feeling, have at no time
been known to bestow much honour or respect upon their
Race. The Ruler, after our idea of him, in his estimate of
mankind looks beyond that which they are in the actual
world, to that which they are in the Divine Idea--to that
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? OP THE SCHOLAR AS RULER.
207
which therefore they may be, ought to be, and one day
assuredly will be; and he is thus filled with reverence for a Race called to so high a destiny. Love is not required of
him; nay, if you think deeper of it, it is even a kind of
arrogance for a Ruler to presume to love the whole Human
Race, or even his own nation,--to assure it of his love, and,
as it were, make it dependent on his kindness. A Ruler
such as we have described is free from such presumption:
his reverence for humanity, as the image and protected
child of God, does more than overpower it.
He looks upon his vocation as the Divine Will with
regard to the Human Race; he looks upon its practice as
the Divine Will with regard to himself--the present indi-
vidual; he recognises in himself one of the first and imme-
diate servants of God,--one of the material organs through
which God enters into communion with reality. Not that
this thought excites him to vain self-exaltation;--he who
is penetrated by the Idea has in it lost his personality, and
he has no longer remaining any feeling of self, except that
of employing his personal existence truly and conscienti-
ously in his high vocation. He knows that it is not of
himself that he has this intuition of the Idea and the power
which accompanies it, but that he has received them; he
knows that he can add nothing to what has been given him
except its honest and conscientious use; he knows that the
humblest of men can do this in the same degree as he him-
self can do it, and that the latter has the same value in the
sight of God which he himself should have in the same sta-
tion. All outward rank and elevation above other men
which have been given not to his person but to his dignity,
and which are but conditions of the possession of this dig-
nity,--these will not dazzle him who seeks to deserve high-
er and more substantial distinctions. In a word:--he looks
upon his calling, not as a friendly service which he renders
to the world, but as his absolute personal duty and obliga-
tion, by the performance of which alone he obtains, main-
tains, and repays his personal existence, and without which
he would pass away into nothing.
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? 208
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
This view of his calling as the Divine Will in him, sup-
ports and justifies him before himself in an important diffi-
culty, which must very often occur to him who conscien-
tiously follows this vocation, and makes his step firm, deter-
mined, and unwavering. In no circumstances indeed should
the individual, considered strictly as an individual, be sacri-
ficed to the Whole; however unimportant the individual,
however great the Whole and the interest of the Whole
which is at stake. But the parts of the Whole must often
be placed in peril on account of the Whole;--peril by which,
and not by the Ruler, its victims are selected from among
individual men. How could a Ruler who recognises no
other destiny for the Human Race but happiness here be-
low, and looks upon himself only as the kind guardian of
that happiness,--how could he answer before his conscience
for the danger and possible sacrifice of any individual vic-
tim, since that individual must have had as good a claim to
happiness as any other? How could such a Ruler, for ex-
ample, answer before his conscience for determining upon a
just war,--a war undertaken for the support of the national
independence threatened either immediately or prospective-
ly ? --for the victims who should fall in such a war, and for
the manifold evils thereby inflicted on humanity? The
Ruler who sees a Divine Purpose in his vocation stands firm
and immovable before all these doubts, overtaken by no un-
manly weakness. Is the war just ? --then it is Will of God
that there should be war; and it is God's will with him that
he resolve upon it . Whatever may fall a sacrifice to it, it is
still the Divine Will that chooses the sacrifice. God has the
most perfect right over all human life and human hapiness,
for both have proceeded from him and both return to him;
and in his creation nothing can be lost. --So also in the
business of legislation. There must be a general law, and
this law must be administered absolutely without exception.
The universality of the law cannot be given up for the sake
of one individual who thinks his case so peculiar that he is
aggrieved by the strict enforcement of the law, even al-
though his allegation may have some truth in it. Let him
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? OF THE SCHOLAR AS RULER.
20! )
bring the small injustice which is done to himself as an of-
fering to the general support of justice among men.
The Divine Idea, ruling in the Ruler, and through him
moulding the condition of his age and nation, now becomes
his sole and peculiar Life ;--which indeed is the case with
the Idea under any form in which it may enter the soul of
man;--he cannot have, nor permit, nor endure, any Life
within him except this Life. He comprehends this Life
with clear consciousness as the immediate life and energy
of God within him, as the fulfilment of the Divine Will in
and by his person. It is unnecessary to repeat the proofs
which we have already adduced in general, that through
this consciousness his thought is sanctified, transfigured,
and bathed in the Divinity. Every man needs Religion,
--every man may acquire it,--and with it every man
may obtain Blessedness;--most of all, as we have seen
above, does the Ruler need it. Unless he clothe his
calling in the light of Religion, he can never pursue it with
a good conscience. Without this, nothing remains for him
but either thoughtlessness and a mere mechanical fulfilment
of his vocation, without giving account to himself of its rea-
sonableness or justice; or if not thoughtlessness,--then
want of principle, obduracy, insensibility, hatred and con-
tempt of the Human Race.
The Idea, thus moulded on the Divine Life, lives in his
life instead of his own personality. It alone moves him,--
nothing else in its room. His personality has long since dis-
appeared in the Idea,--how then can any motive now arise
from it 1 He lives in honour, transfused in God to work His
Eternal Will,--how then can fame, the judgment of mortal
and perishable men, have any significance for him 1 Devoted
to the Idea with his whole being,--how can he ever seek to
pamper or to spare himself? His person,--all personality,
--has disappeared in the Divine Idea of universal order.
That order is his ever-present thought; only through it does
he conceive of individual men: hence neither friend nor foe,
neither favourite nor adversary, finds a plaoe before him;
Ea
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? 210
THK NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
but all alike, and be himself with them, are lost for ever
in the thought of the independence and equality of alL
The Idea alone moves him,--and where it does not move
him, there he has no life, but remains quiescent and inactive.
He will never rouse himself to energy and labour merely
that something may come to pass, or that he may gain a re-
putation for activity; for his desire is not merely that some-
thing may come to pass, but that the will of the Idea may
be accomplished. Until it speaks, he too is silent;--he has
no voice but for it . He does not respect old things because
they are old;--but as little does he desire novelty for its own
sake. He looks for what is better and more perfect than the
present; until this rises before him clearly and distinctly,--
so long as change would lead only to difference, not im-
provement,--he remains inactive, and concedes to the old
the privilege it derives from ancient possession.
In this way does the Idea possess and pervade him with-
out intermission or reserve, and there remains nothing
either of his person or his life that does not burn a perpe-
tual offering before its altar. And thus is he the most di-
rect manifestation of God in the world.
That there is a God, is made evident by a very little
serious reflection upon the outward world. We must end
at last by resting all existence which demands an extrinsic
foundation, upon a Being the fountain of whose life is with-
iu Himself; by allying the fugitive phenomena which colour
the stream of time with ever-changing hues to an eter-
nal and unchanging essence. But in the life of Divine Men
the Godhead is manifest in the flesh, reveals itself to im-
mediate vision, and is perceptible even to outward sense.
In their life the unchangeableness of God manifests itself in
the firmness and intrepidity of human will which no power
can force from its destined path. In it the essential light
of the Divinity manifests itself in human comprehension of
all finite things in the One which endures for ever. In it
the energy of God reveals itself, not in directly surrounding
the Human Race with happiness--which is not its object--
but in ordering, elevating, and ennobling it . A Godlike
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? OF THE SCHOLAR AS RULER.
211
life is the most decisive proof which man can give of the
being of a God.
It is the business of all mankind to see that the convic-
tion of the Divine Existence, without which the very essence
of their own being passes away into nothing, shall never
perish and disappear from among them;--above all, it is
the business of the Rulers as the highest disposers of hu-
man affairs. It is not their part to bring forward the theo-
retical proof from human reason, or to regulate the mode in
which this proof shall be adduced by the second class of
Scholars; but the practical proof, in their own lives, and
that in the highest degree, devolves peculiarly upon them.
If firm and intrepid will,--if clear and all-comprehending
vision,--if a spirit of order and nobility speak to us in their
conduct, then in their works do we see God face to face, and
need no other proof:--God is, we will say,--for they are,
and He in them.
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? 212
LECTURE IX.
OF THE SCHOLAR AS TEACHER.
Besides those possessors of the Idea, whose business it is,
by guiding and ordering the affairs of men, to introduce the
Idea immediately into life, there is yet another class--those,
namely, who are peculiarly and by preeminence called Scho-
lars, who manifest the Idea directly in spiritual conceptions,
and whose calling it is to maintain among men the convic-
tion that there is, in truth, a Divine Idea accessible to hu-
man thought, to raise this Idea unceasingly to greater clear-
ness and precision, and thus to transmit it from generation
to generation fresh and radiant in ever-renewed youth.
This latter Vocation again divides itself into two very
different callings, according to the primary object contem-
plated by them, and the mode of its attainment. Either
the minds of men are to be trained and cultivated to a
capacity for receiving the Idea; or the Idea itself is to be
produced in a definite form for those who are already pre-
pared for its reception. The first calling has particular men
for its primary and immediate objects;--in it the only use
which is made of the Idea is as a means of training and cul-
tivating these men so that they may become capable of
comprehending the Idea by their own independent effort.
It follows that, in this calling, regard must be had solely to
the men who are to be cultivated, the degree of their culti-
vation, and their capacity of being cultivated; and that an
influence is valuable here only in so far as it may be ef-
ficiently applied to those individuals upon whom it is di-
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? THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR
213
recteA The second has for its object the Idea itself, and the
fashioning of the Idea into distinct conceptions, and has no
reference whatever to any subjective disposition or capacity
of men; its business is prosecuted with no view to any but
those who are capable of comprehending the Idea in the
form thus given to it; the work itself settles and deter-
mines who shall receive it, and it is only addressed to those
who can comprehend it. The first object will be best and
most fitly attained by the verbal discourses of the Teacher;
the second by literary writings.
Both these callings belong to the vocation of the Scho-
lar in its proper and highest sense, and not to the subordi-
nate Scholar-occupations, which devolve upon a man only
because he has not attained the proper end of his studies.
He who prosecutes his studies conscientiously, and so ac-
quires a conviction of the importance of the vocation of the
Scholar, but yet does not feel within himself a clear con-
sciousness of the capacity to fulfil it, shows that he recog-
nises its sacred character by not undertaking it;--he who
does undertake it, manifests the same conviction by exercis-
ing it worthily. In the next lecture we shall speak of the
true Author; to-day we shall discourse of the upright
Teacher of future Scholars.
The Teachers and Educators of those who devote them-
selves to the occupation of the Scholar may be divided into
two classes:--they are Teachers either in the lower Schools
of learning, or in the higher or Universities. Not without
deliberation do I class the Teachers in the lower Schools
among true and not subaltern Scholars, and therefore de-
mand of them that they attain possession of the Idea, and
be penetrated by it,--if not with perfect light, yet with liv-
ing warmth. He who is destined to study will, even while
a boy, surround himself invisibly with the Idea and with its
sanctity, and bathe his whole being in its influence. No-
thing from which any ideal result may one day unfold it-
self will be pursued by him as a piece of vulgar handicraft,
or used as a means to the attainment of a partial object.
Happily the objects which are peculiar to these Schools are
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? 214
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
of such a nature as to elevate him who pursues them tho-
roughly and conscientiously, and through him those who
are committed to his care, above vulgar modes of thought;
--did but the outward circumstances of the Teacher answer
to his dignity, and his independence and station in society
correspond with his most honourable calling. The objects of
school-instruction, I said. In a fundamental study of Lan-
guage, pursued, as it must be, amid old modes of speech, far
removed from our habits of thought, a deeper insight into
ideas is gained; and from the works of the Ancients, by
means of which this study is pursued, an excellent and en-
nobling spirit speaks to the youthful mind. For this reason,
the Teacher in these lower Schools should be a partaker of
the Idea, because it is his task imperceptibly to familiarize
the youth with the high and noble before he is able to dis-
tinguish these from the vulgar,--to accustom him to these,
and to estrange him from the low and ignoble. Thus
guarded in his early years, and thus prepared for higher
progress, the youth enters the University. Here, for the
first time, can he be clearly taught, and led to comprehend
and acknowledge--that which I have endeavoured to utter
to you in these lectures,--that our whole race has its only
true existence in the Divine Thought,--that its only worth
consists in its harmony with this Divine Thought,--and that
the class of Scholars has therein an existence only to the
end that they may comprehend this Divine Thought and im-
print it on the world. At the University the Student first
receives a clear idea of the nature and dignity of that voca-
tion to which his life has been devoted beforehand. He
must obtain that clear idea here :--the Teacher in the lower
Schools may look forward to another education for his pu-
pils, and he counts upon that; but the Academic Teacher
has no higher instruction to calculate upon, except that
which the Progressive Scholar may bestow upon himself,--
to the capacity for which, however, the Teacher must train
him so that he may have it in his power to become his own
instructor;--once released from the lecture-room he is com-
mitted to himself and to the world. Herein, therefore, lies
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? OF THE SCHOLAR AS TEACHER.
215
the characteristic difference between the lower and the
higher Schools,--that at the lower School the youth has
only a presentiment of his vocation, while at the University
he clearly comprehends and recognises it;--and from this
distinction the specific duties of the Teacher in the respec-
tive institutions may easily be deduced.
The Academic Teacher, of whom chiefly we have to speak,
ought to train the Student who has already been made ac-
quainted with the nature and dignity of his calling, to the
capacity of receiving the Idea, and the power of developing
it from his own consciousness, and giving it a form peculiar
to himself:--he should do all this if he can. But in every
case, and unconditionally, he must fill the Student with res-
pect and veneration for the proper calling of the Scholar.
The first object of all study,--to lay hold of the Idea from a
new and peculiar point of view, is by no means to be given
up either by the Student himself, or by the Teacher on his
behalf; but it is nevertheless possible that it may not be
attained, and both must reconcile themselves beforehand to
this possibility. Should this first object of study remain
unaccomplished, the Student may still become a useful,
worthy, and upright man. But the second object of study,
--that he acquire a reverence for the Idea during his efforts
to attain it,--that on account of this reverence he forbear
from undertaking anything for which he does not know
himself to be qualified,--that he consecrate himself to the
service of the Idea, at least by permanently cherishing this
reverence for what is unattainable by him, and contributing
to the extent of his ability to maintain such a reverence
among men;--this object is never to be relinquished; for
were it not attained, then, through the very fact of his hav-
ing studied, would his dignity as a man be lost, and he
would sink the deeper in consequence of the height to
which he ought to have risen. The attainment by the Stu-
dent of the first object of study is, to the Academic Teacher,
a conditional duty,--conditioned by the possibility of its ful-
filment. The attainment of the second he must ever look
upon and acknowledge as his unconditional duty, which he
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? 21G
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
must never deliberately relinquish. It may indeed happen
that he cannot accomplish even this, but he must never
admit a doubt of its ultimate attainment.
What, then, can the Academic Teacher do for the attain-
ment of this second object? I answer, he can do nothing
for it exclusively; he can do nothing else than that which
he must do for the first and higher object by itself. In pur-
suing and attaining the second, he is advancing to the at-
tainment of the first. Would he inculcate upon his pupils
reverence for Knowledge ? --they will not believe him if he
do not himself exhibit in his whole life the deep reverence
which he recommends to them. Would he thoroughly im-
press them with this reverence ? --let him teach it, not in
words only, but in deeds; let him be himself the living ex-
ample, the abiding illustration, of the principles which he
desires them to accept as the guides of their life. He has
described to them the Nature of the Scholar's vocation as a
manifestation of the Divine Idea,--he has told them that
this Idea entirely pervades the True Scholar, and establishes
its peculiar life, in place of his own, within him ;--perhaps
he has even told them by what precise way he himself, for
his part, has to fulfil the purposes of Knowledge, and in
what his peculiar calling, as an Academic Teacher, consists.
Let him show himself before them in his proper and essen-
tial character,--as devoted to his vocation,--as a perpetual
offering before its altar,--and they will learn to comprehend
that Knowledge is a sacred thing.
The duties of the Academic Teacher are not indeed
changed by this aspect of his vocation; for, as we have said,
he can do nothing for the attainment of the latter object
but what he must have done for the former and higher, by
itself;--but his own view of his calling becomes thereby
more confirmed and immovable. Although it should not
immediately become visible and evident to him that he has
attained his peculiar object,--of leading those who are en-
trusted to his care from mere passive dependence to spon-
taneous activity, from the dead letter to the living spirit;--
yet will he not suppose that he has laboured in vain. To
? ?
spect towards the Student-class: and we may leave it un-
determined by what influence the remnants of this system
are now maintained; for even were it admitted that the same
disrespect for the class, which still exists although in a less
degree, and perhaps want of opportunity to get rid of these
relics of another age, were its only supports, yet this is of no
moment to the true-minded Student, who judges of things
not by their outward form but by their inward spirit.
Whatever others may think of Academic Freedom, he, for
his part, takes it in its true sense:--as a means by which
he may learn to direct himself when outward precept leaves
him,--watch over himself when no one else watches over
him,--urge himself forward where there is no longer any
outward impulse,--and thus train and strengthen himself
for his future high vocation.
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? LECTURE VII.
OP THE FINISHED SCHOLAR IN GENERAL.
The true-minded Scholar looks upon his vocation--to be-
come a partaker of the Divine thought of the universe--as
the purpose of God in him; and therefore both his person
and his calling become to him, before all other things, ho-
nourable and holy; and this holiness shows itself in all his
outward manifestations. Such is the point at which we
have now arrived.
We have hitherto spoken of the Progressive Scholar--the
Student; and we have seen how the sense of the dignity
conferred upon his person by this exalted vocation expresses
itself in his life. How his conviction of the holiness of
Knowledge pervades and influences his studies we have
already noticed in one of the earlier lectures, and it is not
necessary to add anything to what we have said upon this
point. k
And it is the less necessary since this reverence for
Knowledge which is felt by the Student manifests itself
chiefly in the appropriate estimation and consecration of his
person and is therein exhausted; while it is quite otherwise
in the Finished Scholar. In the Progressive Scholar, that
which he strives after--the Idea--has yet to acquire a
form and an independent life:--these it does not yet
possess. As yet the Student does neither immediately
possess, nor is he thoroughly penetrated by, the Idea; he
reverences it only at a distance, and can comprehend it
only by means of his person, as the standard to which
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? 196
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
that person ought to raise itself, the spirit by which it
ought to be swayed. He can as yet do nothing directly
in its service; he can only live for it indirectly, by con-
secrating and devoting his person to its use as its appoint-
ed instrument; preserving himself pure in sense and
spirit because all impurity would mar and disqualify him
for that function; by giving himself up entirely to its in-
fluence and pursuing and executing with unwearied indus-
try everything which may become a means or opportunity
to the Idea of unfolding itself within him. It is other-
wise with the Finished Scholar. As surely as he is such,
the Idea has already commenced its proper and indepen-
dent life within him; his personal life has now actually
passed into the Life of the Idea, and is therein absorbed;--
an absorption of self in the Idea which was only striven
after by the Student. As surely as he is a perfect Scholar,
so surely is there now no longer in him any thought of self,
but his whole thought is henceforth absorbed in the
thought of the Idea. And thus the distinction which we
originally made between the holiness of his person and the
holiness of his vocation now becomes a point of transition
from the contemplation of the Progressive to that of the
Finished Scholar,--the portraiture of whom it is now my
purpose to place beside that of the Progressive Scholar.
Hitherto we have considered the Progressive Scholar
chiefly in the character of a Student at a University; and
these two Ideas have been almost constantly associated to-
gether in our previous lectures. Now, for the first time,
when we have to accompany the Student from the Academy
into Life, we must call to mind that the studies and cha-
racter of the Progressive Scholar are not necessarily com-
pleted with his residence at the University; nay, further on,
we shall even perceive a ground upon which we may say that, properly speaking, his studies have their true begin-
ning only after his academic course has closed. This much,
however, remains true, as the sure result of what has been
already said,--that the youth who during his residence at
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? OF THE FINISHED SCHOLAR.
197
the University is not at least inspired with respect for the
holiness of Knowledge, and does not at least learn to honour
his own person to such an extent as not to render it un-
worthy of his high vocation, will never afterwards attain to
any true sense of the dignity of Knowledge; and whatever
part he may be called to play in life, he will take to it as a
common handicraft and with the sentiment of an hireling
who has no other motive to his labour than the pay he is to
receive for it. To say anything more of such an one lies
beyond the boundaries of our present subject.
But the Student who is penetrated with the conviction
that the essential purpose of his studies will be defeated
unless the Idea acquire an intrinsic form and independent
life within him, and that in the highest perfection,--he will
by no means lay aside his studies and scientific labours
when he leaves the University. Even if he be compelled
by outward necessity to enter upon a secular employment,
he will devote to Knowledge all the time and ability he can
spare from that employment, and will neglect no opportu-
nity which presents itself of attaining a higher culture. The
exercise of his faculties in the pursuit of learning will be
profitable to him even in the transaction of his ordinary
business. And amid the brilliant distinctions of office, and
even in mature age, he will restlessly strive and labour to
master the Idea, never resigning the hope of becoming
greater than he now is, so long as strength permits him to
indulge it. Without this untiring effort, much true Genius
would be wholly lost, for scientific talent usually unfolds it-
self more slowly, the higher and purer its essential nature,
and its clear development waits for mature years and manly
strength.
The Student who is penetrated with deep respect for the
holiness of the Scholar's vocation, will be guided by that
respect in his choice of a civic profession; and, particularly,
in the province of learning, if he do not feel the deepest
conviction of his ability to fulfil its highest duties, he will
choose a subordinate occupation, restrained from assumption
by his reverence for the dignity of Knowledge. But a sub-
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? 198
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
ordinate Scholar-occupation is one in which the ends to be
attained have been prescribed by some other intellect pos-
sessed with a knowledge of the Idea, and in which the capa-
cities which have been acquired through study, pursued for
the attainment of the Idea, are employed only as means to
fulfil those purposes which have thus been prescribed from
without. His person is thus not degraded into a passive
instrument; he is for ever secured against that by the
general view he takes of human life and its significance;--
he serves God alone in spirit and in sense; and, under the
guidance of his superiors, whom he leaves to answer for the
direction which they give to his actions and their results, he
promotes God's purposes with men, which must embrace all
forms of human activity. Thus does he proceed in his
choice of a secular employment as surely as he has been
inspired in his youth with respect for the dignity of the
peculiar vocation of the Scholar. To undertake such an
employment without consciousness of possessing the needful
power and cultivation is to profane it, and manifests a want
both of delicacy and of principle. And it is impossible that
he should fall into error on this point; for if he has passed
through his academic course in a creditable manner, then
he has certainly acquired, in some degree, a perception of
what is worthy, and has obtained a standard by which he
can take his own intellectual dimensions. If a conscientious
course of study at a University secured no other advantage
than that of presenting to youth a picture of the dignified
calling of the Scholar as a model for life, and of repelling
from this sphere those who are not endowed with the requi-
site ability, such a course would, on account of this advan-
tage alone, be of the utmost importance to the Student.
We have thus generally described the nature of a subor-
dinate Scholar-occupation. It does not demand in him who
pursues it, the immediate possession of the Idea, but only
that knowledge which is acquired in striving after such pos-
session. It is to be understood that in this again there are
higher and lower grades, according as the occupation re-
quires a wider or narrower range of knowledge,--and that,
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? OF THE FINISHED SCHOLAR.
199
in this respect too, the conscientious man will not under-
take anything which exceeds his powers. It is unnecessary
to describe these subordinate Scholar-occupations in detail.
The higher and peculiar calling of the Scholar may be de-
scribed so as to exhaust all its particular forms, and it is
then easy to draw this consequence:--" All those pursuits
which are usually followed by educated men, but which do
not find a place in this all-comprehensive delineation of the
higher calling of the Scholar, but are excluded from it, are
subordinate Scholar-occupations. " We have therefore only
now to lay before you this perfect delineation.
In our first lecture we have already definitely character-
ized the life of him in whom Learned Culture has fulfilled
its end:--his life is itself the life of the Divine Idea in the
world, changing and reconstructing it from its very founda-
tion. In the same place we have said that this life may
manifest itself in two forms;--either in actual external Be-
ing and Action, or only in Idea; which two distinct modes of
manifestation together constitute the peculiar vocation of
the Scholar. The first class comprehends all those who, by
their own strength, and according to their own idea, assume
the guidance of human affairs, leading them on to ever-new
perfection in constant harmony with each succeeding age;
who, originally, as the highest free leaders of men, direct
their social relations, and the relation of the whole to pas-
sive nature;--not those only who stand in the higher places
of the earth, as kings, or the immediate councillors of kings,
but all without exception who possess the right and calling,
either by themselves or in concert with others, to think,
judge, and resolve independently concerning the original dis-
posal of these affairs. The second class embraces the Scho-
lars, properly and pre-eminently so called, whose vocation it
is to maintain among men the knowledge of the Divine
Idea, to elevate it unceasingly to greater clearness and pre-
cision, and thus to transmit it from generation to genera-
tion, ever growing brighter in the freshness and glory of re-
newed youth. The first class act directly upon the world,--
they are the immediate point of contact between God and
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? 200
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
reality;--the last are the mediators between the pure spiri-
tuality of thought in the God-head, and the material energy
and influence which that thought acquires through the in-
strumentality of the first class; they are the trainers of the
first class,--the enduring pledge to the human race that the
first class shall never fail from among men. No one can
belong to the first class without having already belonged to
the second,--without always continuing to belong to it
.
The second class of Scholars is again separated into sub-
divisions, according to the manner in which they communi-
cate to others their conceptions of the Idea. Either their
immediate object is, by direct and free personal communica-
tion of their ideal conceptions, to cultivate in future Scho-
lars a capacity for the reception of the Idea, so that they
may afterwards lay hold of it and comprehend it for them-
selves :--and then they are educators of Scholars, Teachers in
the higher or lower schools;--or, they propound their con-
ceptions of the Idea, in a complete and finished form, to
those who have already cultivated the capacity to compre-
hend it. This is at present done by books,--and they are
thus--Authors.
The classes which we have now enumerated, whose seve-
ral occupations are not necessarily portioned out to different
individuals, but may quite readily be united in one and the
the same person, comprise all true and proper Scholars, and
exhaust the whole vocation of those in whom Learned Cul-
ture has fulfilled its end. Every other function, whatever
name it may bear, which the Educated Man* (who may be
distinguished by this title from the True Scholar) is called
upon to fulfil, is a subordinate Scholar-occupation. The
Educated Man continues in it, only because he has not by
his studies been able to attain to the rank of the True
Scholar, but nevertheless finds here a useful purpose to
which those capacities and knowledge which he has ac-
quired may be applied. It is by no means the object of
* Germ. "Studirte," one who has studied,--contrasted with "Studirende," one
who studies. We have no single equivalent for "Studirte" in English. --Tr.
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? OF THE FINISHED SCHOLAR.
201
Learned Culture to train subalterns, and no one should study
with a view to the office of a subaltern; for then it may
happen that he shall not attain even to that rank. Only be-
cause it was certain that a majority of Students would fall
short of their proposed destination, have subordinate occu-
pations been set apart for them. The subaltern receives the
direction of his activity from a foreign intellect; he must
exercise judgment in the choice of his means, but in respect
of the end only the most punctual obedience. The acknow-
ledged sacredness of the peculiar vocation of the Scholar
restrains every honest 'Educated Man' who is not conscious
of the possession of the Idea, from undertaking it, and con-
strains him to content himself with a subordinate office:--
this and nothing more have we to say of him, for his busi-
ness is no true Scholar-employment. We leave him to the
sure guidance of that general Integrity and faithfulness to
Duty which already during his studies have become the
innermost principle of his life.
Such an one, by renunciation of the peculiar calling of the
Scholar, shows that he looks upon it as sacred; he also, who
with honesty and a good conscience accepts this calling in
any of its forms, shows by his actions and by his whole life
that he looks upon it as sacred. How this recognition of
the Holy specially manifests itself in each particular depart-
ment of the Scholar's vocation, as these have now been set
forth,--of this we shall speak in succession in the subse-
quent lectures. To-day we shall confine ourselves to show-
ing how it manifests and reveals itself in general--i. e. to
that form of its manifestation which is common to all the
departments of the Scholar's vocation.
The true-minded Scholar will not admit of any life and
activity within him except the immediate life and activity
of the Divine Idea. This unchangeable principle pervades
and determines all his inward thoughts;--it also pervades
and determines all his outward actions. With respect to
the first,--as he suffers no emotion within him that is not
the direct emotion and life of the Divine Idea which has
taken possession of him, so is his whole life accompanied
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? 202 THE NATURE OP THE SCHOLAR.
by the indestructible consciousness that it is at one with
the Divine Life,--that in him and by him God's work shall
be achieved and His Will accomplished; he therefore re-
poses on that Will with unspeakable love, and with the
immovable conviction that it is right and good. Thus does
his thought become holy, enlightened, and religious; bless-
edness arises within him,--and in it, changeless joy, peace,
and power,--as these may in like manner be acquired and
enjoyed by the unlearned, and even the lowliest among
men, through true devotion to God and honest performance
of duty viewed as the" Will of God. Hence these are no ex-
clusive property of the Scholar, but are noticed here only
with the view that he too may become a partaker in this
religious aspect of life, and become so by the way which we
have pointed out.
This principle pervades the conduct of the True Scholar.
He has no other purpose in action but to express his Idea,
and embody the truth which he recognises in word or work.
No personal regard, either for himself or others, can impel
him to do that which is not demanded by this purpose,--no
such regard can cause him to neglect anything which is re-
quired by this purpose. His person, and all personality in
the world, have long since vanished from before him, and
entirely disappeared in his effort after the realization of the
Idea. The Idea alone impels him; where it does not move
him, he rests and remains inactive. He does nothing with
precipitation, hurried forward by disquietude and restless-
ness; these may well be symptoms of unfolding power, but
they are never to be found in conjunction with true, deve-
loped, mature and manly strength. Until the Idea stands
before him clear and breathing, finished and perfect even to
word or deed, nothing moves him to action; the Idea rules
him entirely, governs all his powers, and exhausts all his
life and effort. To its manifestation he devotes his whole
personal being without reserve or intermission, for he looks
upon his life as only the instrument of the Idea.
Would that I could make myself intelligible to you,--
would that I could persuade you,--touching this one point
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? OF THE FINISHED SCHOLAR
203
which we now approach on every side! --Whatever man
may do, so long as he does it from himself as a finite being,
by himself, and through his own counsel,--it is vain, and
will sink to nothing. Only when a foreign power takes
possession of him, and urges him forward, and lives within
him in room of his own energy, does true and real existence
first take up its abode in his life. This foreign power is
ever the power of God. To look up to it for counsel,--
implicitly to follow its guidance,--is the only true wisdom in
every employment of human life, and therefore most of all
in the highest occupation of which man can partake,--the
vocation of the True Scholar.
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? 204
LECTURE VIII.
OF THE SCHOLAR AS RULER.
-
He in whom Learned Culture has actually accomplished its
end,--the attainment and possession of the Idea,--shows, by
the manner in which he regards and practises the calling of
the Scholar, that his vocation is to him, before all other
things, honourable and holy. The Idea, in its relation to
the progressive improvement of the world, may be expressed
--either, first, in actual life and conduct; or, secondly, in
ideas only. It is expressed in the first mode by those who,
as the highest free leaders of men, originally guide and
order their affairs:--their relations with each other, or the
legal condition,-and their relation to passive nature, or the
dominion of reason over the irrational world;--who pos-
sess the right and calling, either by themselves or in con-
cert with others, to think, judge, and resolve independently
concerning the actual arrangement of these relations. We
have to speak to-day of the worthy conception and practice
of this vocation. As we have already taken precautions
against misunderstanding by a strict definition of our mean-
ing, we shall, for brevity's sake, term those who practise this
calling-- Rulers.
The business of the Ruler has been described in our early
lectures,--and so definitely, that no further analysis is ne-
cessary for our present purpose. We have only to show
what capacities and talents must be possessed by the true
Ruler,--by what estimate of his calling, and what mode of
practising it, he proves that he looks upon it as sacred.
He who undertakes to guide his Age and order its consti-
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? THE XATUBK OF THE SCHOLAK.
205
tution, must be exalted above it,--must not merely possess
an historical knowledge of it, but must thoroughly under-
stand and comprehend it. The Ruler possesses, in the first
place, a living and comprehensive Idea of that relation of
human life which he undertakes to superintend;--he knows
what is its essential nature, meaning, and purpose. Further,
he perfectly understands the changing and adventitious
forms which it may assume in reality without prejudice to
its essential nature. He knows the particular form which it
has assumed at the present time, and through what new
forms it must be led nearer and nearer to its unattainable
Ideal. No part of its present form is, in his view, necessary
and unchangeable, but is only an incidental point in a pro-
gression by which it is constantly rising towards higher per-
fection. He knows the Whole of which that form is a part,
and of which every improvement of it must still remain a
part; and he never loses sight of this Whole in contemplat-
ing the improvement of individual parts. This knowledge
gives to his inventive faculty the means of accomplishing
the improvements he may devise; the same knowledge se-
cures him from the mistake of disorganizing the Whole by
supposed improvements of individual parts. His eye always
combines the part with the Whole, and the idea of the lat-
ter with its actual manifestation in reality.
He who can not look upon human affairs with this un-
fettered vision is never a Ruler, whatever station he may
occupy,--nor can he ever become one. Even his mode of
thought, his faith in the unchangeableness of the present,
places him in a state of subordination, makes him an in-
strument of him who created that arrangement of things in
the permanence of which he believes. This frequently
happens; and thus all times have not actual Rulers. Great
spirits of the fore-world often rule over succeeding Ages
long after their death, by means of men who in themselves
are nothing, but are only continuations and prolongations of
other lives.
Very often too this is no misfortune; but those
who desire to penetrate human life with deeper insight
ought to know that these are not true Rulers, and that
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? 206
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
under them the Age does not move forward, but rests,--
perhaps to gain strength for new creations.
The Ruler, I said, thoroughly comprehends that rela-
tion of human life which he undertakes to superintend; he
knows the essential character and idea of all its component
parts, and he looks upon it as the absolute will of God with
man. It is not to him a means to the attainment of any
/ 1end whatever, nor in particular to the production of human
happiness; but he looks upon it as in itself an end,--as the
absolute mode, order, and form in which the human race
should live.
Thus, in the first place, is his occupation ennobled and
dignified in proportion to the nobility of his mode of
thought. To direct his whole thoughts and efforts,--to
devote his whole life to the accomplishment of such a
purpose as this:--that mortal men may fall out as little as
possible with each other in the short span of time during
which they have to live together, that they may have some-
what to eat and drink, and wherewithal to clothe them-
selves, until they make way for another generation, which
again shall eat, and drink, and clothe itself,--this business
would appear to a noble mind a vocation most unworthy of
its nature. The Ruler, after our idea of him, is secure
against this view of his calling. Through the idea of
human life by which he is animated, the Race among
whom he practises his vocation is likewise ennobled. He
who has constantly to keep in view the infirmities and
weaknesses of men, who has to watch their daily course,
and who has frequent opportunities of observing their
general meanness and corruption, and who sees nothing
more than these, cannot be much disposed to honour or to
love them; and indeed those powerful spirits who have
filled the most prominent places among men, but have not
been penetrated by true religious feeling, have at no time
been known to bestow much honour or respect upon their
Race. The Ruler, after our idea of him, in his estimate of
mankind looks beyond that which they are in the actual
world, to that which they are in the Divine Idea--to that
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? OP THE SCHOLAR AS RULER.
207
which therefore they may be, ought to be, and one day
assuredly will be; and he is thus filled with reverence for a Race called to so high a destiny. Love is not required of
him; nay, if you think deeper of it, it is even a kind of
arrogance for a Ruler to presume to love the whole Human
Race, or even his own nation,--to assure it of his love, and,
as it were, make it dependent on his kindness. A Ruler
such as we have described is free from such presumption:
his reverence for humanity, as the image and protected
child of God, does more than overpower it.
He looks upon his vocation as the Divine Will with
regard to the Human Race; he looks upon its practice as
the Divine Will with regard to himself--the present indi-
vidual; he recognises in himself one of the first and imme-
diate servants of God,--one of the material organs through
which God enters into communion with reality. Not that
this thought excites him to vain self-exaltation;--he who
is penetrated by the Idea has in it lost his personality, and
he has no longer remaining any feeling of self, except that
of employing his personal existence truly and conscienti-
ously in his high vocation. He knows that it is not of
himself that he has this intuition of the Idea and the power
which accompanies it, but that he has received them; he
knows that he can add nothing to what has been given him
except its honest and conscientious use; he knows that the
humblest of men can do this in the same degree as he him-
self can do it, and that the latter has the same value in the
sight of God which he himself should have in the same sta-
tion. All outward rank and elevation above other men
which have been given not to his person but to his dignity,
and which are but conditions of the possession of this dig-
nity,--these will not dazzle him who seeks to deserve high-
er and more substantial distinctions. In a word:--he looks
upon his calling, not as a friendly service which he renders
to the world, but as his absolute personal duty and obliga-
tion, by the performance of which alone he obtains, main-
tains, and repays his personal existence, and without which
he would pass away into nothing.
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? 208
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
This view of his calling as the Divine Will in him, sup-
ports and justifies him before himself in an important diffi-
culty, which must very often occur to him who conscien-
tiously follows this vocation, and makes his step firm, deter-
mined, and unwavering. In no circumstances indeed should
the individual, considered strictly as an individual, be sacri-
ficed to the Whole; however unimportant the individual,
however great the Whole and the interest of the Whole
which is at stake. But the parts of the Whole must often
be placed in peril on account of the Whole;--peril by which,
and not by the Ruler, its victims are selected from among
individual men. How could a Ruler who recognises no
other destiny for the Human Race but happiness here be-
low, and looks upon himself only as the kind guardian of
that happiness,--how could he answer before his conscience
for the danger and possible sacrifice of any individual vic-
tim, since that individual must have had as good a claim to
happiness as any other? How could such a Ruler, for ex-
ample, answer before his conscience for determining upon a
just war,--a war undertaken for the support of the national
independence threatened either immediately or prospective-
ly ? --for the victims who should fall in such a war, and for
the manifold evils thereby inflicted on humanity? The
Ruler who sees a Divine Purpose in his vocation stands firm
and immovable before all these doubts, overtaken by no un-
manly weakness. Is the war just ? --then it is Will of God
that there should be war; and it is God's will with him that
he resolve upon it . Whatever may fall a sacrifice to it, it is
still the Divine Will that chooses the sacrifice. God has the
most perfect right over all human life and human hapiness,
for both have proceeded from him and both return to him;
and in his creation nothing can be lost. --So also in the
business of legislation. There must be a general law, and
this law must be administered absolutely without exception.
The universality of the law cannot be given up for the sake
of one individual who thinks his case so peculiar that he is
aggrieved by the strict enforcement of the law, even al-
though his allegation may have some truth in it. Let him
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? OF THE SCHOLAR AS RULER.
20! )
bring the small injustice which is done to himself as an of-
fering to the general support of justice among men.
The Divine Idea, ruling in the Ruler, and through him
moulding the condition of his age and nation, now becomes
his sole and peculiar Life ;--which indeed is the case with
the Idea under any form in which it may enter the soul of
man;--he cannot have, nor permit, nor endure, any Life
within him except this Life. He comprehends this Life
with clear consciousness as the immediate life and energy
of God within him, as the fulfilment of the Divine Will in
and by his person. It is unnecessary to repeat the proofs
which we have already adduced in general, that through
this consciousness his thought is sanctified, transfigured,
and bathed in the Divinity. Every man needs Religion,
--every man may acquire it,--and with it every man
may obtain Blessedness;--most of all, as we have seen
above, does the Ruler need it. Unless he clothe his
calling in the light of Religion, he can never pursue it with
a good conscience. Without this, nothing remains for him
but either thoughtlessness and a mere mechanical fulfilment
of his vocation, without giving account to himself of its rea-
sonableness or justice; or if not thoughtlessness,--then
want of principle, obduracy, insensibility, hatred and con-
tempt of the Human Race.
The Idea, thus moulded on the Divine Life, lives in his
life instead of his own personality. It alone moves him,--
nothing else in its room. His personality has long since dis-
appeared in the Idea,--how then can any motive now arise
from it 1 He lives in honour, transfused in God to work His
Eternal Will,--how then can fame, the judgment of mortal
and perishable men, have any significance for him 1 Devoted
to the Idea with his whole being,--how can he ever seek to
pamper or to spare himself? His person,--all personality,
--has disappeared in the Divine Idea of universal order.
That order is his ever-present thought; only through it does
he conceive of individual men: hence neither friend nor foe,
neither favourite nor adversary, finds a plaoe before him;
Ea
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? 210
THK NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
but all alike, and be himself with them, are lost for ever
in the thought of the independence and equality of alL
The Idea alone moves him,--and where it does not move
him, there he has no life, but remains quiescent and inactive.
He will never rouse himself to energy and labour merely
that something may come to pass, or that he may gain a re-
putation for activity; for his desire is not merely that some-
thing may come to pass, but that the will of the Idea may
be accomplished. Until it speaks, he too is silent;--he has
no voice but for it . He does not respect old things because
they are old;--but as little does he desire novelty for its own
sake. He looks for what is better and more perfect than the
present; until this rises before him clearly and distinctly,--
so long as change would lead only to difference, not im-
provement,--he remains inactive, and concedes to the old
the privilege it derives from ancient possession.
In this way does the Idea possess and pervade him with-
out intermission or reserve, and there remains nothing
either of his person or his life that does not burn a perpe-
tual offering before its altar. And thus is he the most di-
rect manifestation of God in the world.
That there is a God, is made evident by a very little
serious reflection upon the outward world. We must end
at last by resting all existence which demands an extrinsic
foundation, upon a Being the fountain of whose life is with-
iu Himself; by allying the fugitive phenomena which colour
the stream of time with ever-changing hues to an eter-
nal and unchanging essence. But in the life of Divine Men
the Godhead is manifest in the flesh, reveals itself to im-
mediate vision, and is perceptible even to outward sense.
In their life the unchangeableness of God manifests itself in
the firmness and intrepidity of human will which no power
can force from its destined path. In it the essential light
of the Divinity manifests itself in human comprehension of
all finite things in the One which endures for ever. In it
the energy of God reveals itself, not in directly surrounding
the Human Race with happiness--which is not its object--
but in ordering, elevating, and ennobling it . A Godlike
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? OF THE SCHOLAR AS RULER.
211
life is the most decisive proof which man can give of the
being of a God.
It is the business of all mankind to see that the convic-
tion of the Divine Existence, without which the very essence
of their own being passes away into nothing, shall never
perish and disappear from among them;--above all, it is
the business of the Rulers as the highest disposers of hu-
man affairs. It is not their part to bring forward the theo-
retical proof from human reason, or to regulate the mode in
which this proof shall be adduced by the second class of
Scholars; but the practical proof, in their own lives, and
that in the highest degree, devolves peculiarly upon them.
If firm and intrepid will,--if clear and all-comprehending
vision,--if a spirit of order and nobility speak to us in their
conduct, then in their works do we see God face to face, and
need no other proof:--God is, we will say,--for they are,
and He in them.
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? 212
LECTURE IX.
OF THE SCHOLAR AS TEACHER.
Besides those possessors of the Idea, whose business it is,
by guiding and ordering the affairs of men, to introduce the
Idea immediately into life, there is yet another class--those,
namely, who are peculiarly and by preeminence called Scho-
lars, who manifest the Idea directly in spiritual conceptions,
and whose calling it is to maintain among men the convic-
tion that there is, in truth, a Divine Idea accessible to hu-
man thought, to raise this Idea unceasingly to greater clear-
ness and precision, and thus to transmit it from generation
to generation fresh and radiant in ever-renewed youth.
This latter Vocation again divides itself into two very
different callings, according to the primary object contem-
plated by them, and the mode of its attainment. Either
the minds of men are to be trained and cultivated to a
capacity for receiving the Idea; or the Idea itself is to be
produced in a definite form for those who are already pre-
pared for its reception. The first calling has particular men
for its primary and immediate objects;--in it the only use
which is made of the Idea is as a means of training and cul-
tivating these men so that they may become capable of
comprehending the Idea by their own independent effort.
It follows that, in this calling, regard must be had solely to
the men who are to be cultivated, the degree of their culti-
vation, and their capacity of being cultivated; and that an
influence is valuable here only in so far as it may be ef-
ficiently applied to those individuals upon whom it is di-
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? THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR
213
recteA The second has for its object the Idea itself, and the
fashioning of the Idea into distinct conceptions, and has no
reference whatever to any subjective disposition or capacity
of men; its business is prosecuted with no view to any but
those who are capable of comprehending the Idea in the
form thus given to it; the work itself settles and deter-
mines who shall receive it, and it is only addressed to those
who can comprehend it. The first object will be best and
most fitly attained by the verbal discourses of the Teacher;
the second by literary writings.
Both these callings belong to the vocation of the Scho-
lar in its proper and highest sense, and not to the subordi-
nate Scholar-occupations, which devolve upon a man only
because he has not attained the proper end of his studies.
He who prosecutes his studies conscientiously, and so ac-
quires a conviction of the importance of the vocation of the
Scholar, but yet does not feel within himself a clear con-
sciousness of the capacity to fulfil it, shows that he recog-
nises its sacred character by not undertaking it;--he who
does undertake it, manifests the same conviction by exercis-
ing it worthily. In the next lecture we shall speak of the
true Author; to-day we shall discourse of the upright
Teacher of future Scholars.
The Teachers and Educators of those who devote them-
selves to the occupation of the Scholar may be divided into
two classes:--they are Teachers either in the lower Schools
of learning, or in the higher or Universities. Not without
deliberation do I class the Teachers in the lower Schools
among true and not subaltern Scholars, and therefore de-
mand of them that they attain possession of the Idea, and
be penetrated by it,--if not with perfect light, yet with liv-
ing warmth. He who is destined to study will, even while
a boy, surround himself invisibly with the Idea and with its
sanctity, and bathe his whole being in its influence. No-
thing from which any ideal result may one day unfold it-
self will be pursued by him as a piece of vulgar handicraft,
or used as a means to the attainment of a partial object.
Happily the objects which are peculiar to these Schools are
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? 214
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
of such a nature as to elevate him who pursues them tho-
roughly and conscientiously, and through him those who
are committed to his care, above vulgar modes of thought;
--did but the outward circumstances of the Teacher answer
to his dignity, and his independence and station in society
correspond with his most honourable calling. The objects of
school-instruction, I said. In a fundamental study of Lan-
guage, pursued, as it must be, amid old modes of speech, far
removed from our habits of thought, a deeper insight into
ideas is gained; and from the works of the Ancients, by
means of which this study is pursued, an excellent and en-
nobling spirit speaks to the youthful mind. For this reason,
the Teacher in these lower Schools should be a partaker of
the Idea, because it is his task imperceptibly to familiarize
the youth with the high and noble before he is able to dis-
tinguish these from the vulgar,--to accustom him to these,
and to estrange him from the low and ignoble. Thus
guarded in his early years, and thus prepared for higher
progress, the youth enters the University. Here, for the
first time, can he be clearly taught, and led to comprehend
and acknowledge--that which I have endeavoured to utter
to you in these lectures,--that our whole race has its only
true existence in the Divine Thought,--that its only worth
consists in its harmony with this Divine Thought,--and that
the class of Scholars has therein an existence only to the
end that they may comprehend this Divine Thought and im-
print it on the world. At the University the Student first
receives a clear idea of the nature and dignity of that voca-
tion to which his life has been devoted beforehand. He
must obtain that clear idea here :--the Teacher in the lower
Schools may look forward to another education for his pu-
pils, and he counts upon that; but the Academic Teacher
has no higher instruction to calculate upon, except that
which the Progressive Scholar may bestow upon himself,--
to the capacity for which, however, the Teacher must train
him so that he may have it in his power to become his own
instructor;--once released from the lecture-room he is com-
mitted to himself and to the world. Herein, therefore, lies
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? OF THE SCHOLAR AS TEACHER.
215
the characteristic difference between the lower and the
higher Schools,--that at the lower School the youth has
only a presentiment of his vocation, while at the University
he clearly comprehends and recognises it;--and from this
distinction the specific duties of the Teacher in the respec-
tive institutions may easily be deduced.
The Academic Teacher, of whom chiefly we have to speak,
ought to train the Student who has already been made ac-
quainted with the nature and dignity of his calling, to the
capacity of receiving the Idea, and the power of developing
it from his own consciousness, and giving it a form peculiar
to himself:--he should do all this if he can. But in every
case, and unconditionally, he must fill the Student with res-
pect and veneration for the proper calling of the Scholar.
The first object of all study,--to lay hold of the Idea from a
new and peculiar point of view, is by no means to be given
up either by the Student himself, or by the Teacher on his
behalf; but it is nevertheless possible that it may not be
attained, and both must reconcile themselves beforehand to
this possibility. Should this first object of study remain
unaccomplished, the Student may still become a useful,
worthy, and upright man. But the second object of study,
--that he acquire a reverence for the Idea during his efforts
to attain it,--that on account of this reverence he forbear
from undertaking anything for which he does not know
himself to be qualified,--that he consecrate himself to the
service of the Idea, at least by permanently cherishing this
reverence for what is unattainable by him, and contributing
to the extent of his ability to maintain such a reverence
among men;--this object is never to be relinquished; for
were it not attained, then, through the very fact of his hav-
ing studied, would his dignity as a man be lost, and he
would sink the deeper in consequence of the height to
which he ought to have risen. The attainment by the Stu-
dent of the first object of study is, to the Academic Teacher,
a conditional duty,--conditioned by the possibility of its ful-
filment. The attainment of the second he must ever look
upon and acknowledge as his unconditional duty, which he
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? 21G
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
must never deliberately relinquish. It may indeed happen
that he cannot accomplish even this, but he must never
admit a doubt of its ultimate attainment.
What, then, can the Academic Teacher do for the attain-
ment of this second object? I answer, he can do nothing
for it exclusively; he can do nothing else than that which
he must do for the first and higher object by itself. In pur-
suing and attaining the second, he is advancing to the at-
tainment of the first. Would he inculcate upon his pupils
reverence for Knowledge ? --they will not believe him if he
do not himself exhibit in his whole life the deep reverence
which he recommends to them. Would he thoroughly im-
press them with this reverence ? --let him teach it, not in
words only, but in deeds; let him be himself the living ex-
ample, the abiding illustration, of the principles which he
desires them to accept as the guides of their life. He has
described to them the Nature of the Scholar's vocation as a
manifestation of the Divine Idea,--he has told them that
this Idea entirely pervades the True Scholar, and establishes
its peculiar life, in place of his own, within him ;--perhaps
he has even told them by what precise way he himself, for
his part, has to fulfil the purposes of Knowledge, and in
what his peculiar calling, as an Academic Teacher, consists.
Let him show himself before them in his proper and essen-
tial character,--as devoted to his vocation,--as a perpetual
offering before its altar,--and they will learn to comprehend
that Knowledge is a sacred thing.
The duties of the Academic Teacher are not indeed
changed by this aspect of his vocation; for, as we have said,
he can do nothing for the attainment of the latter object
but what he must have done for the former and higher, by
itself;--but his own view of his calling becomes thereby
more confirmed and immovable. Although it should not
immediately become visible and evident to him that he has
attained his peculiar object,--of leading those who are en-
trusted to his care from mere passive dependence to spon-
taneous activity, from the dead letter to the living spirit;--
yet will he not suppose that he has laboured in vain. To
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