8 - What a people is in the higher sense of the word and what is love of fatherland

Summary

The last four addresses answered the question: what is the German in opposition to other peoples of Teutonic descent? This line of argument in support of our inquiry as a whole will be completed if we further add the examination of the question: what is a people? This latter question is identical with, and at the same time helps to answer, another question, often raised and resolved in very different ways: what is love of fatherland? Or, as one might more accurately express oneself: what is the love of the individual for his nation?

If we have thus far proceeded aright in the course of our inquiry, then it must be evident that only the German – the original man whose spirit has not become dead in some arbitrary organisation – truly has a people and is entitled to reckon on one; that only he is capable of real and rational love for his nation.

The following observation, which at first seems to have no connection with the foregoing, will set us on the way to solving our appointed task.

Religion, as we had cause to remark already in our third address, is quite able to transport us beyond all time, and beyond the present, sensuous life, without the least injury to the justness [Rechtlichkeit], morality and sanctity of the life seized by this faith.