ime, the convinced and conscious will of a
people will be seen to direct itself to a common and recognized goal.
This is a fact of immeasurable significance, it implies the exercise
of forces which we only discern on the rare mountain-peaks of history,
and of which the last example was the French Revolution.

But those dangers of which we have spoken, that hell of a mechanical
socialism, of institutions and arrangements without sentiment or
spirit, are done away with, for production has ceased to be merely
material and formal, it has acquired absolute value and substance.
Spirit is the only end that sanctifies all means; and it sanctifies
not by justifying them but by purifying them.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 31: Vergeistigt werden. It is difficult to render this word
in the sense in which Rathenau uses it; 'intellectualized' does not
say enough, and 'spiritualized' says a little too much.]

[Footnote 32: Assuming that the highest output is reached in the
particular instance which of course will not be the case with every
worker whether in the mechanical or intellectual sphere. The author
appears to be referring to amount, not quality, of output, as the
latter would be covered by the second clause, relating to grade of
culture (Bildungsstufe).]

[Footnote 33: Referring to the shortening of military service which
used to be accorded to recruits of a certain educational standard.]

XIII

As the kinsfolk of a dying man comfort themselves in the death-chamber
with every little droop in the curve of temperature, although they
know in their hearts that the hour has come, so our critics flatter
themselves with the idea that in the end all will come right, if not
by itself at least with trifling exertion. But it is not so: except by
the greatest exertion nothing will come right. Our lake-city of
economics and social order is ripe for collapse, for the piles on
which it is built are decayed. It is true that it still stands, and
will be standing for an hour or so, and life goes on in it very much
as in the days when it was sound. We can choose either to leave it
alone, and await the downfall of the city, among whose ruins life will
never bloom again, or we can begin the underpinning of the tottering
edifice, a process which will last for decades, which will allow no
peace to any of us, which will be toilsome and dangerous, and will end
almost imperceptibly, when the ancient city has been transformed into
the new.