nd.[68]

The new body of humanity, the "corpus magnum" of which Seneca spoke,
needs a soul, and it needs a new faith. This faith, while retaining the
absolute character of the old religions, must be wider and more plastic
than they; it must not merely be adapted to the existing needs of the
human mind, but must take into account the possibilities of future
development. All previous religions, rooted in tradition and wishing to
bind man to the past, were encased in dogmatism; and they one and all,
as time passed, became hindrances to natural evolution. Where can we
find a basis for faith and morals which shall be simultaneously absolute
and mutable; shall be above man, and none the less human; shall be
ideal, and none the less real?--We shall find what we want, says
Nicolai, in humanity itself. For us, humanity is a reality which
develops throughout the ages, but which at every moment represents for
us an absolute entity. It evolves in a direction which may be
fortuitous, but which, once taken, cannot be changed. It simultaneously
embraces the past, the present, and the future. It is a unity in time, a
vast synthesis of which we are but fragments. To be human, means to
understand this development, to love it, to trust one's hopes to it, and
to endeavour to participate in it consciously. Herein we find an ethical
system, which Nicolai sums up as follows:

1. The community of mankind is the divine upon earth, and is the
foundation of morals.

2. To be a man is to feel within one's self the reality of humanity at
large. It is to feel, like a living law, that we are elements of that
greater organism, in which (to quote Saint Paul's admirable intuition)
we are all parts of one body and every one members one of another.

3. The love of our neighbour is a feeling of good health. A general love
for humanity is the feeling of organic health in humanity at large,
reflected in one of its members. Therefore we should love and honour the
human community and everything which sustains and fortifies it--work,
truth, good and sound instincts.

4. Fight everything which injures it. Above all, fight bad traditions,
instincts that have become useless or harmful.

* * * * *

"Scio et volo me esse hominem," writes Nicolai at the close of his book.
"I know that I am a man, and I wish to be one."

Man--he understands by this a being aware of the ties which attach him
to the great human family, and aware o