Everything in me that conspires to break the unity and continuity of my
life conspires to destroy me and consequently to destroy itself. Every
individual in a people who conspires to break the spiritual unity and
continuity of that people tends to destroy it and to destroy himself as
a part of that people. What if some other people is better than our own?
Very possibly, although perhaps we do not clearly understand what is
meant by better or worse. Richer? Granted. More cultured? Granted
likewise. Happier? Well, happiness ... but still, let it pass! A
conquering people (or what is called conquering) while we are conquered?
Well and good. All this is good--but it is something different. And that
is enough. Because for me the becoming other than I am, the breaking of
the unity and continuity of my life, is to cease to be he who I am--that
is to say, it is simply to cease to be. And that--no! Anything rather
than that!

Another, you say, might play the part that I play as well or better?
Another might fulfil my function in society? Yes, but it would not be I.

"I, I, I, always I!" some reader will exclaim; "and who are you?" I
might reply in the words of Obermann, that tremendous man Obermann: "For
the universe, nothing--for myself, everything"; but no, I would rather
remind him of a doctrine of the man Kant--to wit, that we ought to think
of our fellow-men not as means but as ends. For the question does not
touch me alone, it touches you also, grumbling reader, it touches each
and all. Singular judgments have the value of universal judgments, the
logicians say. The singular is not particular, it is universal.

Man is an end, not a means. All civilization addresses itself to man, to
each man, to each I. What is that idol, call it Humanity or call it what