“Veneration,” they repeated.  “It is wanting in all, and perhaps in yourself.  You have seen three kinds of gestures, and we teach a threefold veneration, which when combined to form a whole, only then attains to its highest power and effect.  The first is veneration for that which is above us.  That gesture, the arms folded on the breast, a cheerful glance toward the sky, that is precisely what we prescribe to our untutored children, at the same time requiring witness of them that there is a God up above who reflects and reveals Himself in our parents, tutors and superiors.  The second, veneration for that which is below us.  The hands folded on the back as if tied together, the lowered, smiling glance, bespeak that we have to regard the earth well and cheerfully; it gives us an opportunity to maintain ourselves; it affords unspeakable joys; but it brings disproportionate sufferings.  If one hurts oneself bodily, whether faultily or innocently; if others hurt one, intentionally or accidentally; if earthly chance does one any harm—­let these be well thought of, for such danger accompanies us all our life long.  But from this condition we deliver our pupil as soon as possible, directly we are convinced that the teachings of this stage have made a sufficient impression upon him; but then we bid him be a man, look to his companions, and guide himself with reference to them.  Now he stands erect and bold, yet not selfishly isolated; only in a union with his equals does he present a front toward the world.  We are unable to add anything further.”

“I see it all,” replied Wilhelm; “it is probably on this account that the multitude is so inured to vice, because it takes pleasure only in the element of ill-will and evil speech; he who indulges in this, soon becomes indifferent to God, contemptuous toward the world, and a hater of his fellows; but the true, genuine, indispensable feeling of self-respect is ruined in conceit and presumption.”

“Allow me, nevertheless,” Wilhelm went on, “to make one objection:  Has it not ever been held that the fear evinced by savage nations in the presence of mighty natural phenomena, and other inexplicable foreboding events, is the germ from which a higher feeling, a purer disposition, should gradually be developed?”

To this the other replied:  “Fear, no doubt, is consonant with nature, but not reverence; people fear a known or unknown powerful being; the strong one tries to grapple with it, the weak to avoid it; both wish to get rid of it, and feel happy when in a short space they have conquered it, when their nature in some measure has regained its freedom and independence.  The natural man repeats this operation a million times during his life; from fear he strives after liberty, from liberty he is driven back into fear, and does not advance one step further.  To fear is easy, but unpleasant; to entertain reverence is difficult but pleasing.  Man determines himself unwillingly to reverence, or rather never determines himself to it; it is a loftier sense which must be imparted to his nature, and which is self-developed only in the most exceptionally gifted ones, whom therefore from all time we have regarded as saints, as gods.  In this consists the dignity, in this the function of all genuine religions, of which also there exist only three, according to the objects toward which they direct their worship.”