universe as well as the inauguration of a new reality.  Man has emerged out of the darkness of nature and remains afflicted with the afflictions of nature; yet at the same time, with his appearance upon the earth the darkness begins to illumine, and [p.204] ’nature kindles within him a light’ (Schopenhauer); he who is a mere speck on the face of a boundless expanse can yet aspire to a participation in the whole of Infinity; he who stands in the midst of the flux of time yet possesses an aspiration after infinite truth; he who forms but a mere piece of nature constructs at the same time a new world within the spiritual life over against it all; he who finds himself confined by contradictions of all kinds, which immediate existence in no way can solve, yet struggles after a further depth of reality and after the ‘narrow gate’ which opens into religion.  Through and beyond all the particular problems of life and the world, it behoves us to raise the spiritual life to a level of full independence, to make it simultaneously superior to man as an individual and to bring it back into his soul.  When this comes to be there is at the same time a transformation of his inmost being, and for the first time he becomes capable of genuine greatness....  These final conclusions strengthen the aspiration after a religion of the spiritual life....  Such a religion is in no way new, and Christianity has proclaimed it and clung to it from the very beginning.  But it has been interwoven with traditional forms which are now seen through by so many as pictorial ideas of epochs and times.  Earlier times could allow the Essence and the Form to coalesce without discovering any incongruity in this.  But the [p.205] time for doing this has irrevocably passed away.  The human which once seemed to bring the Spiritual and Divine so near to man has now become a burden and a hindrance to him.  A keener analysis, a more independent development of the Spiritual and Divine, and, along with this, the truth of religion, do not succeed in reaching their full effects if religion is looked upon as merely something to protect individuals, instead of as that which furthers the whole of humanity —­as that which is not merely a succour in times of trouble and sorrow but also as that which guarantees an enhancement in work and creativeness.  The situation is difficult and full of dangers, and small in the meantime is the number of those who grasp it in a deep and free sense, and who yet are determined to penetrate victoriously into it, so that the inner necessities of the spiritual life may awaken within the soul of man.  Whatever new tasks and difficulties lie in the lap of the future, to-day it behoves us before all else to proceed a step upward in the direction of the summits and to draw new energies and depths of the spiritual life into the domain of man; for this kind of work will prevent the coming of an ‘old age’ upon humanity and will breathe into its soul the gift of Eternal Youth."[70]