In fact, ancient history ends with this,--that _I_ have struggled till I won my ownership of the world. "All things have been delivered, to me by my Father" (Matt. 11.27). It has ceased to be overpowering, unapproachable, sacred, divine, etc., for me; it is _undeified_, and now I treat it so entirely as I please that, if I cared, I could exert on it all miracle-working power, _i. e._ power of mind,--remove mountains, command mulberry trees to tear themselves up and transplant themselves into the sea (Luke 17.6), and do everything possible, _i. e. thinkable_: "All things are possible to him who believes."[64] I am the _lord_ of the world, mine is the "_glory_."[65] The world has become _prosaic_, for the divine has vanished from it: it is my property, which I dispose of as I (to wit, the mind) choose.
When I had exalted myself to be the _owner of the world_, egoism had won its first complete victory, had vanquished the world, had become _worldless_, and put the acquisitions of a long age under lock and key.
The first property, the first "glory," has been acquired!
But the lord of the world is not yet lord of his thoughts, his feelings, his will: he is not lord and owner of the spirit, for the spirit is still sacred, the "Holy Spirit," and the "worldless" Christian is not able to become "godless." If the ancient struggle was a struggle against the _world_, the mediæval (Christian) struggle is a struggle against _self_, the mind; the former against the outer world, the latter against the inner world. The mediæval man is the man "whose gaze is turned inward," the thinking, meditative man.
All wisdom of the ancients is _the science of the world_, all wisdom of the moderns is _the science of God_.
The heathen (Jews included) got through with the _world_; but now the thing was to get through with self, the _spirit_, too; _i. e._ to become spiritless or godless.
For almost two thousand years we have been working at subjecting the Holy Spirit to ourselves, and little by little we have torn off and trodden under foot many bits of sacredness; but the gigantic opponent is constantly rising anew under a changed form and name. The spirit has not yet lost its divinity, its holiness, its sacredness. To be sure, it has long ceased to flutter over our heads as a dove; to be sure, it no longer gladdens its saints alone, but lets itself be caught by the laity too, etc.; but as spirit of humanity, as spirit of Man, it remains still an _alien_ spirit to me or you, still far from becoming our unrestricted _property_, which we dispose of at our pleasure. However, one thing certainly happened, and visibly guided the progress of post-Christian history: this one thing was the endeavor to make the Holy Spirit _more human_, and bring it nearer to men, or men to it. Through this it came about that at last it could be conceived as the "spirit of humanity," and, under different expressions like "idea of humanity, mankind, humaneness, general philanthropy," etc., appeared more attractive, more familiar, and more accessible.