Walther Rathenau 
In Days to Come [PDF ebook] 

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Tms book treats of material things, but treats of them for the sake of the spirit. It treats of labour, want, and gain; of goods, rights, and power; of technical, economic, and political structure: but it neither postulates nor esteems these concepts as ends in themselves. It may well be asked whether oppression and poverty. Want, trouble, and injustice, do not rather tend to free man’s most genuine forces, to liberate the soul, and to install the kingdom of God on earth. The rejoinder is obvious that human faith and energy require help, not hindrance that chill penury is fatal to all the germs of effort; that growth and blossoming require a sufficiency of warmth and light. But this question and answer does not concern us. The spirit must not be misused either to sustain and extenuate that which exists, or for the gratification of wishes and the fulfilment of conditions; its powers invariably suffice to compel harmony between the maker and that which he makes. This relationship is no less lucid than the relationship between organic forms and the totality of the conditions of existence; each new spirit creates its own world, and every one of its evolutions realises itself in a new revolution of life.