The communal life of man can no more than man himself dispense with the world of It, over which the presence of the Thou moves like the spirit upon the face of the waters. Man’s will to profit and to be powerful have their natural and proper effect so long as they are linked with, and upheld by, his will to enter into relation. There is no evil impulse till the impulse has been separated from the being; the impulse which is bound up with, and defined by, the being is the living stuff of communal life, that which is detached is its disintegration. Economics, the abode of the will to profit, and State, the abode of the will to be powerful, share in life as long as they share in the spirit. If they abjure spirit they abjure life. Life, to be sure, gives itself time to bring its affairs to a real conclusion, and for a good while men imagine they see a structure moving where for a long time & machine has been whirling. The matter is indeed not to be helped by the introduction of a little directness. The loosening of the structure of economics or of the State cannot compensate for their being no longer under the dominance of the spirit that says Thou: no disturbance on the periphery can serve as substitute for the living relation with the Centre. Structures of man’s communal life draw their living quality from the riches of the power to enter into relation, which penetrates their various parts, and obtain their bodily form from the binding up of this power in the spirit. The statesman or the economist who obeys the spirit is no dilettante; he knows well that he cannot, without undoing his work, simply confront, as bearers of the Thou, the men with 'whom he has to deal. Yet he risks doing it, not plainly and simply but as far as the boundary set for him by the spirit. The spirit sets this for him, and the risk that would have shattered a separated structure succeeds in the structure over which the presence of the Thou broods. He is no fanatic; he serves the truth which, though higher than reason, yet does not repudiate it, but holds it in its lap. He does in communal life precisely what is done in personal life by the man who knows himself incapable of realising the Thou in its purity, yet daily confirms its truth in the It, in accordance with what is right and fitting for the day, drawing—disclosing—the boundary line anew each day. So, too, only with spirit, not themselves, as starting-point, are work and possession to be released; only from the presence of spirit can meaning and joy stream into all work, awe and sacrificial power into all possession—filling them not to the brim but sufficiently; only from its presence can everything that is worked and possessed, while remaining in adherence to the world of It, yet be transfigured into what is over against man—into the representation of the Thou. There is no going backwards, but in the very moment of deepest need a hitherto undreamt-of movement forwards and outwards.
It does not matter if the State rules economics or is given its authority by it, so long as both are unchanged. It does matter if the organisation of the State becomes freer and that of economics more equitable—but not for the question asked here about the real life; they certainly cannot become free and equitable with themselves as starting-point. It matters most of all if the spirit which says Thou, which responds, remains by life and reality, if that which is still interleaved by spirit in man’s communal life is subjected to the State and to economics or is independently effective, and if that of spirit which still persists in man’s personal life is reassimilated into the communal life. If communal life were parcelled out into independent realms, one of which is “the spiritual life”, ', this would certainly not be done; that would only mean to give up once and for all to tyranny the provinces that are sunk in the world of It, and to rob the spirit completely of reality. For the spirit is never independently effective in life in itself alone, but in relation to the world: possessing power that permeates the world of It, transforming it. The spirit is truly “in its own realm” if it can confront the world that is unlocked to it, give itself to this world, and in its relation with it save both itself and the world. The distracted, weakened, degenerated, contradictory spirituality which to-day represents spirit would be able to do this only if it were to reach again the life of spirit which can utter the Thou.