As power over the incubus is obtained by addressing it with its real name, so the world of It, which a moment ago was stretched in its uncanniness before the puny strength of men, is bound to yield to the man who knows it for what it really is—severance and alienation of that out of whose abundance, when it streams close at hand, every earthly Thou is met, and of that which, though seeming at times great and fearful like the mother-god, yet always had a motherly air.
—But how can the man in whose being lurks a ghost, the I emptied of reality, muster the strength to address the incubus by name? How can the ruined power in a being to enter into relation be raised again, when an active ghost tramples continually on the ruins? How does a being gather itself together, that is madly and unceasingly hunted in an empty circle by the separated I? How may a man who lives in arbitrary self-will become aware of freedom?
—As freedom and destiny, so arbitrary self-will and fate belong together. But freedom and destiny are solemnly promised to one another and linked together in meaning; while arbitrary self will and fate, soul’s spectre and world’s nightmare, endure one another, living side by side and avoiding one another, without connexion or conflict, in meaninglessness -till in an instant there is confused shock of glance on glance, and confession of their non-salvation breaks from them. How much eloquent and ingenious spirituality is expended to-day in the effort to avert, or at least to veil, this event!
The free man is he who wills without arbitrary self-will. He believes in reality, that is, be believes in the real solidarity of the real twofold entity I and Thou. He believes in destiny, and believes that it stands in need of him. It does not keep him in leading-strings, it awaits him, he must go to it, yet does not know where it is to be found. But he knows that he must go out with his whole being. The matter will not turn out according to his decision; but what is to come will come only when he decides on what he is able to will. He must sacrifice his puny, unfree will, that is controlled by things and instincts, to his grand will, which quits defined for destined being. Then be intervenes no more, but at the same time he does not let things merely happen. He listens to what is emerging from himself, to the course of being in the world; not in order to be supported by it, but in order to bring it to reality as it desires, in its need of him, to be brought—with human spirit and deed, human life and death. I said he believes, but that really means he meets.