Therefore the man shows a _second_ self-discovery. The youth found himself as _spirit_ and lost himself again in the _general_ spirit, the complete, holy spirit, Man, mankind,--in short, all ideals; the man finds himself as _embodied_ spirit.
Boys had only _unintellectual_ interests (_i. e._ interests devoid of thoughts and ideas), youths only _intellectual_ ones; the man has bodily, personal, egoistic interests.
If the child has not an _object_ that it can occupy itself with, it feels _ennui_; for it does not yet know how to occupy itself with _itself_. The youth, on the contrary, throws the object aside, because for him _thoughts_ arose out of the object; he occupies himself with his _thoughts_, his dreams, occupies himself intellectually, or "his mind is occupied."
The young man includes everything not intellectual under the contemptuous name of "externalities." If he nevertheless sticks to the most trivial externalities (_e. g._ the customs of students' clubs and other formalities), it is because, and when, he discovers _mind_ in them, _i. e._ when they are _symbols_ to him.
As I find myself back of things, and that as mind, so I must later find _myself_ also back of _thoughts_,--to wit, as their creator and _owner_. In the time of spirits thoughts grew till they overtopped my head, whose offspring they yet were; they hovered about me and convulsed me like fever-phantasies--an awful power. The thoughts had become _corporeal_ on their own account, were ghosts, such as God, Emperor, Pope, Fatherland, etc. If I destroy their corporeity, then I take them back into mine, and say: "I alone am corporeal." And now I take the world as what it is to me, as _mine_, as my property; I refer all to myself.
If as spirit I had thrust away the world in the deepest contempt, so as owner I thrust spirits or ideas away into their "vanity." They have no longer any power over me, as no "earthly might" has power over the spirit.
The child was realistic, taken up with the things of this world, till little by little he succeeded in getting at what was back of these very things; the youth was idealistic, inspired by thoughts, till he worked his way up to where he became the man, the egoistic man, who deals with things and thoughts according to his heart's pleasure, and sets his personal interest above everything. Finally, the old man? When I become one, there will still be time enough to speak of that.