Nay, I rather think, could we look into the Account-Books of the Recording Angel for a course of centuries, no part of it is such! There are Nations in which a Friedrich is, or can be, possible; and again there are Nations in which he is not and cannot.

To be practically reverent of Human Worth to the due extent, and abhorrent of Human Want of Worth in the like proportion, do you understand that art at all?
I fear, not,--or that you are much forgetting it again! Human Merit, do you really love it enough, think you;--human Scoundrelism (brought to the dock for you, and branded as scoundrel), do you even abhor it enough?
Without that reverence and its corresponding opposite-pole of abhorrence, there is simply no possibility left.

That, my friend, is the outcome and summary of all virtues in this world, for a man or for a Nation of men.

It is the supreme strength and glory of a Nation;--without which, indeed, all other strengths, and enormities of bullion and arsenals and warehouses, are no strength.

None, I should say;--and are oftenest even the REVERSE.
Nations who have lost this quality, or who never had it, what Friedrich can they hope to be possible among them?
Age after age they grind down their Friedrichs contentedly under the hoofs of cattle on their highways; and even find it an excellent practice, and pride themselves on Liberty and Equality.