Assigning Prestige to one's Country.—It is the men of culture who determine the rank of their country, and they are characterised by an innumerable number of great inward experiences, which they have digested and can now value justly. In France and Italy this fell to the lot of the nobility; in Germany, where up to now the nobility has been, as a rule, composed of men who had not much intellect to boast about (perhaps this [pg 201] will soon cease to be the case), it was the task of the priests, the school teachers and their descendants.