this third
state only can it be said to be free--_i.e._, to possess itself.
Education cannot create; it can only help to develop into reality the
previously-existent possibility; it can only help to bring forth to
light the hidden life.

Sec. 24. All culture, in whatever line, must pass through these two
stages of estrangement and of reunion; the reunion being not of two
different things, but the recognition of itself by thought, and its
acceptance of itself as itself. And the more complete is the
estrangement--_i.e._, the more perfectly can the thought be made to
view itself as a somewhat entirely foreign to itself, to look upon it as
a different and independent somewhat--the more complete and perfect will
be its union with and acceptance of its object as one with itself when
the recognition does finally take place. Through culture we are led to
this conscious possession of our own thought. Plato gives to the
feeling, with which knowledge must necessarily begin, the name of
wonder. But wonder is not knowledge; it is only the first step towards
it. It is the half-terrified attention which the mind fixes on an
object, and the half-terror would be impossible did it not dimly
forebode that it was something of its own nature at which it was
looking. The child delights in stories of the far-off, the strange, and
the wonderful. It is as if they hoped to find in these some solution to
themselves--a solution which they have, as it were, asked in vain of
familiar scenes and objects. Their craving for such is the proof of how
far their nature transcends all its known conditions. They are like
adventurous explorers who push out to unknown regions in hopes of
finding the freedom and wealth which lies only within themselves. They
want to be told about things which they never saw, such as terrible
conflagrations, banditti life, wild animals, gray old ruins, Robinson
Crusoes on far-off, happy islands. They are irresistibly attracted by
whatever is highly colored and dazzlingly lighted. The child prefers the
story of Sinbad the Sailor to any tales of his own home and nation,
because mind has this necessity of getting, as it were, outside of
itself so as to obtain a view of itself. As the child grows to youth he
is, from the same reasons, desirous of traveling.

Sec. 25. Work may be defined as the activity of the mind in a conscious
concentration on, and absorption in, some object, with the purpose of
acquiring or producing it. Play