fe and the
perpetual, conditioned, and unbroken chain of existence.

Since, throughout the period which I have just described, my inner self,
my life and being, my desires and endeavours, were not discerned by my
parents, so is it with me now with regard to certain German
Governments.[11] And just as my outward life then was imperfect and
incomplete, through which incompleteness my inner life was
misunderstood, so also now the imperfection and incompleteness of my
establishment prevent people from discerning the true nature, the basis,
the source, the aim and purpose, of my desires and endeavours, and from
promoting them, after recognising their value, in a right princely and
patriotic spirit.

The misapprehension, the oppression under which I suffered in my early
years, prepared me to bear similar evils later on, and especially those
which weigh upon me in the present circumstances of my life. And as I
see my present private and public life and my destiny reflected in a
part of my former life, just so do I read and trace the present
universal life in my former individual life. Moreover, in the same way
as I tried as child or boy to educate myself to be a worthy man
according to those laws which God had implanted, unknown to me, within
my nature, so now do I strive in the same way, according to the same
laws, and by the same method, to educate the children of my country.
That for which I strove as a boy, not yet conscious of any purpose; the
human race now strives for with equal unconsciousness of purpose, but
for all that none the less truly. The race is, however, surrounded by
less favourable circumstances than those which influenced me in my
boyhood.

Life in its great as well as in its small aspects, in humanity and the
human race as well as in the individual (even though the individual man
often wilfully mars his own existence)--life, in the present, the past,
and the future, has always appeared to me as a great undivided whole, in
which one thing is explained, is justified, is conditioned and urged
forward by the other.

In order that, if it be possible, there should remain no obscurity
whatever in my actions, thoughts, and life, I shall proceed to consider
them all, down to the very latest event which has happened to me; that
is, the writing-down of this statement of my life for your Highness. My
life experience it is which urges me to do this; not any whim or
caprice. Common worldly wisdom would challenge s