ABSTRACT
The more unconditionally high-mindedness controls conduct in its entirety, the more likely it is that not only the achievements of the surrounding world but also all its concerns are rejected, and 'pronounced' to be nothing. High-mindedness denies the value-content and existential weight of what is outside the ego; the man of high-mindedness is 'sufficient unto himself'. The actual coming to terms with the multiplicity of egos – rather as in the schema of the liberal and atomistic conception of society – comes nowhere near abolishing the high-mindedness. However, neither certain concrete signs of 'superiority' which represent neither the ego, nor a certain element of emptiness can ever be totally absent from high-mindedness. Whatever special form high-mindedness may take the two intentions of ego-superiority and of ego-isolation are inseparably connected in it. The ego of high-mindedness is 'his own God': hence empirical allusions to a clear 'God-likeness', and hence also the hint that a need of things is simply not felt.
