Mein Kampf
of carrying it out. But what others considered a weakness in Feder’s arguments I thought was their strong point.
The task of the program-maker is not to distinguish the varying degrees to which a cause can be realized, but to expound the cause as such. That is to say, he should be concerned less with the method than with the goal. But there the essential verity of an idea is the deciding factor, not the difficulty of carrying it out. The moment the program-maker attempts to take into account so-called “expediency” and “reality” instead of absolute truth, his work will cease to be a pole star of seeking humanity, and will become instead a formula for every-day use. The program-maker of a movement must determine its goal; the politician must attempt to reach it. Accordingly the thinking of the one is determined by eternal truth, the action of the other by the practical reality of the moment. The greatness of the one lies in the absolute abstract correctness of his idea, that of the other in his proper approach to the given facts and his expedient use of them; here the goal set up by the program-maker must serve as his guiding star. Whereas the test of a politician’s importance may be considered the success of his plans and actions—that is, their becoming a reality—, the final intention of the program-maker can never be realized. Human thought can indeed grasp truths, and set up goals as clear as crystal, but their complete fulfilment will be prevented by the universal imperfection and inadequacy of man. The more true in the abstract and thus the more tremendous the idea may be, the more impossible is its perfect fulfilment so long as it depends on human beings. And for that reason the importance of the program-maker cannot be measured by the attainment of his aims, but by their rightness and the influence they have upon the development of humanity. If this were not so, the founders of religion could not be counted among the greatest men on this earth, since the fulfilment of their ethical purposes can never even approach perfection. Even the religion of love is in its effect only the pale reflection of the will of its noble founder; but its importance is in the tendency which it
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