The Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi) A Novel

by whatever branch of learning happened to be experiencing a period of high development or a renaissance.

There are many types and kinds of vocation, but the core of the experience is always the same: the soul is awakened by it, transformed or exalted, so that instead of dreams and presentiments from within a summons comes from without. A portion of reality presents itself and makes its claim.

Ruling does not require qualities of stupidity and coarseness, as conceited intellectuals sometimes think. But it does require wholehearted delight in extraverted activity, a bent for identifying oneself with outward goals, and of course also a certain swiftness and lack of scruple about the choice of ways to attain success. And these are traits th

universitas litterarum,

The great Oneness begets the two poles; the two poles beget the power of Darkness and of Light.

Now they had to study just as stringently and methodically as the engineers and technicians of the past, if not more so.

Moreover, they had to learn to renounce all those benefits which previous generations of scholars had considered worth striving for:

was taken over by mathematicians.

it was played both in England and Germany before it was “invented” here in the Musical Academy of Cologne, and was given the name it bears to this day,