[434] There, collectivism, hierarchy, aristocracy, and many other forms can prevail without interference from the point of view of the individual meaning before [i.e. significance to] God^a. The second type is rational^b individualism^c. The rational individualism is the result of the development of the modern mind since the second half of the Renaissance^d, and is based on the idea that the divine logos^e is present in every individual mind^f and makes it possible for every individual mind to act according to the principles of reason. Of course this concept^g of reason is not the deteriorized concept of reasonING, which we use today in the deteriorized philosophies of the 19th century; but it is the classical concept of reason^h, reason as a structure of the human mind and the structure of the world which is encountered by the human mind--reason as structure of MEANING, in all realms of life, in theoretical as well as in practical. Now this concept of reason is applied to every individual human being, and the presupposition is that every individual is able to develop, out of this potentiality, actual rationalityⁱ. The people of Enlightenment^j were not stupid enough to think that people ARE

reasonable, but they were convinced that people can BECOME reasonable, because they all have potentially the same rationality, and if they are developed in the adequate way, by educational and political institutions, they can come to the age of reason, to the age of rationality in themselves and generally speaking. This produces the individualism which underlies democracy^k, namely the rational individualism of every one able to make decisions about universal problems, theoretical as well as practical, on the basis of the development of his own rationality. This of course has the consequence