 The first political pamphlet of the romantic movement was Schleiermacher’s On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, and Novalis is thoroughly influenced by this work. In On Religion, Schleiermacher advocates an egalitarian, organic, and ecumenical religion, and professes that only such a religious-political system can provide a framework within which the individual can fully grow into and take responsibility for itself. At the same time, such a religion is only possible—it can only be realized in concreto—when the individuals of a given society have generally reached at least a minimal stage of self-understanding and respect for others. Hence there is a close connection between the existence of a broad-spanning group of educated and mature individuals and the possibility of introducing a sensible religious and ultimately also political order. The problem, according to Schleiermacher, is that modern religion has been dominated by philistines who have placed themselves in between the people and the true democratic truths of the New Testament. What is needed is a rethinking of religious life—and, as part of this, a rethinking of the relationship to tradition. This is why On Religion anticipates Schleiermacher’s later writings in hermeneutics. And this point, as it is appropriated by Novalis, also establishes a connection between his hermeneutic historicism and his political philosophy.