 In the period between Faith and Love and Christianity or Europe, written only two years before Novalis’s death, there is a significant change in Novalis’s views on how a good society is best achieved. In 1798 Novalis was inspired by the idea of a democracy from above and connected the idea of education to the motivational force of monarchy. By positing their own lives and actions as examples, the king and the queen, representing at one and the same time the community of living individuals and the larger whole of the tradition, should inspire the people to strive for self-understanding and freedom through education. That is, by setting an example of autonomous thinking while, all the same, representing a continuity with the past, the royal couple would turn the monarchy into a symbol of the democratic state itself. Around 1799, however, Novalis’s view changes. He now imagines that this motivational force can only be led back to the unifying power of the church, or, more precisely, that of the papal state. At this point, the democratic ethos of his thinking is considerably weakened.