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THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY -- VOLUMES 1 & 2 |
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B. HISTORICAL. SURVEY
It is impossible to give a comprehensive view of a large number of facts unless we classify them, and to classify means first of all to distinguish and then to unite. Our purpose, however, will not be served by any kind of artificial system, and all purely logical ones are of this nature: this is obviously the case in the classification of plants, from Theophrastus to Linnaeus, and it is equally so in the attempts to group artists in schools.. Some arbitrary treatment, it is true, is inevitable in systematic classification, for System is an evolution of the thinking brain and serves the special needs of the human understanding. It is therefore essential that this ordering understanding should take into consideration not merely units but as large a number of phenomena as possible, and that the eye should see as keenly and accurately as possible: in this way the result of its activity will combine a maximum of observation with a minimum of subjective additions. We admire the acuteness and the knowledge of men like Ray, Jussieu, Cuvier, Endlicher: above all we should admire their sharpness of sight, for it is the subjection of thought to intuition that distinguishes them; the intuitive (i.e., perceptive) grasp of the whole with them forms the basis of the classification of the parts. Goethe's warning first to distinguish and then to unite, we must therefore supplement by the observation that only he who surveys a Whole is capable of making distinctions within it. It was in this way that the immortal Bichat founded modern Histology -- in this connection a most instructive example. Till his time human anatomy was merely a description of the separate parts of the body, as they are distinguished by their various functions; he was the first to demonstrate the identity of the tissues of which the individual organs, however various, are built up, and this rendered rational anatomy possible. Just as no great advance was made until his time, for the simple reason that the individual organs of the body had been regarded as the unities to be distinguished, so we too toil and moil over the individual organs of Teutonism, that is to say, its nations, and overlook the fact that we are here face to face with a unity, and that, in order to understand the anatomy and physiology of this collective entity, we must first recognise the unity as such, but then "isolate the various tissues and investigate each of them, no matter in what organ it is found, in order finally to study each single organ in its peculiar characteristics." [1] Now in order to gain a vivid conception of both the present and the past of Teutonism we should need a Bichat to classify the whole material and then to place it rightly, i.e., naturally classified, before our eyes. And since no such man is at present to be found, let us do the best we can for ourselves. We must, of course, refrain from all those extremely prevalent but false analogies between the animal body and the social body, and learn the general method from men like Bichat: first of all to fix our eye upon the whole, then upon its elementary parts, disregarding for the moment all that is intermediate. The various manifestations of our life can be classified, I think, under three comprehensive heads: Knowledge, Civilisation, Culture. These are in a way "elements," but of so complex a nature that it would be well to break them up further at once, and the following Table may be regarded as an attempt to give a very simple classification:
Bichat's fundamental anatomical Table became a lasting possession of science, but gradually it was very much simplified and by this means there was a great gain in perspicuity; in the case of my Table the opposite procedure may probably have to be followed: my desire to simplify has, perhaps, prevented me from recognising a sufficient number of elements. Bichat, of course, by his classification, laid the foundation of a comprehensive work and a whole science; I, on the other hand, am merely setting down in all modesty, in this my last chapter, a thought which has been of service to myself and may be so to others; but I do not claim that it possesses scientific importance. But before making a practical use of my classification I must briefly explain it. This will obviate misunderstandings and serve to meet objections. Moreover, I can only prove the value of the division into Knowledge, Civilisation and Culture if we are agreed as to the significance of the individual elements. I take Discovery to mean the enriching of knowledge by concrete facts: in the first place we have to consider the discovery of ever greater portions of our planets, that is, the practical extension in space of the material of our knowledge and creative activity. But every other extension of the boundaries of our knowledge is likewise discovery: the study of the cosmos, the revelation of the infinitely small, the excavation of buried ruins, the discovery of hitherto unknown languages, &c. -- Science is something essentially different: it is the methodical elaboration of that which has been discovered into conscious, systematic knowledge. Without something discovered, that is, without concrete material -- given by experience, accurately determined by observation -- it would be merely a methodological phantom; vanishing it would leave us with only its mantle as mathematics and its skeleton as logic. It is just science, however, that is the greatest promoter of discovery. When Galvani's laboratory attendant saw the leg-muscles of a sensitised frog quiver, he had discovered a fact; Galvani himself had not noticed it at all; [2] but when this great scientist was told of the fact, there flashed through his brain a brilliantly intellectual thought, something altogether different from the gaping astonishment of the attendant or the unknown current that passed along the frog's leg: to him with his scientific training was revealed the vision of extensive connections with all kinds of known and still unknown facts, and this spurred him on to endless experiments and variously adapted theories. From this example the difference between science and discovery is obvious. Aristotle had already said, It first collect facts, then unite them by thought"; the first is discovery, the second science. Justus Liebig, whom I quote in this chapter with the greatest pleasure, since he stands for all that is most thorough in science, writes as follows: "All (scientific) investigation is deductive or aprioristic. Empirical inquiry in the ordinary sense does not exist at all. An experiment which is not led up to by a theory, i.e., by an idea, stands to natural investigation in the same relation as jingling with a child's rattle does to music." [3] This applies to every science, for all science is natural science. And although the boundary-line is frequently difficult to draw -- i.e., difficult for the man who has not been present at the work in the laboratory -- yet it is absolutely real and leads, in the first place, to the recognition of the important fact that nine-tenths of the so-called scientist~ of the nineteenth century were merely laboratory assistants who either, without having any prior idea, discovered facts by accident, that is to say, collected material or slavishly followed the ideas proclaimed by the few pre-eminent men -- (a Cuvier, a Jacob Grimm, a Bopp, a Robert Bunsen, a Robert Mayer, a Clerk Maxwell, a Darwin, a Pasteur, a Savigny, an Edward Reuss, &c.) -- and did some useful work, thanks solely to the light and leading of such men. We must never lose sight of this "lower" boundary of science. Nor must the upper boundary be forgotten. For as soon as the mind ceases, as in Galvani's case, to co-ordinate observed facts by a "prior idea" and thus to organise them into knowledge which is the result of human thought -- but raises itself beyond the material which discovery has provided to free speculation -- we are dealing no longer with science but with philosophy. This transition is so great that it is like springing from one planet to another; here we have two worlds as wide apart as the difference between the tone and the air-wave, between the expression and the eye; in them the irremediable, insuperable duality of our nature manifests itself. In the interests of science, which cannot grow to be an element of culture without philosophy, in the interests of philosophy, without which science is like a monarch without a people, it is desirable that every educated person should be clearly conscious of this boundary But there has been and still is an infinite amount of sinning in this very respect; the nineteenth century was a witches' kitchen of notions jumbled together, of unnatural endeavours to unite science and philosophy. and those who made this attempt could, like the witches' brood in Faust, say of themselves:
The thoughts of course are in accordance, for there is no such thing as lucky hits, things never fit. So much with regard to the meaning of Science. As for Industry, I should personally be inclined to include it in the group Knowledge, for of all human vital activities it stands in the most direct dependence upon knowledge; it is, like Science, based at all points upon discovery, and every .. industrial" invention signifies a combination of known facts by means of a "prior" idea, as Liebig said. But I am afraid of provoking needless contradiction, since industry is, on the other hand, the very closest ally of economic development, and accordingly a decisive factor of all civilisation. No power in the world can hold back an accomplished fact of industry. Industry is almost like a blind power of nature: it cannot be resisted, and although it may seem to have the submissive obedience of a tamed animal, yet no one knows to what it may lead. The development of the technique of explosives, of rifles, of steam-engines are examples and proofs. As Emerson pointedly says, "Engineering in our age is like a balloon that has flown away with the aeronauts." [5] On the other hand, the example of printing is of itself enough adequately to show how direct is the reacting influence of industry upon knowledge and science. By Economy I understand the whole economic condition of a people; even when conditions of culture are high, it is frequently a very simple affair, as, (or example, in the earliest days in India; often it develops to extreme complexity, as in ancient Babylon and among us Teutons. This element forms the centre of all civilisation; its influence extends upwards as well as downwards, and stamps its character upon all manifestations .of social life. Certainly discoveries, science and industry contribute mightily to the shaping of the economic conditions of life, but they themselves both draw the possibility of their rise and continuance from the economic organism and are furthered or hindered by it. Thus it is that the nature, direction and tendency of a definite economic system can exercise upon the collective life of the people a stimulating influence of unparalleled greatness, or may paralyse it for ever. All politics -- our dogmatic friends may say what they like-are based finally upon economic conditions: politics, however, are the visible body, economic conditions the unseen ramification of veins. This changes but slowly, but if it has once changed -- if the blood circulates more sluggishly than formerly, or if, on the contrary, it begets new anastomoses and brings new vigour to every limb -- then politics too must follow suit, whether they will or not. However much appearances may deceive us, a civic community never springs into prosperity because of, but in spite of its politics politics alone can never offer to a civic community a perpetual guarantee of vigour -- for proof look to later Rome and Byzantium. England is supposed to be the political nation above all others, but if we look more closely we shall find that all this political mechanism is intended to fetter the specifically political power, and to give free rein to the other unpolitical, living forces, especially the economic: Magna Charta itself denotes the annihilation of political justice in favour of free jurisdiction. All politics are in their essence merely reaction, and in fact reaction against economic movements; it is only secondarily that they grow to a threatening force, though never to one that is finally decisive. [6] And though there is nothing in the world so difficult as to discuss general economic questions, without talking nonsense -- so mysteriously do the Norns (Acquiring, Keeping, Utilising) weave the destiny of nations and their individual members -- we can nevertheless easily realise the importance of economy as the predominant and central factor of ail civilisation. Politics imply not only the relation of one nation to the others, and not merely the conflict within the State between the circles and persons that seek to obtain influence, but also the whole visible and, so to speak, artificial organisation of the social body. In the second chapter of this book (vol. i. p. 143) I have defined law as arbitrariness in place of instinct in the relations of men to each other; now the State is the essence and embodiment of collective, indispensable and yet arbitrary agreements, while Politics are the State at work. The State is, as it were, the carriage, politics the driver; but this driver is at the same time cartwright and constantly mending his vehicle; occasionally he upsets it and must build a new one, but he possesses for this purpose no material but the old, and thus the new vehicle is, but for trifling external details, usually a mere repetition of the former -- unless indeed economic progress has in the meantime contributed some material that was not there before. In this tabular list Church is classed with politics: no other course was open to me; if the State is the essence of all arbitrary agreements, then the "Church," as we usually and officially understand the word, is the most perfect example of super-refined arbitrariness. For here it is not merely a question of the relations between man and man; the organising tendency of society lays its grip upon the inner personality of the individual and prevents him even there -- as far as it can -- from obeying the necessity of his nature; for it forces upon him as Law an arbitrarily established, minutely defined confession of Faith and, in addition, a fixed ceremonial for the lifting up of his heart and soul to God. To prove the need for Churches would be to carry owls to Athens, but this will not shake our conviction that we have here laid our finger upon the sorest spot of all politics, upon the spot where they reveal their most perilous side. In other ways politics might commit many really criminal mistakes, but in this respect there is very great temptation to commit the most serious of all crimes, the real If sin against the Holy Spirit," I mean, Violence to the inner man, the robbery of personality. My next group I have entitled "Weltanschauung" [7] (perception of the problems of life) not "Philosophy," for this Greek word (loving wisdom) is a miserably pale and cold vocable, and here we require above all colour and warmth. Wisdom! What is wisdom? I hope I shall not be compelled to quote Socrates and the Pythian priestess to justify my rejection of a Greek word. The German language has here, as it frequently has, infinite depth; it feeds us with good thoughts which are bountifully provided, like the mother's milk for the child. Welt meant originally not the earth, not the Cosmos, but mankind. [8] Though the eye roam through space, though thought may follow it like the elves who ride on sunbeams and girdle the earth without effort, yet man can only arrive at knowledge of himself, his wisdom will ever be only human wisdom; his Weltanschauung, however macrocosmically it extend itself in the delusion of embracing the All, will ever be but the microcosmic image in the brain of an individual man. The first part of this word Weltanschauung throws us imperatively back upon our human nature and its limits. Absolute wisdom (as the Greek formula would have it), any absolute knowledge however small, is out of the question; we can only have human knowledge, only what various men at different times have thought that they knew. And now, what is the human knowledge? The German word answers the question: to deserve the name knowledge, it must be Anschauung (intuitive perception). As Arthur Schopenhauer says: "In truth all truth and all wisdom rest finally on intuitive perception." And because this is so, the relative value of a Weltanschauung depends more upon power of seeing than upon abstract power of thinking, more upon the correctness of the perspective, upon the vividness of the picture, upon its artistic qualities (if I may so express my meaning), than upon the amount seen. The difference between the intuitively Perceived and the Known is like the difference between Rembrandt's "Landscape with the Three Trees" and a photograph taken from the same point. But the wisdom that lies in the word Weltanschauung is not yet exhausted; for the Sanscrit root of schauen means dichten (to invent poetically); as Rembrandt's example proves, schauen, far from being a passive reception of impressions, is the most active exercise of the personality; in intuitive perception every one is of necessity a poet, otherwise he "perceives" nothing at all, but merely reflects what he sees, after the mechanical fashion of an animal. [9] Hence the original meaning of the word schon (related to schauen) is not "beautiful," but "clearly visible, brightly lighted." This very clearness is the work of the observing subject; nature is not clear in itself, it remains, in the first instance for us, as Faust complains, "noble and dumb"; similarly the image in our brain is not illuminated from without: to see it accurately a bright torch must be kindled within. Beauty is man's addition: by it nature grows into art, and chaos into intuitive perception. Here Schiller's remark concerning the Beautiful and the True holds good:
The ancients, it is true, thought that Chaos was a past, outworn stage of the world. As even Hesiod writes: First of all Chaos arose; so we are to suppose that there followed a gradual development to more and more perfect form, but, in the face of cosmic nature, this is evidently an absurd conception, since nature is obviously nothing if not the rule of law, without which it would remain utterly unrecognisable; but where Law prevails, there is no Chaos. No, it is in the head of man -- nowhere else -- that Chaos exists, until in fact it is shaped by "intuitive perception" into clearly visible, brightly illuminated form; and it is this creative shaping that we have to describe as Weltanschauung. [11] When Professor Virchow and others boast that our age" needs no philosophy," inasmuch as it is the "age of science," they are simply extolling the gradual return from form to chaos. But the history of science convicts them of falsehood; for science was never more intuitive than in the nineteenth century, and that can never be except with the support of a comprehensive philosophy; in fact the two provinces have been so much confused that men like Ernst Haeckel actually became founders of religious theories -- that Darwin is constantly striding along with one foot resting upon pure matter and the other upon alarmingly daring philosophical assumptions -- and that nine-tenths of living scientists believe as firmly in atoms and ether as a painter of the Trecento in the tiny naked soul that flits away from the mouth of the dead. If robbed of all philosophy man would be bereft of all culture, a great two-footed ant. Concerning Religion I have already said so much in this book, pointing on more than one occasion to its importance as philosophy or as an element of philosophy, that I may venture to omit all that I might still have to say upon the subject. Genuine, experienced philosophy cannot be separated from genuine, experienced religion; the words denote not two different things, but two tendencies of mind, two moods. Thus, for example, in the case of the contemplative Indians, we see how religion almost completely merges into philosophy, while cognition consequently forms its central point, whereas in the case of men of action (St. Paul, St. Francis, Luther) faith is the axis of their whole philosophy, and philosophical cognition is like an almost disregarded peripheric boundary- line. The difference which here appears so startling does not in reality reach any great depth. The really fundamental difference lies between the idealistic and the materialistic way of viewing life's problems-whether as philosophy or religion. [11] In the section on the rise and growth of Teutonic philosophy up to Kant these various relations will, I hope, become perfectly clear, and it will be seen, in particular, that ethics and philosophy are inseparately bound together. The connections in the downward direction, between Philosophy and Science, between Religion and Church, are obvious; the relationship with Art has already been mentioned. Regarding Art, the meaning that must be assigned to the word in our Indo-European world, and its great importance for Culture, Science and Civilisation, I must refer the reader to the whole first chapter. I think that the meaning of the terms employed in my tabular list is now clear. It must be admitted at once that in so summary a method much remains uncertain; but the loss is not great, on the contrary brevity constrains us to think accurately. Thus, perhaps, I may be asked under what heading medicine falls, since some have regarded it as an art rather than a science. But there is here, I think, a wrong use of the word art, a mistake made also by Liebig when he asserts that "99 per cent of natural investigation is art." Liebig bases his assertion upon the fact that imagination is an important factor in all higher scientific work, and secondly, that mechanical inventions are of decisive importance in every advance of knowledge: but imagination is not art, it is merely its instrument, and the implements that serve science, though artificial, belong absolutely and obviously, in their origin and purpose, to the sphere of industry. And the frequently emphasised advantage of the intuitive glance in the case of the doctor only establishes a relationship with art, which occurs in every sphere of life; medicine is and remains a science. Education, on the other hand, when regarded as a matter of schools and instruction, belongs to "Politics and Church." By it minds are moulded and firmly woven into the many-coloured web of convention; there is nothing which State and Church desire so ardently as the possession of the schools, and nothing about which they quarrel so obstinately as they do about their claims to the right of influencing them. In the same way every manifestation of social life can, without artificial forcing, be fitted into my short tabular list. Whoever will take the trouble to pass in review the various civilisations which are known to us, will find that their remarkable divergence is due to differences in the relations between Knowledge, Civilisation (in the narrower sense) and Culture, and, to be more minute, is determined by too great insistence upon neglect of one or the other of the seven elements. No study is more likely to throw a light upon our own peculiar individuality. We find in Judaism, as always, a very extreme and therefore instructive example. Here Knowledge and Culture, that is to say, the terminal points, are wanting; in no province have the Jews made discoveries; science is under a ban except where medicine has been a paying industry; art is absent; religion a rudiment; philosophy a digest of misunderstood Helleno- rabian formulas and spells. On the other hand, the comprehension of economic relations was abnormally developed; in the sphere of industry they had little inventive talent, but they exploited its value in the cleverest manner; politics were unexampled in their simplicity, because the Church usurped the monopoly of all arbitrary decisions. I do not know who it was -- I think it was Gobineau -- that called the Jews an anti-civilising power; on the contrary, they were, like all Semitic half-castes, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, &c., exclusively a civilising power. Thence the peculiarly unsatisfactory character of these Semitic peoples, for they have neither root nor blossom: their civilisation is neither based upon a knowledge slowly acquired by themselves and consequently really their own, nor does it grow into an individual, natural, necessary culture. We find the very opposite extreme in the Indo-Aryans, for here civilisation seems to be reduced, so to speak, to a minimum; industry carried on by Pariahs, economy left as simple as possible, politics never launching forth upon great and daring schemes; [12] on the other hand, remarkable diligence and success in the sciences (at least in some) and a tropical growth of culture (philosophy and poetry). Regarding the richness and complexity of Indo-Aryan philosophy and the sublimity of Indo-Aryan ethics I need say nothing more -- in the course of this whole work I have kept the eye of the reader fixed upon them. In art the Indo-Aryans did not possess anything like the creative power of the Hellenes, but their poetical literature is the most extensive in the world; in many examples it is of the sublimest beauty and of such inexhaustible richness of invention that the Indian scholars had to divide the drama into thirty-six classes with a view to creating order in this one branch of poetical production. [12] In the present connection, however, the most important observation is the following. In spite of their achievements in the sphere of mathematics, grammar &c., the culture of the Indians considerably surpassed not only their civilisation but also their knowledge; hence they were what we call "top- heavy," all the more so, since their science was almost purely formal and lacking in the element of discovery, that is to say, it lacked the real material, or at least did not acquire new material to nourish the higher qualities and to keep the faculties constantly exercised. Here we notice something which will force itself again and again upon our attention, that Civilisation is a relatively indifferent central mass, while close relations of mutual correlation exist between Knowledge and Culture. The Indian who possesses very little capacity for empirical observation of nature, possesses likewise (and, as I hope to show, for that very reason) little artistic creative power; on the other hand. we see the abnormal development of pure brain activity conducing on the one hand to an unexampled richness of imagination and on the other to an equally unrivalled brilliancy of the logical and mathematical faculties. Again, the Chinese would provide us with an altogether different example, if we had time at present to extricate this wain from the mud in which our national psychologists have so firmly embedded it; for the fairy tale that the Chinese were once different from what they are now -- inventive, creative, scientific -- and suddenly some thousand years ago changed their character and remained thenceforth absolutely stationary. is one which others may swallow, I will not. This people to-day lives a most thriving, active life, shows no trace of decline, swarms and grows and prospers; it was always the same as it is to-day, otherwise nature would not be nature. And what is its character? Industrious, skilful, patient, soulless. In many respects this human species bears a striking resemblance to the Jewish, especially in the total absence of all culture, and the one-sided emphasising of civilisation; but the Chinaman is much more industrious, he is the most indefatigable farm-labourer in the world, and in all manual work he has infinite skill; besides, he possesses, if not art (in our sense) at least taste. It becomes, it is true, more questionable every day whether the Chinaman possesses even moderate inventive talent, but he at least takes up anything that is conveyed to him by others, so far as his unimaginative mind can see any practical value in it, and thus he possessed, long before us, paper, printing (in primitive form), powder, the compass, and many other things. [14] His learning keeps pace with his industry. While we have to be contented with encyclopaedias in sixteen volumes, the fortunate, or shall I say unfortunate, Chinese possess printed encyclopaedias of one thousand volumes! [15] They possess more complete historical annals than any people in the world, a literature of natural history which surpasses ours in extent, whole libraries of moral handbooks, &c., ad infinitum. And what good does it all do them? They invent (?) powder and are conquered and ruled by every tiny nation; two hundred years before Christ they possess a substitute for paper, and not long after paper itself, and up to the present they have not produced a man worthy to write upon it; they print practical encyclopaedias of many thousand volumes and know nothing, absolutely nothing; they possess detailed historical annals and no history at all; they describe in admirable fashion the geography of their own country and have long possessed an instrument like the compass, but they never go on voyages of exploration, and have never discovered an inch of land. Nor have they ever produced a geographer capable of widening their horizon. One might call the Chinaman the human machine. As long as he remains in the villages which the community itself manages, occupied with irrigation, mulberry culture, rearing of children, &c., the Chinaman inspires us almost with admiration; within these narrow limits, of course, natural impulse, mechanical skill and industry are sufficient; but whenever he crosses these boundaries, he actually becomes a comical figure j for all this feverish industrial and scientific work, this collecting of material and studying and book-keeping, these imposing public examinations, this elevation of learning to the highest throne, this fabulous development under State support of industrial and technical art, lead to absolutely nothing; that which we have here, in the life of the community, called culture -- the soul -- is lacking. The Chinese possess moralists, but no philosophers, they possess mountains of poems and dramas -- for with them, as with the French of the eighteenth century, writing poetry is the fashion and part of a gentleman's education -- but they never possessed a Dante or a Shakespeare. [16] This example is obviously extremely instructive, for it proves that culture is not in itself a necessary product of knowledge and civilisation, not a consecutive evolution, but depends upon the nature of the personality, upon the individuality of the people. The Aryan Indian, with materially limited knowledge and inadequately developed civilisation, possesses a Titanic culture of eternal importance; -- the Chinaman, with a detailed knowledge of gigantic dimensions and an over-refined, feverishly active civilisation, possesses no culture at all. And just as we have failed after three centuries to impart knowledge to the negro or to civilise the American Indian, so we shall fail in our endeavour to graft culture upon the Chinaman. Each of us in fact remains what he is and was; what we erroneously call progress is the unfolding of something already present; where there is nothing, the King loses his rights. This example reveals another point with particular clearness, and I should like to emphasise it in order to supplement what I formerly said about the Indians: that without culture, i.e., without that tendency of mind to an all-uniting, all-illuminating philosophy, there can be no real knowledge. We can and should keep science and philosophy apart; certainly; but it is obvious that without profound thought no possibility of extensive science can arise; an exclusively practical knowledge, directed to facts and industry, lacks all significance. [17] This is an important fact and it is supplemented by another drawn from our experience of the Indo-Aryans, that, conversely, when the supply of the material of knowledge stops, the higher life of culture comes likewise to a standstill, and becomes ossified -- this being due, in my opinion, to the shrivelling up of creative power; for the mystery of existence remains ever the same, whether we contemplate much or little, and at every moment the extent of the Inscrutable corresponds exactly to that of the Investigated; but questioning wonder and with it creative imagination are dulled by the Familiar and unchanging. Let me give a proof of this. Those great myth-inventors, the Sumero- Accadians, were brilliant workers in the sphere of natural observation and of mathematical science; their astronomical discoveries reveal remarkable precision, i.e., prosaically sure observation: but prosaic though they might be, the discoveries evidently stimulated the imagination powerfully, and so in the case of this people we see science and myth- uilding going hand in hand. The practical talents of this people are proved by their fundamental economic and political institutions, which have come down to us: the division of the year according to the position of the sun, the institution of the week, the introduction of a duodecimal system for commerce in weighing, counting, &c.: but all these thoughts testify to an unusual power of creative imagination, and we may conclude from the remnants of their language that they were peculiarly predisposed to metaphysical thought. [18] We see in how manifold ways the threads are interwoven -- how absolutely decisive is the nature of the special racial individuality with its contrasts and unalterable character. Unfortunately I cannot continue this investigation further, but I think that even these extremely meagre indications will provide subject for much reflection, and lead to the recognition of many facts which are of importance for us at the present time. Now if we again take up our tabular list and look around to find a really harmonious man, beautifully and freely developed in all directions, there is no one in the past but the Hellene whom we shall be able to name. With him all the elements of human life shine in the fullest splendour: discovery, science, industry, economy, politics, philosophy, art: in every province he stands the test. Here we see before us a really "complete man." He did not "develop" from the Chinaman, who even when Athens was at the zenith of her glory was toiling with superfluous diligence; [19] he is not an "evolution" of the Egyptian, although he felt a quite unnecessary reverence for the latter's supposed wisdom; he does not signify an "advance" upon the Phoenician pedlar, who first acquainted him with certain rudiments of civilisation; no, it was in barbarous regions, under definite, probably hard conditions of life, that a noble human race made itself still nobler, and -- for this is even historically demonstrable -- by crossing with related but individualised branches of the main stock, acquired talents of a most various nature. This human being at once revealed himself as the man that he was to be and to remain. He developed quickly. [20] The inherited discoveries, inventions and thoughts of the world had led in the case of the Egyptians to a dead, hieratic science, united to an absolutely practical, unimaginative, honest religion; in the case of the Phoenicians to commerce and idolatry; in the case of their neighbours the Hellenes, exactly the same impulses led to science and culture, without the just demands of civilisation having to suffer. The Hellene alone possesses this many- sidedness, this perfect plasticity, which has found artistic expression in his statues; hence he deserves greater admiration and reverence than any other man, and he alone can be held up as a pattern -- not for imitation but for emulation. The Roman, whose name is in our schools linked to that of the Hellene, is almost more one-sided in his development than the Indian; while in the case of the latter culture had gradually consumed all vital powers, in the former every other gift had been from the first suppressed by political cares -- the work of legislation and the work of statecraft. He was so fully occupied with the task of civilisation that he had no strength left for knowledge or for culture. [21] In the course of his whole history the Roman discovered nothing, invented nothing; and here too we see the aforementioned law once more at work, that mysterious law of the correlation of knowledge and culture; for when he had become master of the world and began to feel the monotony of a life devoid of culture. it was too late; the welling fountain of originality, that is, of freely creative power, had absolutely dried up in him. His strong, one-sided political work presses heavily enough upon us even to-day, and deludes us into attaching to political things a predominant and independently informing significance, which they are far from possessing, and which they claim only to the prejudice of life. This digression from China to the Sumero-Accadians leads, as I think, to a fairly clear conception of our own personality and its necessary development. For we may utter it without hesitation; the Teuton is the only human being who can be compared to the Hellene. In him, too, the striking and specifically distinctive character is the simultaneous and equal development of knowledge, civilisation and culture. The many-sided and comprehensive nature of our capacities distinguishes us from all contemporary and all former races-with the single exception of the Hellenes; a fact which, by the way. is an argument in favour of the presumption that we are closely related to them. But that is why a comparative distinction is in this case of the greatest value. Thus, for example, we may surely assert that culture was the predominant element in the Greeks; they possessed the most perfect and most original poetry, out of which the rest of their art grew, and that, too, at a time when their civilisation still bore the stamp of the love of splendour -- the appreciation of beauty in spite of the elements of dependency and barbarism -- a time when their thirst for knowledge was scarcely awakened. At a later period their science suddenly made a great and ever-memorable advance, and that, too, needed the direct and happy stimulus of sublime philosophy (here again the correlation!) With these unrivalled achievements of the Hellenes their civilisation lagged far behind. Athens, it is true, was a manufacturing city (if this expression does not offend too dainty ears), and the world would never have had a Thales or a Plato had not the Hellenes as economists and crafty, enterprising merchants won for themselves wealth and leisure; they were in every sense a practical people; yet in politics -- without which no civilisation can last -- they did not reveal any particular talent, such as the Romans did; Law and State were in Athens the shuttlecock of the ambitious; nor must we overlook the phenomenon of the directly anti- ivilising measures of the most durable Greek State, Sparta. It is obvious that with us Teutons matters are essentially different. Our politics, it is true, have remained, even to the present day, clumsy, rude, awkward, yet we have proved ourselves the greatest State-builders in the world -- and this would lead us to suppose that here, as in so many things, it was imitation rather than lack of ability that stood in our way. Goethe asks with a sigh: "Who is fortunate enough to become conscious in early life of his own self and its proper connection apart from outside forms?" [22] Not even the Hellenes, and we much, much less. Our gifts have developed better, because more independently, in the whole economic sphere (commerce, trade, agriculture perhaps least of all) and reached a splendour hitherto unknown; it has been the same with industry, which quickly followed suit. What are Phoenicians and Carthaginians with their caravans and their miserable warehouses and sweating system, in comparison with a Lombardic or a Rhenish city-league, in which shrewdness, industry, invention and -- last not least -- honesty go hand in hand? [23] In our case, therefore, civilisation, the whole sphere of real civilisation, forms the central point; a good characteristic, in so far as it promises durability, but a somewhat perilous one, in that we run a risk of becoming Chinese, a risk which would become a very real one if the non- eutonic or scarcely Teutonic elements among us were ever to gain the upper hand. [24] For our unquenchable desire for knowledge would at once be enlisted in the service of mere civilisation, and thereby -- as in China -- fall under the ban of eternal sterility. The only safeguard against this is culture, which confers on us dignity and greatness, immortality, indeed -- as the ancient Greeks were wont to say -- Divinity. But in our gifts culture does not possess the predominant importance which the Hellenes assigned to it. For its importance in Hellenism I refer to my remarks in the first chapter. No one can say of us that art moulds our life, or that philosophy (in its noblest sense as a way of viewing life's problems) plays as great a part in the lives of our leading men as it did in Athens, not to speak of India. And the worst feature of the case is, that that element of culture which, to judge from countless manifestations of Celto-Slavo Teutonism, is most highly developed among us (and at the same time an ample substitute for the artistic and metaphysical talent which the majority of us lack), I mean Religion, has never been able to tear off the straitjacket which -- immediately upon our entrance into history -- was forced upon it by the unworthy hands of the Chaos of Peoples. In Jesus Christ the absolute religious genius had entered the world; no one was so well adapted to hear this divine voice as the Teuton; the present spreaders of the Gospel throughout Europe are all Teutons; and the whole Teutonic people, as the example of the rude Goths shows (vol. i. p. 553), seizes upon the words of the Gospel, repelling all foolish superstition, as we see from the history of the Arians. And yet the Gospel soon disappears and the great voice is silent; for the children of the Chaos will not abandon the sacrifice by proxy which the better spirits among the Hellenes and the Indians had long ago rejected, and the pre-eminent Prophets of the Jews had centuries before laughed out of court; all kinds of cabalistic magic and metamorphosis of matter from the late, impure Syro-Egypt came to be added; and all this, embellished and supplemented by Jewish chronicle, is henceforth the "religion" of the Teutons! Even the Reformation does not cast it off, and so becomes involved in an irreconcilable contradiction with itself; this throws the preponderance of the importance of the Reformation into a purely political sphere, that is to say, into the class of forces which are merely civilising, whereas all that it accomplishes in the sphere of culture is an inconsistent affirmation (redemption by faith -- and yet retention of materialistic superstition) and a fragmentary negation (rejection of a portion of the dogmatic accretions and retention of the rest). [25] In the want of a true religion that has sprung from, and is compatible with, our own individuality, I see the greatest danger for the future of the Teuton; this is his vulnerable heel; he who wounds our Achilles there will lay him low. Look back at the Hellene! Led by Alexander, he showed himself capable of conquering the whole world; but his weak point was politics; being gifted with extravagant talents even in this respect, he produced the foremost doctrinaires of politics, the most ingenious founders of States, the most brilliant orators on State affairs; but the success which he achieved in other spheres failed him in this: -- he created nothing great and lasting; that was why he fell; it was solely his pitiful political condition that delivered him over to the Romans; with his freedom he lost his vital power; the first harmoniously complete human being was a thing of the past, and naught but his shadow now walked upon the earth. I think that in respect of religion we Teutons are in a similar case. A race so profoundly and inwardly religious is unknown to history; we are not more moral than other people, but much more religious. In this respect we occupy a position between the Indo-Aryan and the Hellene; our inborn metaphysical and religious need impels us to a much more artistic (i.e., more illuminating) philosophy than that of the Indian, to a much more spiritual and therefore profounder one than that of the Hellenes, who surpass us in art. It is this very standpoint which deserves to be called religion, to distinguish it from philosophy and from art. If we tried to enumerate the true saints, the great preachers, the merciful helpers, the mystics of our race, if we were to inquire how many have suffered torture and death for their faith, if we were to investigate the important part played by religious conviction in all the most important men of our history, we should find the task endless; our whole glorious art in fact develops round religion as its centre, just as the earth revolves round the sun; it develops only partly and outwardly round this and that special Church, but everywhere and inwardly around the longing, religious heart. And in spite of this vigorous religious life we show from the first the most absolute want of unity in religious matters. What do we find today? The Anglo- Saxon -- impelled by his unerring vital instinct -- clings to some traditional Church, which does not interfere in politics, in order that he may at least possess religion as the centre of his life; the Norseman and the Slav dissolve themselves into a hundred weakly sects, well aware that they are being led astray, but incapable of finding the right path; we see the Frenchman languishing in dreary scepticism or the most foolish humbug of fashion; the Southern Europeans have now fallen a prey to the most unvarnished idolatry, and are consequently no longer classed among cultured races; the German stands apart and waits for a God to descend once more from Heaven, or chooses in despair between the religion of Isis and the religion of imbecility called "Force and Matter." In the various sections I shall have to return to many points to which I have here alluded; in the meantime it is sufficient if, in paving the way for a further comparative characterisation of our Teutonic world, I have revealed its most pre-eminent quality, and at the same time its most perilous weakness. A few pages back I invoked the Bichat of the future; now we reach a
point where we can offer him some indications 1. DISCOVERY (FROM MARCO POLO TO GALVANI) To the sum of what is to be known there is obviously no limit. In science -- in contrast to the material of knowledge -- a stage of development might certainly be conceived at which all the great laws of nature should have been discovered: for we have to deal with a question of a relation between phenomena and the human reason, and so of something which, in consequence of the special nature of our reason, is strictly limited, and, as it were, "individual," -- inasmuch as it is accommodated to and pertinent to the individuality of the human race. Science would in this case find an inexhaustible scope within itself, only in a more and more refined analysis. On the other hand, all experience proves that the realm of phenomena and of forms is infinite and can never be completely investigated. No geography, physiography or geology, however scientific, can tell us anything at all about the peculiarities of a yet undiscovered country; a newly discovered moss, a newly discovered beetle, is an absolutely new thing, an actual and permanent enrichment of our conceptive world, of the material of our knowledge. Naturally, for our own human convenience, we shall at once assign beetle and moss to some established species, and if no pinching and squeezing will accomplish this, we shall for the sake of classification invent a new "species," incorporating it, if possible, in a well-known "order"; nevertheless the beetle in question and the moss in question remain, as before, something perfectly individual, something that could not be invented or reasoned out, a new unexpected embodiment, so to speak, of the cosmic plan, and this embodiment we now possess, whereas formerly we lacked it. It is the same with all phenomena. The refraction of light by the prism, the presence of electricity everywhere, the circulation of the blood .... every discovered fact means an enrichment. "The individual manifestations of the laws of nature," says Goethe, "all lie like Sphinxes, rigid, unyielding, silent outside of us. Every new phenomenon perceived is a discovery, every discovery a possession." This makes the distinction within the sphere of knowledge between discovery and science very clear; the one has to deal with the Sphinxes that lie without us, the other means the elaboration of these perceptions into the new form of an inner possession. [26] That is why we can very well compare the raw material of knowledge, i.e., the mass of the Discovered, to the raw material of property, that is, money. So long ago as the year 1300 the old chronicler Robert of Gloucester wrote, "For the more that a man can, the more worth he is." He who knows much is rich, he who knows little is poor. But this very comparison, which, to begin with, will seem somewhat commonplace, serves excellently to teach us how to lay our finger on the critical point as regards knowledge; for the value of money depends altogether on· the use which we are able to make of it. That riches give power and poverty cripples, is a truism; the most stupid observes it daily in himself and in others, and yet Shakespeare, one of the wisest of men, wrote:
And, as a matter of fact, life teaches us that no simple, direct relation prevails between riches and power. Just as hyperaemia or superfluity of blood in the organism proves a hindrance to vital activity and finally even causes death. so we frequently observe how easily great riches can paralyse. It is the same with knowledge. I have shown in a previous section how the Indians were ruined by anaemia of the material of knowledge, they were, so to speak, starved idealists; the Chinese, on the other hand, resembled bloated upstarts, who had no idea how to employ the huge capital of knowledge which they have collected -- being without initiative, imagination or idea. The common proverb, "Knowledge is power," is not, therefore, absolutely valid, it depends upon the person who knows. It might be said of knowledge, even more than of gold, that in itself it is nothing at all, absolutely nothing, and just as likely to injure a man and utterly ruin him as to elevate and ennoble him. The ignorant Chinese peasant is one of the most efficient and happy men in the world, the learned Chinaman is a plague, he is the cancer of his people; that is why that wonderful man, Lao-tze-who has been so shamefully misunderstood by our modern commentators, reared as they have been on phrases of "humanity" -- was absolutely right in saying: "Alas, if we [the Chinese] could only give up our great knowledge and do away with learning, our people would be a hundred times more prosperous." [27] Thus here again we are thrown 'back upon individuality, natural capacities, inborn character. A minimum of knowledge suffices one human race, more is fatal, for it has no organ to digest it; in the case of another the thirst for knowledge is natural, and the people pines away when it can convey no nourishment for this need; it also understands how to elaborate in a hundred ways the continual stream of the material of knowledge; not only for the transformation of outward life, but for the continual enrichment of thought and action. The Teutons are in this case. It is not the amount of their knowledge that deserves admiration -- for all knowledge constantly remains relative -- but the fact that they possessed the rare capacity to acquire it, that is, ceaselessly to discover, ceaselessly to force the " silent Sphinxes" to speak, and in addition the capacity to absorb, so to say, what had been taken up, so that there was always room for new matter, without causing hypertrophy. We see how infinitely complex every individuality is. But I hope that from these few remarks, in union with those in the preceding part of this chapter, the reader will without difficulty grasp the peculiar importance of knowledge for the life of the Teuton, knowledge of course in its simplest form, as the discovery of facts. He will also recognise that in many ways this -- in a certain sense purely material -- gift is connected with his higher and highest capacities. Only remarkable philosophical gifts and only an extremely active economic life can render the consumption, digestion, and utilisation of so much knowledge possible. It is not the knowledge that has created the vigour; the great superfluity of vigour has ceaselessly striven to acquire ever wider knowledge, in exactly the same way as it has striven to acquire more and more possession in other spheres. This is the true inner source of the victorious career of the zeal for knowledge, which from the thirteenth century onwards never flags. He who grasps this fact will follow the history of discoveries not like a child, but with understanding. When we contemplate this phenomenon which is so characteristically individualistic, we are at once bound to be impressed by the connection of the various sides of the individuality. I have just said that our treasure of knowledge is due to our keenness to possess; I had no intention to attach any evil signification to this word; possession is power, power is freedom. Moreover, all such keenness implies not merely a longing to increase our power by laying hold of what lies outside of ourselves, but also the longing for renunciation of self. Here, as in love, the contrasts go hand in hand; we take, in order to take, but we also take in order to give. And precisely as we recognised in the case of the Teuton an affinity between the founder of States and the artist, [28] so a certain noble striving after possession is closely related to the capacity to create new things out of what is possessed, and to present them to the world for its enrichment. But in spite of all we must not overlook one fact in the history of our discoveries, what a great part has been played quite directly and undisguisedly by the craving for gold. For at the one end of the work of discovery there stands, as the simple broad basis of everything else, the investigation of the earth, the discovery of the planet which is the abode of man; it was this that first taught us with certainty the shape and nature of our planet, and at the same time the fundamental facts concerning man's position in the cosmos; from it we first learnt full details concerning the various races of men, the nature of rocks, the vegetable and animal world; at the extreme other end of the same work stands the investigation of the inner constitution of visible matter, what we today call chemistry and physics, an extremely mysterious and, till a short time ago, doubtful interference with the bowels of nature, savouring of magic, but at the same time a most important source of our present knowledge and our present power. [29] Now in the opening up of these two spheres of knowledge, in the voyages of discovery and in alchemy as well, the direct search for gold was for centuries the impelling power. Besides this motive and above it, we certainly always find in the great individual pioneers something else -- a pure ideal power; a Columbus is ready at any moment to die for his idea, an Albertus Magnus is vaguely pursuing the great problems of the world; but such men would not have found the needful support nor would bands of followers, indispensable for the toilsome work of discovery, have joined them, had not the hope of immediate gain spurred them on. The hope of finding gold led to keener observation, it doubled the inventive power, it inspired the most daring hypotheses, it conferred infinite endurance and contempt of death. After all it is much the same today: the States, it is true, no longer scramble for the yellow metal, as the Spaniards and Portuguese of the sixteenth century did, yet the gradual discovery of the world and its subjection to Teutonic influence depends solely upon whether it will pay. Even a Livingstone has after all proved a pioneer for capitalists in search of high interest, and it is they who first carry out what the individual idealist could not accomplish. Similarly, modem chemistry could not dispense with expensive laboratories and instruments, and the State maintains these, not out of enthusiasm for pure science, but because the industrial inventions that spring therefrom enrich the country. [30] The South Pole, which still defies the twentieth century, would be discovered and overrun in six months if people thought that rocks of pure gold rise there above the waves. As the reader can see, I have no wish to represent ourselves as better and nobler than we are; honesty is the best policy, as the proverb says; and this holds good even here. For from this observation regarding the power of gold we are brought to recognise a fact which, once our attention is called to it, we shall find confirmed on all sides: that the Teuton has a peculiar capacity to make a good use of his shortcomings; the ancients would have said that he was a favourite of the Gods; I think that I see in this a proof of his great; capacity for culture. A commercial company, with an eye only to good interest and not always proceeding conscientiously, subjugates India, but its activity is kept alive and ennobled by a whole succession of stainless military heroes and great statesmen, and it was the officials of this company who -- fired by noble enthusiasm and qualified for their task by a learning acquired by great self-sacrifice -- enriched our culture by the revelation of the old Aryan language. We are thrilled with horror when we read the history of the annihilation of the Indians in North America: everywhere on the side of the Europeans there is injustice, treachery, savage cruelty; [31] and yet how decisive was this very work of destruction for the later development of a noble, thoroughly Teutonic nation upon that soil! A comparative glance at the South American mestizo colonies convinces us of this. [32] That boundless passion displayed in the pursuit of gold leads to the recognition of yet another fact, one that is essential for the history of our discoveries. Passion may, indeed, influence very various parts of our being -- that depends upon the individual; characteristic of our race are daring, endurance, self-sacrifice; great power of conception, which causes the individual to become quite wrapt up in his idea. But this element of passion does not by any means reveal itself merely in the sphere of egoistical interest: it confers on the artist power to work on amid poverty and neglect; it provides statesmen, reformers and martyrs; it has also given us our discoverers. Rousseau's remark, "Il n'y a que de grandes passions que jassent de grandes choses," is probably not so universally true as he thought, but it is absolutely true of us Teutons. In our great journeys of discovery, as in our attempts to transform substances, the hope of gain has been the great incentive, but in no other sphere, unless it be in that of medicine, has this succeeded. Here then, was the passionate impulse dominant -- an impulse likewise towards possession, but it was the possession of knowledge, purely as knowledge. Here we have a peculiar and specially to be venerated aspect of the purely ideal impulse; to me it seems closely related to the artistic and the religious impulse; it explains that intimate connection between culture and knowledge, the puzzling nature of which I have so often illustrated by practical examples. [33] To believe that knowledge produces culture (as is frequently taught to-day) is senseless and contradicts experience; living wisdom, however, can only find a place in a mind predisposed to high culture; otherwise knowledge remains lying on the surface like manure on a stony field -- it poisons the atmosphere and does no good. Concerning this passionate character of genius as the fundamental cause of our victorious career of discoveries, one of the greatest discoverers of the nineteenth century, Justus Liebig, has written as follows: "The great mass of men have no idea what difficulties are involved in works which really extend the sphere of knowledge; indeed, we may say that man's innate impulse towards truth would not suffice to overcome the difficulties which oppose the accomplishment of every great result, if this impulse did not in individuals grow into a mighty passion which braces and multiplies their powers. All these works are undertaken without prospect of gain and without claim to thanks; the man who accomplishes them has seldom the good fortune to live to see them put to practical use; he cannot turn his achievement into money in the market of life, it has no price and cannot be ordered or bought." [34] This perfectly disinterested "passion" we find, in fact, everywhere in the history of our discoveries. [35] To the reader whose knowledge in this branch is not very extensive, I should recommend the study of Gilbert, a man who, at the end of the sixteenth century (when Shakespeare was writing his dramas), by absolutely endless experiments laid the foundation of our knowledge of electricity and magnetism. At that time no one could dream of the practical application of this knowledge even in distant centuries; indeed these things were so mysterious that up to Gilbert's time they had either not been heeded and observed, or only used for philosophical hocus-pocus. And this one man, who had only the old and well-known observations in connection with rubbed amber and the magnet to start from, experimented so indefatigably and extracted from nature her secret with such natural genius that he established, once for all, all the fundamental facts in reference to magnetism, recognised electricity (the word was coined by him) as a phenomenon different from magnetism, and paved the way for its investigation. Now we may connect with the example of Gilbert a distinction which I briefly established in drawing up my Table of subjects, and which I again cursorily touched upon when mentioning Goethe's distinction between what is without and what is within us; practice win show its importance more clearly than theory, and it is essential for a rational view of the history of Teutonic discoveries: I mean the distinction between discovery and science. Nothing will make this clearer to us than a comparative glance at the Hellenes. The capacity of the Hellenes for real science was great, in many respects greater than our own (think only of Democritus, Aristotle, Euclid, Aristarchus, &c.); their capacity for discovery, on the contrary, was strikingly small. In this case, too, the simplest example is at the same time the most instructive. Pytheas, the Greek explorer -- the equal of any later traveller in daring, intuition and understanding [36] -- stands quite alone; he was ridiculed by all, and not a single one of those philosophers who could tell us such beautiful things concerning God, the soul, atoms and the heavenly sphere, had the faintest idea of the significance which the simple investigation of the surface of the earth must have for man. This shows a striking lack of curiosity and absence of all genuine thirst for knowledge, a total blindness to the value of facts, purely as such. And do not suppose that in their case "progress" was a mere question of time. Discovery can begin every day and anywhere; the necessary instruments -- mechanical and intellectual -- are derived spontaneously from the needs of the investigation. Even to our own day the most faithful observers are usually not the most learned men, and frequently they are exceedingly weak in the theoretical summarising of their knowledge. Thus, for example, Faraday (perhaps the most remarkable discoverer of the nineteenth century) grew up almost without higher education as a bookbinder's apprentice; his knowledge of physics he derived from encylopaedias which he had to bind, that of chemistry from a popular summary for young girls ; thus prepared he began to make those discoveries upon which almost the whole technical part of electricity is to-day based. [37] Neither William Jones nor Colebrooke, the two discoverers of the Sanscrit language at the end of the eighteenth century, were philologists by profession. The man who accomplished what no other scholar had been able to do, who discovered how to steal from plants the secret of their life, the founder of the physiology of plants, Stephen Hales (1761), was a country minister. We only need in fact to watch Gilbert, whom we mentioned above, at work: all his experiments in electricity of friction might have been carried out by any clever Greek two thousand years before; he invented his own apparatus; in his time there were no higher mathematics, without which a complete comprehension of these phenomena is to-day scarcely thinkable. No, the Greek observed but little and never without bias; he immediately plunged into theory and hypothesis, that is, into science and philosophy; the passionate patience which the work of discovery demands was not given to him. We Teutons, on the other hand, possess a special talent for the investigation of nature, and this talent does not lie on the surface, but is most closely bound up with the deepest depths of our being. As theorists we have apparently no great claim to importance: the philologists confess that the Indian Panini surpasses the greatest Grammarians of to-day; [38] the jurists say that the ancient Romans were very superior to us in jurisprudence; even after we had sailed round the world we would not believe that it was round till the fact had been fully proved to us and hammered into us for centuries, whereas the Greeks, who knew only the insignificant Mediterranean, had long ago demonstrated the fact by way of pure science; in spite of the enormous increase of our knowledge, we still cannot do without Hellenic "atoms," Indian "ether," Babylonian "evolution." As discoverers, however, we have no rivals. So that historian of Teutonic civilisation and culture, whom I invoked above, will here have to draw a subtle and clear distinction, and then dwell long and in detail upon our work of discovery. Discovery demands above all childlike freedom from bias -- hence those large childlike eyes which attract us in a countenance such as Faraday's. The whole secret of discovery lies in this, to let nature speak. For this self-control is essential: the Greeks did not possess it. The preponderance of their genius lay in creative work, the preponderance of ours lies in receptivity. For nature does not obey a word of command, she does not speak as we men desire, or utter what we wish to hear; we have by endless patience, by unconditional subjection, by a thousand groping attempts to find out how she wills to be questioned and what questions she cares to answer, what not. Hence observation is a splendid discipline for the formation of character: it exercises endurance, restrains arbitrariness, teaches absolute truthfulness. The observation of nature has played this part in the history of Teutonism; it would play the same part to-morrow in our schools, if only the pall of mediaeval superstition would at length lift, and we came to understand the fact that it is not the repetition by rote of antiquated wisdom in dead, misunderstood languages, nor the knowledge of so-called "facts" and still less science, but the "method" of acquiring all knowledge -- namely observation -- that should be the foundation of all education, as the one discipline which at the same time forms the mind and the character, confers freedom but not licence, and opens up to everyone the source of all truth and all originality. For here again we observe knowledge and culture in contact and begin better to understand how discoverers and poets belong to the one family: for only nature is really original, but she is so everywhere and at all times. If Nature alone is infinitely rich, and she alone forms the great artist." [39] The men whom we call geniuses, a Leonardo, a Shakespeare, a Bach, a Kant, a Goethe, are finely organised observers; not, of course, in the sense of brooding and burrowing, but in that of seeing, storing up and elaborating what they have seen. This power of seeing, that is, the capacity of the individual man to adopt such an attitude towards nature that, within certain limits prescribed by his individuality, he may absorb her ever creative originality and thus become qualified to be creative and original himself -- this power of seeing can be trained and developed. Certainly only in the case of a few extraordinary men will it display freely creative activity. but it will render thousands capable of original achievements. If the impulse to discovery by investigation is innate in the Teuton in the manner described, why was it so long in awakening! It was not long in awakening, but was systematically suppressed by other powers. As soon as the migrations with their ceaseless wars gave even a moment's peace, the Teuton set to work, thirsting after knowledge and diligently investigating. Charlemagne and King Alfred are well-known examples (see vol. i. p. 326 f.); even of Charlemagne's father, Pepin, we read in Lamprecht, [40] that he was "full of understanding, especially for the natural sciences." [41] Important are the utterances of such a man as Scotus Erigena, who (in the ninth century) said that nature can and should be investigated; that only thereby does she fulfil her divine purpose. [42] Now what was the fate of this man who in spite of his desire for knowledge was extremely pious and characteristically inclined to fanatical mysticism? At the command of Pope Nicholas I, he was driven from his chair in Paris and finally murdered, and even four centuries later his works, which in the meantime had been widely circulated among all really religious, anti-Roman Teutons of various nations, were hunted for everywhere by the emissaries of Honorius II. and burned. The same happened whenever a desire for knowledge began to assert itself. Precisely in the thirteenth century, at the moment when the writings of Scotus Erigena were being committed so zealously to the flames, there was born that incomprehensibly great mind Roger Bacon, [43] who sought to fill men with ardour for discovery, "by sailing out to the west, in order to reach the east," who constructed the microscope and in theory planned the telescope, who first demonstrated the importance of scientific knowledge of languages studied in a strictly philological manner, &c. &c., and who above all established for good the importance of observation of nature as the basis of all real knowledge, and spent his whole fortune on physical experiments. Now what encouragement did this man receive, though he was better qualified than anyone before or after him to provide the spark that would make the intellectual capacities of all Teutons burst into bright flames? At first he was merely forbidden to write down the results of his experiments, that is to say, to communicate them to the world; then the reading of the books already issued was punished with excommunication, and his papers -- the results of his studies -- were destroyed; finally he was condemned to a cruel imprisonment, in which he remained for many years, till shortly before his death. The struggle which I have exemplified by these two cases lasted for centuries and cost much blood and suffering. Essentially, it is exactly the same struggle as that described in my eighth chapter: Rome against Teutonism. For, no matter what we may think of Roman infallibility, every unbiased person will admit that Rome has always with unerring instinct known how to hinder what was likely to further Teutonism, and to give support to everything whereby it was bound to be most seriously injured. However, to rob the matter of all sting which might still wound, we will follow it back to its purely human kernel: what do we find there? We find that actual, concrete knowledge, that is, the great work of toilsome discovery, has one deadly enemy, omniscience. The Jews are a case in point (vol. i. p. 401); if a man possesses a sacred book, which contains all wisdom, then all further investigation is as superfluous as it is sinful: the Christian Church took over the Jewish tradition. This fastening on to Judaism, which was so fatal for our history, is being accomplished before our very eyes; it can be demonstrated step by step. The old Church Fathers, taking their stand expressly upon the Jewish Thora, are unanimous in preaching contempt of art and of science. Ambrosius, for example, says that Moses had been educated in all worldly wisdom and had proved that "science is a pernicious folly, upon which we must turn our backs, before we can find God." "To study astronomy and geometry, to follow the course of the sun among the stars and to make maps and charts of lands and seas, means to neglect salvation for things of no account." [44] Augustine allows the study of the course of the moon, "for otherwise we could not fix. Easter correctly"; in other respects he considers the study of astronomy waste of time, in that it takes the attention away from useful to useless things! He likewise declares that all art belongs" to the number of superfluous human institutions." [45] However, this still purely Jewish attitude of the ancient Church Fathers denotes an "infancy of art; " it was in truth sufficient to keep barbarians stupid as long as possible; but the Teuton was only outwardly a barbarian; as soon as he came to himself, his capacity for culture developed absolutely of itself, and then it was necessary to forge other weapons. It was a man born in the distant south, a Teuton of German extraction who had joined the ranks of the enemy, Thomas Aquinas, who was the most famous armourer; in the service of the Church he sought to quench his countrymen's ardent thirst for knowledge by offering them complete, divine omniscience. Well might his contemporary, Roger Bacon, speak in mockery of "the boy who taught everything, without having himself learned anything" -- for Bacon had clearly proved that we still utterly lacked the bases of the simplest knowledge, and he had shown the only way in which this defect could be remedied-but what availed reason and truthfulness? Thomas-who asserted that the sacred Church doctrine, in alliance with the scarcely less sacred Aristotle, was quite adequate to answer once for all every conceivable question (see p. 178), while all further inquiry was superfluous and criminal -- was declared a saint, while Bacon was thrown into prison. And the omniscience of Thomas did actually succeed in completely retarding for three whole centuries the mathematical, physical, astronomical and philological researches which had already begun! [46] We now understand why the work of discovery was so late in starling. At the same time we perceive a universal law which applies to all knowledge: it is not ignorance but omniscience that forms a fatal atmosphere for every increase of the material of knowledge. Wisdom and ignorance are both merely designations for notions that can never be accurately fixed, because they are purely relative;. the absolute difference lies altogether elsewhere, it is the difference between the man who is conscious of his ignorance and the man who, owing to some self-deception, either imagines that he possesses all knowledge or thinks himself above all knowledge. Indeed, we might perhaps go further and assert that every science, even genuine science, contains a danger for discovery, in that it paralyses to some extent the untrammelled naturalness of the observer in his attitude to nature. Here, as elsewhere (see p. 182), the decisive thing is not so much the amount or the nature of knowledge as the attitude of the mind towards it. [47] In the recognition of this fact lies the whole importance of Socrates, who was persecuted by the mighty of his time for the very same reason as were Scotus Erigena and Roger Bacon by the authorities of their age. I have no intention of making the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church a reproach levelled at it especially and alone. It is true that the Catholic Church is always the first to attract our attention, if only because of the decisive power which it possessed a few centuries ago, but also for the splendid consistency with which it has always, up to the present day, maintained the one logical standpoint -- that our system of faith is based on Judaism -- but even outside this Church we find the same spirit as the inevitable consequence of every historical, materialistic religion. Martin Luther, for example, makes the following terrible remark, "The wisdom of the Greeks, when compared to that of the Jews, is absolutely bestial; for apart from God there can be no wisdom, nor any understanding and insight." That is to say, the ever glorious achievements of the Hellenes are "bestial" in comparison with the absolute ignorance and uncultured rudeness of a people which has never achieved anything at all in any single field of human knowledge or activity I Roger Bacon, on the other hand, in the first part of his Opus majus, proves that the principal cause of human ignorance is " the pride of a pretended knowledge," and there he truly hits the nail on the head. [48] The lawyer Krebs (better known as Cardinal Cuxanus and famous as the man who brought to light the Roman decretal swindle) maintained the same thesis two centuries later in his much-discussed work De docta ignorantia, in the first book of which he expounds the "science of not-knowing" as the first step towards all further knowledge. As soon as this view had gained so firm a hold that even Cardinals could give utterance to it without falling into disfavour, the victory of knowledge was assured. However, if we are to understand the history of our discoveries and our sciences, we must never lose sight of the fundamental principle here established. There has been, it is true, a shifting of the relations of power since that time, but not of principles. Step by step we have had not only to wrest our knowledge from nature, but to do so in defiance of the obstacles everywhere planted in our path by the powers of ignorant omniscience. When Tyndall in his famous address to the British Association in Belfast in the year 1874 demanded absolute freedom of investigation, he raised a storm of indignation in the whole Anglican Church and also in all the Churches of the dissenters. Sincere harmony between science and Church we can never have, in the way in which it prevailed in India: it is absolutely impossible to harmonise a system of faith derived from Judaism, chronistic and absolutist, with the inquiring, investigating instincts of the Teutonic personality. We may fail to understand this, we may deny it for reasons of interest, we may seek to hush it up in the interest of other far-reaching plans, nevertheless it remains true, and this truth forms one of the causes of the deep-seated discord of our age. That is also the reason why so very little of our great work of discovery has been consciously assimilated by the nations. They see, of course, some results of research, such as those which have led to innovations which could be exploited by industry; but obviously it does not in the least matter whether our light is derived from tallow candles or electric globes; the important matter is, not how we see, but who sees. It will only be when we shall have so completely revolutionised our methods of education that the training of each individual from the first shall resemble a Discovery, instead of merely consisting in the transmission of ready-made wisdom, that we shall really have thrown off the alien yoke in this fundamental sphere of knowledge and shall be able to move on towards the full development of our best powers. If we turn our gaze from such a possible future back to our still poverty-stricken present, we shall be able also to look even further back, and to realise intelligently what obstacles the work of discovery, the most difficult of all works, encountered at every step. But for the lust of gold and the inimitable simplicity of the Teutons success would have been impossible. They even knew how to turn to account the childish cosmogony of Moses. [49] Thus, for example, we observe how the theologians of the University of Salamanca with the help of a whole arsenal of quotations from the Bible and the Church Fathers proved that the idea of a western route over the Atlantic Ocean was nonsense and blasphemy, and thereby persuaded the Government not to assist Columbus: [50] but Columbus himself, pious man as he was, did not lose heart; for he too relied, in his calculations, not so much upon the map of Toscanelli and the opinions of Seneca, Pliny, &c., as upon Holy Scripture and especially the apocalyptic book of Ezra, where he found the statement that water covers only the seventh part of the earth. [51] Truly a thoroughly Teutonic way of turning Jewish apocalyptic writings to account! If men had then had any idea that water, instead of covering a seventh of the surface of the earth -- as the infallible source of all knowledge taught -- covered almost exactly three-fourths, they would never have ventured out upon the ocean. In the later history of geographical discovery also several such pious confusions were of great service. Thus it was the gift to Spain (mentioned on p. 168) of all lands west of the Azores by the Pope as absolute lord of the world, that literally compelled the Portuguese to discover the eastern route to India by the Cape of Good Hope. When, however, this was achieved, the Spaniards were at a disadvantage; for the Pope had bestowed upon the Portuguese the whole eastern world, and now they had found Madagascar and India, with its fabulous treasures in gold, jewels, spices, &c., while America, to begin with, offered little: and thus the Spaniards knew no peace till Magalhaes had accomplished his great achievement and reached India by the western route. [52] THE UNITY OF THE WORK OF DISCOVERY I do not propose to enter into details. There certainly remains a great deal to discuss, which the reader will not be able to supplement from histories or encyclopaedias; but as soon as the whole living organism stands clearly before our eyes -- the special capacity, the impelling forces, the obstacles due to the surroundings -- then the task here assigned to me is completed, and that is, I think, now the case. For it has not been my object to chronicle the past, but to illumine the present. And for that reason I should like to direct attention with special emphasis to one point only. It utterly confuses our historical perception when geographical discoveries are separated, as they usually are, from other discoveries; in the same way further confusion arises, when those discoveries which affect especially the human race -- discoveries in ethnography, language, the history of religion, &c. -- are put in a class by themselves, or assigned to philology and history. The unity of science is being recognised more and more every day -- the unity of the work of discovery, that is, of the collecting of the material of knowledge, demands the same recognition. Whatever be discovered, whether it be a daring adventurer, an ingenious man engaged in industry, or a patient scholar that brings it to the light of day, it is the same gifts of our individuality that are at work, the same impulse towards possession, the same passionate spirit, the same devotion to nature, the same art of observation; it is the same Teuton of whom Faust says:
Every single discovery, no matter in what sphere, furthers every other, however remote from it. This is particularly manifest in geographical discoveries. It was avarice and religious fanaticism at the same time that induced the European States to interest themselves in discovery; but the chief result for the human intellect was, to begin with, the proof that the earth is round. The importance of this discovery is simply inestimable. It is true that the Pythagoreans had long ago supposed, and that scholars at various times had asserted that the earth was spherical; but it is a mighty advance from theoretical speculations such as this to un irrefutable, concrete, tangible proof. From the Papal gifts to the Spaniards and Portuguese of the year 1493 (see p. 168) we see clearly enough that the Church did not really believe that the earth was spherical: for to the west of every single degree of latitude lies the whole earth! I have already pointed out (p. 7 note) that Augustine considered the idea of Antipodes absurd and contrary to Scripture. At the close of the fifteenth century the orthodox still accepted as authoritative the geography of the monk Cosmas Indicopleustes, who declares the view of Greek scholars to be blasphemy and imagines the world to be a fiat rectangle enclosed by the four walls of heaven; above the star-spangled firmament dwell God and the angels. [54] Though we may smile at such conceptions now, they were and are prescribed by Church doctrine. In reference to hell, Thomas Aquinas, for example, expressly warns men against the tendency to conceive it only spiritually; on the contrary, it is paenas corporeas (corporal punishments) that men will have to endure: likewise the flames of hell are to be understood literally, secundum litteram intelligenda: and this surely implies the conception of a place -- to wit, "underneath the earth." [55] A round earth, hovering in space, destroys the tangible conception of hell just as thoroughly as and much more convincingly than Kant's transcendentality of space. Scarcely one of the daring seafarers quite firmly believed in the earth as a sphere, and Magalhaes had great difficulty in pacifying his comrades when he sailed across the Pacific Ocean, as they daily feared they would reach the "edge" of the world and fall direct into hell. And now the matter had been concretely proved; the men who had sailed out towards the west came back from the east. That was for the time being the completion of the work begun by Marco Polo (1254-1323); he had been the first to announce with certainty that an ocean lay extended to the east of Asia. [56] At one blow rational astronomy had become possible. The earth was round; consequently it hovered in space. But if so, why should not sun, moon and planets do the same? Thus brilliant hypotheses of the Hellenes were once more honoured. [57] Previous to Magalhaes such speculations (e.g., those of Regiomontanus) had never gained a firm footing; whereas, now that there was no longer any doubt about the shape of the earth, a Copernicus immediately appeared; for speculation was now based on sure facts. But hereby the remembrance of the telescope which Roger Bacon had suggested was at once awakened, and the discoveries upon our planet were continued by discoveries in the heavens. Scarcely had the motion of the earth been put forward as a probable hypothesis, when the revolution of the moons around Jupiter was observed by the eye. [58] History shows us what an enormous impulse physics received from the complete revolution of cosmic conceptions. It is true that physics begin with Archimedes, so that we must acknowledge that the Renaissance was of some little service here, but Galilei points out that the depreciation of higher mathematics and mechanics was due to the want of a visible object for their application, [59] and the chief thing is that a mechanical view of the world could only force itself upon men when they perceived with their eyes the mechanical structure of the cosmos. Now for the first time were the laws of falling bodies carefully investigated; this led to a new conception and analysis of gravitation, and a new and more accurate determination of the fundamental qualities of matter. The impetus to all these studies was given by the imagination, powerfully stirred as it was by the vision of constellations hovering in space. The great importance of continual discoveries for stimulating the imagination, and consequently also for art, has been alluded to already (vol. i. p. 267); here we gain a sight of the principle at work. We see how one thing leads to another, and how the first impulse to all these discoveries is to be sought in the voyages of discovery. But soon this central influence extended its waves farther and farther, to the deepest depths of philosophy and religion. For many facts we've now discovered which directly contradicted the apparent proofs and doctrines of the sacrosanct Aristotle. Nature always works in an unexpected way; man possesses no organ to enable him to divine what has not yet been observed, be it form or law; this gift is denied to him. Discovery is always revelation. These revelations, these answers wrung from the "silent Sphinxes" to riddles hitherto wrapt in sacred gloom, worked in the brains of men of genius and enabled them not only to anticipate future discoveries but also to lay the foundation of an absolutely new view of life's problems -- a view which was neither Hellenic nor Jewish, but Teutonic. Thus Leonardo da Vinci -- a pioneer of all genuine science -- already proclaimed la terra e una stella (the earth is a star), and added elsewhere by way of explanation, la terra non e nel mezzo del mondo (the earth is not in the centre of the universe); and with a sheerly incredible power of intuition he gave utterance to the ever memorable words, "All life is motion." [60] A hundred years later Giordano Bruno, the inspired visionary, saw our whole solar system moving on in infinite space, the earth with its burden of men and human destinies a mere atom among countless atoms. This was truly very far from the cosmogony of Moses and the God who had chosen the small people of the Jews, "that he might be honoured"; and it was almost equally as far from Aristotle with his pedantic and childish teleology. We had to begin to rear the edifice of an absolutely new philosophy, which should answer to the requirements of the Teutonic horizon and the Teutonic tendency of mind. In that connection Descartes, who was born before Bruno died, acquired an importance which affected the history of the world, in that he, exactly as his ancestors, the daring seafarers, insisted on systematically doubting everything traditional and on fearlessly investigating the Unknown. I shall return to this later. All these things resulted from the geographical discoveries. Naturally they cannot be regarded as effects following causes, but certainly as events which had been occasioned by definite occurrences. Had we possessed freedom, the historical development of our work of discovery might have been different, as we see clearly enough from the example of Roger Bacon; however, natura sese adiuvat; all paths but that of geographical discoveries had been forcibly closed against us; this remained open, because all Churches love the perfume of gold, and because even a Columbus dreamt of equipping an army against the Turks with the treasure to be won; thus geographical discovery became the basis of all other discoveries, and so at the same time the foundation of our gradual intellectual emancipation, which, however, is even now far from being perfect.
It would be easy to prove the influence which the discovery of the world exercised upon all other branches of life, upon industry and trade, and so at the same time upon the economic moulding of Europe; upon agriculture by the introduction of new vegetables, like the potato, upon medicine (think of quinine}, upon politics, and so forth. I leave this to the reader and only call his attention to the fact that in all these spheres the aforementioned influence increases the nearer we come to the nineteenth century; every day our life, in contrast to the" European" life of former days, is becoming more and more a "planetary" one. There is another great sphere of profound influence, little heeded in this connection, which I cannot leave undiscussed, and that all the more since in this very case the inevitable consequences of the discoveries have taken longest to reveal themselves and hardly began even in the nineteenth century to assume definite shape: I mean the influence of discoveries upon religion. The discovery -- first of the spheroidal shape of the earth, secondly, of its position in the cosmos, then of the laws of motion, of the chemical structure of matter, &c. &c., has brought about that the faultlessly mechanical interpretation of nature is unavoidable and the only true one. When I say "the only true one," I mean that it can be the only true one for us Teutons; other men may -- in the future as in the past -- think differently; among us also there is now and then a reaction against the too one-sided predominance of a purely mechanical interpretation of nature; but let not ephemeral movements lead us astray; we must ever of necessity come back to mechanism, and so long as the Teuton predominates, he will force this view of his even upon non- Teutons. I am not speaking of theories, I must discuss them elsewhere; but whatever form the theory may assume, henceforth it will always be "mechanical," that is, the inexorable demand of Teutonic thought, for only thus can it keep the outer and the inner world beneficially acting and reacting upon each other. This is so unrestrictedly true of us that I can in no way make up my mind to regard the doctrine of mechanism as a "theory," and consequently as pertaining to "science": I think I must rather view it as a discovery, as an established fact. The philosopher may justify this, but the triumphant progress of our tangible discoveries is a sufficient guarantee for the ordinary man; for the mechanical thought, strictly adhered to, has been from the beginning to the present day the Ariadne's thread which has guided us in safety through all the labyrinthine paths of error. As I wrote on the title-page of this book, "We proclaim our adherence to the race which from out the darkness strives to reach the light." What in the world of empirical experience has led and still leads us from darkness into light was and is the unfaltering adherence to mechanism. By this-and this alone-we have acquired a mass of perceptions and a command over nature never equalled by any other human race. [61] Now this victory of mechanism signifies the inevitable, complete overthrow of all materialistic religion. This issue is a surprise, but irrefutable. The Jewish world-chronicle might have some significance for Cosmas Indicopleustes, for us it can have none; as applied to the universe, as we know it to-day, it is simply absurd. But equally untenable in the face of mechanism is all that Eastern magic which, almost undisguised, forms so essential a part of the so-called Christian Creed (see pp. 123, 128). Mechanism in philosophy and materialism in religion are for ever irreconcilable. He who mechanically interprets empirical nature as perceived by the senses has an ideal religion or none at all; all else is conscious or unconscious self-deception. The Jew knew no mechanism of any kind: from Creation out of nothing to his dreams of a Messianic future everything is in his case freely ruling, all-powerful arbitrariness; [62] that is also the reason why be never discovered anything; with him one thing only is essential, the Creator; that explains everything. The mystical and magical notions, upon which all our ecclesiastical sacraments are based, stand on an even lower plane of materialism; for they signify principally a change of substance and are therefore nothing more nor less than the alchemy of souls. Consistent mechanism, on the other hand, as we Teutons have created it and from which we can no longer escape, is compatible only with a purely ideal, i.e., transcendent, religion, such as Jesus Christ had taught: the Kingdom of God is within you. [62] Religion for us cannot be chronicle, but experience only -- inner, direct experience. I must come back to this elsewhere. Here I shall anticipate one point only, that in my opinion Kant's universal importance rests upon his brilliant comprehension of this fact, that the Mechanical doctrine, consistently pursued to its furthest limits, furnishes the explanation of the world, and that the purely Ideal doctrine alone furnishes laws for the inner man. [64] For how many more centuries shall we drag the fetter of the conscious falsehood of believing in absurdities as revealed truth? I do not know. But I hope that we shall not do so much longer. For the religious craving is growing so great and so imperious in our breasts that of necessity a day must come when that craving will shatter the rotten, gloomy edifice, and then we shall step out into the new, bright, glorious kingdom which has long been awaiting us; that will be the crown of the Teutonic work of discovery. _______________ Notes: 1. Anatomie Generale, §§ 6 and 7 of the preceding Considerations. In the above sentence I have freely summarised Bichat's views. 2. Galvani tells this with an honesty worthy of imitation in his De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentatio. 3. Francis Bacon von Verulam und die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, 1863. 4. Bayard Taylor's translation. 5. English Traits: Wealth. 6. I take the word "reaction" not in the sense of our modern party appellations, but in the scientific sense, that is, a movement which is the result of a stimulus; but the difference is not so very great: our so-called "reactionaries" resemble more closely than they imagine the spontaneously quivering frog-legs of Galvani's experiment. 7. There is no equivalent in English. "Personal philosophy" comes nearest to it: one might almost paraphrase the word as "way of looking at life's problems." The author's meaning is sufficiently clear from the context. Elsewhere I have rendered the word by the very comprehensive English term "philosophy." 8. A collective noun formed from wer, man, and ylde, men (Kluge: Etymologisches Worterbuch). 9. Cf. the thorough discussion at the beginning of chap. i. on "Man becoming man" (vol. i. pp. 14-27).
10. For its close relation to art, see vol. 1. p. 15. 11. See vol. i. p. 230. vol. ii, p. 19, etc. 12. Or only very late -- indeed, when it was too late. 13. See Rajah Sourindro Mohun Tagoro: The Dramatic Sentiments of the Aryas (Calcutta, 1881). 14. It is now proved that paper was invented neither by the Chinese nor by the Arabians, but by the Aryan Persians (see the section on "Industry"); but Richthofen -- whose judgment is of great value owing to its purely scientific acuteness and independence -- inclines to the belief that nothing which the Chinese possess "in the way of knowledge and methods of civilisation" is the fruit of their own intellect, but is all imported. He points to the fact that, as far as our information reaches back, the Chinese never knew how to use their own scientific instruments (see China, 1877, i. 390, 512 f. &c.), and he comes to the conclusion (p. 424 f.) that the Chinese civilisation owes its origin to former contact with Aryans in Central Asia. In connection with the view which I am advocating, his detailed proof that the remarkably great cartographical achievements of the Chinese only go so far as the political administration had a practical interest in perfecting them, deserves our best attention (China i. 389); all further progress was excluded, since pure science is a cultural idea. M. von Brandt, a reliable authority, writes in his Zeitfragen, 1900, pp. 163-4: "The supposed inventions of the Chinese in early antiquity -- porcelain, powder, the compass -- were introduced to China at a late period from other countries." Moreover, it is becoming clearer and clearer from the works of Ujfalvi that races which we (in company with the Anthropologists) must describe as "Aryan," formerly were spread over all Asia and dwelt even far in the interior of China. The Sacans (originally an Aryan tribe) were driven out of China only about 150 years before Christ. (Cf. Ujfalvi's Memoire sur les Huns blancs in the periodical L'Anthropologie, 1898, pp. 259 f. and 384 f., as also an essay by Alfred C. Haddon in Nature of Jan. 24, 1901, and the supplementary essay of the sinologist Thomas W. Kingsmill on Gothic Vestiges in Central Asia in Nature, April 25, 1901.) 15. This is the lowest computation. Karl Gustav Carus asserts in his Uber ungleiche Befahigung der verschiedenen Menschheitsstamme fur hohere geistige Entwickelung, 1849. p. 67, that the most comprehensive Chinese encyclopaedias number 78,731 volumes, of which about fifty would go to one volume of our ordinary dictionary. 16. The worthlessness of Chinese poetry is well known, only in the shortest forms of didactic poetry has some pretty work been produced. Regarding music and the musical drama Ambros says in his Geschichte der Musik, 2nd ed. i. 37: "China really gives one the impression that the culture of other peoples is reflected in a mirror that caricatures." After diligent research in the literature of its philosophy I cannot believe that China possesses a single real philosopher. Confucius is a kind of Chinese Jules Simon: a noble-minded, unimaginative, moral philosopher, politician and pedant. Incomparably more interesting is his antithesis Lao-tze and the school of so-called Taoism which groups itself around him. Here we encounter a really original, captivating philosophy, but it, too, aims solely at practical life and is incomprehensible unless we understand its direct relation to the special civilisation of the Chinese with its fruitless haste and ignorant learning. For Taoism, which is represented to us as metaphysics, theosophy or mysticism, is quite simply a nihilistic reaction, a desperate revolt against the Chinese civilisation, which is rightly felt to be useless. If Confucius is a Jules Simon of the Celestial Empire, Lao-tze is a Jean Jacques Rousseau. "Away with your great knowledge and your learning and the people will be a hundred times happier; discard your spurious charity and your moralising, and the people will once more, as before, display childlike love and human kindliness: give up your artificial institutions and cease hungering after riches, and there will be no more thieves and criminals" (Tao Teh King i. 19, I). This is the tone of the whole, obviously a moral, not a philosophical one. This results on the one hand in the construction of Utopian States, in which we shall no longer be able to read and write, but shall live happily in undisturbed peace, without any trace of hateful civilisation, at the same time inwardly free, for, as Kwang-tze (an eminent Taoist) says : "Man is the slave of all that he invents and the more he gathers round him, the less free are his movements" (xii. 2, 5); or, on the other hand, this train of thought leads to a view which has probably never been proclaimed with such force and conviction -- to the doctrine that the greatest motive power lies in rest, the richest knowledge in lack of learning, the most powerful eloquence in silence, and the most unerring certainty in unpremeditated action. "The highest achievement of man is to know that we do not know; to fancy that we know is a sign of disease" (Tao Teh King ii. 71, I). It is difficult briefly to summarise this mood -- for I cannot call it anything else -- simply because it is a mood and not a constructive thought. These interesting writings must be read, so that we may gradually, by patient application, overcome the repellent form and penetrate to the heart of those sages who mourn for their poor Fatherland. We shall not find metaphysics, in fact no philosophy at all, not even materialism in its simplest form, but much information regarding the appalling nature of the civilised and learned life of the Chinese and a practical moral insight into human nature, which is as profound as that of Confucius is shallow. This negation marks the highest point of what is attainable by the Chinese spirit. (The best information is to be found in the Sacred Books of China, vols. iii., xvi., xxvii., xxviii., xxxix. and xl. of Max Muller's Sacred Books of the East: vols. xxxix. and xl. contain the Taoist books. Brandt's small work, Die Chinesische Philosophie und der Staats-Confucianismus, 1898, may serve as an introduction. I do not know of anyone who has given an account of the real nature of Taoist philosophy.) 17. As Jean Jacques Rousseau pointedly says: Les sciences regnent pour ainsi dire a la Chine depuis deux mille ans, et n'y peuvent sortir de l'enfance (Lettre a M. de Scheyb, 15.7.1756). 18. See vol. i. p. 420, note 3. 19. More than two thousand years before Christ begin the historical annals of the Chinese. (Addendum: This is a wide-spread error: at most eight hundred years before Christ.) 20. In a lecture delivered before the British Association on September 21, 1896, Flinders Petrie expresses the opinion that the oldest Mycenean works of art, for example the famous golden cups with the steers and cows (from about the year 1200 B.C.), were in respect of faithful observation of nature and mastery of workmanship equal to any late work of the so-called period of splendour. (With regard to this Pelasgian-Achaean culture, cf. Hueppe: Rassenhygiene der Griechen, p. 54 f. 21. See vol. i. pp. 34 and 35. 22. Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre, Book vi. 23. See vol. i. p. 112 f. 24. The German in particular shows in many respects a dangerous tendency to become Chinese, for instance, in his mania for collecting, in his piling up of material upon material, in his inclination to neglect the spirit for the letter, &c. This tendency was noticed long ago, and Goethe laughingly told Soret of a globe belonging to the time of Charles V., which bore, as a gloss upon China, the inscription: "The Chinese area people resembling the Germans very much!" (Eckermann, 26.4.1823). 25. Luther especially never frees himself in this connection from the toils of religious materialism; he -- the hero of faith -- "eliminates faith so much from the Lord's Supper" that he teaches the doctrines that even the unbeliever breaks with his teeth the body of Christ. He therefore accepts what Berengar and so many other strict Roman Catholics had bravely opposed a few centuries before, and what would have filled not only the earliest Christians but even men like Ambrosius and Augustine with horror. (Cf. Harnack: Grundriss der Dogmen geschichte § 81.) 26. Goethe repeatedly lays great stress upon the distinction between "without us" and "within us"; here it is very useful in distinguishing between discovery and science: but as soon as we transfer it to the purely philosophical or even purely scientific sphere, we must be very cautious: see the remarks at the beginning of the section on "Science." 27. Tao Teh King xix. I. 28. See vol. i. p. 543. 29. The great importance of alchemy as the source of chemistry is now universally recognised; I need only refer to the books of Berthelot and Kopp. 30. To say nothing of the discovery of new kinds of powder for cannons and explosives for torpedoes. 31. Take as an example the total annihilation of the most intelligent and thoroughly friendly tribe of the Natchez by the French on the Mississippi (in Du Pratz: History of Louisiana) or the history of the relations between the English and the Cherokees (Trumbull: History of the United States). It is always the same story: a fearful injustice on the part of the Europeans provokes the Indians to take vengeance, and for this vengeance they are punished. that is, slaughtered. 32. See vol. i. p. 286. 33. See pp. 247 and 251. 34. Wissenschaft und Landwirtschaft ii. at the end. 35. An excellent example of the "disinterested passion" peculiar to the pure Teuton is provided by the English peasant Tyson, who died in 1898. He had emigrated to Australia as a labourer, and died the greatest landed proprietor in the world, with a fortune reckoned at five million pounds. This man remained to the last so simple that he never possessed a white shirt, much less a pair of gloves; only when absolutely necessary did he pay a brief visit to a city; he had an insurmountable distrust of all churches. Money in itself was a matter of indifference to him: he valued it only as an ally in his great life-work, the struggle with the desert. When asked about his wealth he replied, "It is not having it but fighting for it that gives me pleasure." A true Teuton! worthy of his countryman Shakespeare: Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing. 36. See vol. i. p. 52. 37. See Tyndall: Faraday as a Discoverer (1890); and W. Grosse: Der Ather (1898). 38. See vol. i. p. 431. 39. Goethe: Werther's Leiden, Letter of May 26 of the 1st year. Cf. what is said in vol. i. p. 267. 40. Deutsche Geschichte ii. 13. 41. In passing let me make the addition which is so important for our Teutonic individuality, "for the natural sciences and music."! 42. De Divisione Naturae v. 33; cf., too. p. 129 above. 43. Of him Goethe says (in his Gesprache ii. 46). "The whole magic of nature, in the finest sense of the word, is revealed to him." 44. De officiis ministrorum i. 26, 122-123. 45. De doctrina christiana i. 26, 2, and i. 30, 2. 46. This is the philosopher whom the Jesuits to-day elevate to the throne (see p. 177) and whose doctrines are henceforth to supply the foundation (or the philosophical culture of all Roman Catholics! We can see how freely the Teutonic spirit moved, before these fetters were imposed by the Church, from the fact that at the University of Paris in the thirteenth century theses like the following were defended, "The sayings of the Theologists are based on fables," "There is no increase of knowledge because of the pretended knowledge of the Theologians," and "The Christian religion prevents increase of knowledge." (Cf. Wernicke; Die mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Forschung, &c., 1898, p. 5). 47. Hence Kant's profound remark on the importance of astronomy: "The most important thing surely is that it has revealed to us the abyss of our ignorance, which, but for that science, we could never have conceived to be so great, and that reflection upon this must produce a great change in the determination of the final purposes of our employment of reason." (Critique of Pure Reason, note in the section entitled "Concerning the Transcendental Ideal.") 48. According to him there are four causes of ignorance -- faith in authority, the power of custom, illusions of sense and the proud delusion of an imagined wisdom. Of the Thomists and Franciscans, considered the greatest scholars of his age, Bacon says: "The world has never witnessed such a semblance of knowledge as there is to-day, and yet in reality ignorance was never so crass and error so deep-rooted" (from a quotation in Whewell: History of the Inductive Sciences, 3rd ed. p. 378). 49. As happens again in the case of Darwinism to-day. 50. Fiske: Discovery of America c. v. 51. This is naturally only an application of the favourite division into the sacred number seven, derived from the (supposed) number of the planets. Compare the second book of Ezra in the Apocrypha, vi. 42 and 52 (also called the fourth book of Ezra, when the canonical book of Ezra and the book of Nehemiah are regarded as the first and second, as was formerly the custom). It is a most noteworthy fact that Columbus is indebted for all his arguments for a western route to India, as well as for his knowledge of this passage from Ezra, to the great Roger Bacon. It is some consolation that this poor man, who was persecuted to death by the Church, exercised decisive influence not only upon mathematics, astronomy and physics, but also upon the history of geographical discoveries. 52. Magalhaes saw land, i.e., completed the proof that the earth is round, on March 6, 1521, the very day on which Charles V signed the summons of Luther to Worms. 53. In further progress let him find pain and happiness, he! unsatisfied at every moment. 54. Fiske: Discovery of America, chap. iii. 55. Compendium Theologiae, chap. clxxix. I have no doubt that Thomas Aquinas believed also in a definite localisation of heaven though he appears to have laid less stress on it. Conrad of Megenberg, a very scholarly and pious man, canon of the Ravensberg Cathedral and author of the very first Natural History in German, who died exactly a hundred years after him, says expressly in the astronomical part of his work, "The first and uppermost heaven (there are ten of them) stands still and does not revolve. It is called in Latin Empyreum, in German Feuerhimmel, because it glows and glitters in supernatural brightness. There God dwells with the Chosen" (Das Buch der Natur ii. I). The new astronomy, based on the new geography, therefore actually destroyed" the dwelling of God," on which till then even scholarly and free-thinking men had believed, and robbed the physico-theological conceptions of all convincing reality. 56. The map given on the next page will enable the reader to under stand more clearly the work of geographical discovery which began in the thirteenth century. The black portion shows how much of the world was known to Europeans in the first half of the thirteenth century, i.e., before Marco Polo; all that is left white was absolutely terra incognita. The comparison is striking and the diagram is a symbol of the activity of the Teutons in discovery in other spheres as well. If we were to take former ages and non-European peoples into consideration, the black portion would require to be modified considerably; the Phoenicians, for in3tance, knew the Cape Verde Islands, but they had since then been lost to view so completely that the old accounts were regarded as fables; the Khalifs had been in constant intercourse with Madagascar and even knew -- it is said -- the sea-route to China by way of India; there were Christian (Nestorian) bishops of China in the seventh century, &c. -- We cannot but suppose that some few Europeans, at the Papal Court and in trade centres, had vaguely heard of these things oven in the thirteenth century; but, as I wished to show what was really known and had been actually seen, my map rather contains too much than too little. Of the coast of India. for example, Europeans had then no definite knowledge at all; three centuries later, as we see from the map of Johann Ruysch, their conceptions were still uncertain and erroneous; of inner Asia they knew only the caravan routes to Samarkand and the Indus. A few years before Marco Polo two Franciscan monks reached Karakorum, the capital of the Great Khan, and brought back the first minute accounts of China -- though only from hearsay. In the Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissenschaft (xxii. 97) Helmolt supplements this note as follows: "Since 638 an Imperial Chinese edict permitted the Nestorians to carryon missionary work in China; an inscription of the year 781 (described in Navarra: China und die Chinesen, 1901, p. 1089 f.) mentions the Nestorian patriarch Chanan-Ischu, and tells us that since the beginning of missionary activity in China seventy missionaries had gone there; to the south of the Balkhash lake the tombstones of more than 3000 Nestorian Christians have been found." See also the lecture of Baelz: Die Ostasiaten, 1901, p. 35 f. About the end of the tenth century there were thousands of Christian churches in China. 57. In the dedication of his De Revolutionibus, Copernicus mentions these views of the ancients. When the work was afterwards put on the Index, the doctrine of Copernicus was simply designated doctrina Pythagorica (Lange: Geschichte des Materialismus, 4th ed. i. 172). 58. The, motion of these moons is so easy to observe that Galilei noticed it at once and mentioned it in a letter dated January 30, 1610. 59. This is at any rate the interpretation which I have given to a quotation in Thurot, Recherches historiques sur le principe d'Archimede, 1869, but at present I am unfortunately unable to verify the accuracy of my memory and the correctness of my view. 60. I find the passage quoted thus in several places, but the only remark of the kind which I know in the original is somewhat different: Il moto e causa d'ogni vita (Motion is the cause of all life) (in J. P. Richter's edition of the Scritti letterari di Leonardo da Vinci, ii. 286, Fragment No. 1139). The former quotations are taken from Nos. 865 and 858. 61. As one must ever and in all things be apprehensive of being misunderstood in an age when the philosophic sense has become so barbarous, I add in the words of Kant. "Though there can be no real knowledge of nature unless mechanism is made the basis of research, yet this is true only of matter and does not preclude the searching after and reflecting upon a Principle, which is quite different from explanation according to the mechanism of nature" (Kritik der Urteilskraft, § 70). 62. See vol. i. p. 240 f. 63. See vol. i. p. 187 f., vol. ii. p. 40. 64. In the interest of philosophically trained readers I wish to remark that I am aware of the fact that Kant establishes a dynamic natural philosophy in contrast to a mechanical natural philosophy (Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft ii.), but there it is a question of distinctions which cannot be brought forward in a work like the present; moreover, Kant uses the word "Dynamic" merely to express a special view of a strictly mechanical (according to the general use of the term) interpretation of nature. I should like to take this opportunity of making it perfectly clear that I do not bind myself hand and foot to the Kantian system. I am not learned enough to follow all these scholastic turnings and twistings; it would be presumption for me to say that I belonged to this or that school; but the personality I do see clearly, and I observe what a mighty stimulus it is, and in what directions. The important thing for me is not the "being right" or "being wrong" -- this never-ceasing battling with windmills of puny minds -- but first and foremost the importance (I might be inclined in this connection to say the "dynamic" importance) of the mind in question, and secondly its individuality. And in this respect I behold Kant so great that but few in the world's history can be compared with him, and he is so thoroughly and specifically Teutonic (even in the limiting sense of the word) that he attains to typical significance. Philosophical technique is in him something subordinate, conditioned, accidental, ephemeral; the decisive, unconditioned, unephemeral element is the fundamental power, "not the word spoken but the speaker of it," as the Upanishads express it. For Kant's importance as a discoverer I also refer the reader to F. A. Lange's Geschichte des Materialismus (1881, p. 383), where the author shows with admirable acuteness that with Kant it was not, and could not be, a question of proving his fundamental principles, but rather of discovering them. In reality Kant is an observer, to be compared with Galilei or Harvey: he proceeds from facts and "in reality his method is no other than that of induction." The confusion arises from the fact that men are not clear on this matter. At any rate it is evident that, even from a formal point of view, I was justified in closing the section on "Discovery" with the name of Kant.
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