Goethe--you will not misunderstand what I say--was a German of the
Germans. He loved his country--no man more so. Its people were dear to
him; and he led them. Yet, when the iron hoof of Napoleon trampled upon
vineyard and cornfield, his lips were silent. 'How can one write songs
of hatred without hating?' he said to Eckermann, 'and how could I, to
whom culture and barbarism are alone of importance, hate a nation which
is among the most cultivated of the earth and to which I owe so great a
part of my own cultivation?' This note, sounded in the modern world by
Goethe first, will become, I think, the starting point for the
cosmopolitanism of the future. Criticism will annihilate
race-prejudices, by insisting upon the unity of the human mind in the
variety of its forms. If we are tempted to make war upon another nation,
we shall remember that we are seeking to destroy an element of our own
culture, and possibly its most important element. As long as war is
regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is
looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. The change will of
course be slow, and people will not be conscious of it. They will not
say 'We will not war against France because her prose is perfect,' but
because the prose of France is perfect, they will not hate the land.
Intellectual criticism will bind Europe together in bonds far closer than
those that can be forged by shopman or sentimentalist. It will give us
the peace that springs from understanding.--_The Critic as Artist_.