I.

Public opinion in Germany seems strictly to forbid any allusion to the

evil and dangerous consequences of a war, more particularly when the

war in question has been a victorious one. Those writers, therefore,

command a more ready attention who, regarding this public opinion as

final, proceed to vie with each other in their jubilant praise of the

war, and of the powerful influences it has brought to bear upon

morality, culture, and art. Yet it must be confessed that a great

victory is a great danger. Human nature bears a triumph less easily

than a defeat; indeed, it might even be urged that it is simpler to

gain a victory of this sort than to turn it to such account that it

may not ultimately prove a serious rout.

But of all evil results due to the last contest with France, the most

deplorable, perhaps, is that widespread and even universal error of

public opinion and of all who think publicly, that German culture was

also victorious in the struggle, and that it should now, therefore, be

decked with garlands, as a fit recognition of such extraordinary

events and successes. This error is in the highest degree pernicious:

not because it is an error,--for there are illusions which are both

salutary and blessed,--but because it threatens to convert our victory

into a signal defeat. A defeat?--I should say rather, into the

uprooting of the "German Mind" for the benefit of the "German Empire."

Even supposing that the fight had been between the two cultures, the

standard for the value of the victor would still be a very relative

one, and, in any case, would certainly not justify such exaggerated

triumph or self-glorification. For, in the first place, it would be

necessary to ascertain the worth of the conquered culture. This might

be very little; in which case, even if the victory had involved the

most glorious display of arms, it would still offer no warrant for

inordinate rapture.

Even so, however, there can be no question, in our case, of the

victory of German culture; and for the simple reason, that French

culture remains as heretofore, and that we depend upon it as

heretofore. It did not even help towards the success of our arms.

Severe military discipline, natural bravery and sustaining power, the

superior generalship, unity and obedience in the rank and file--in

short, factors which have nothing to do with culture, were

instrumental in making us conquer an opponent in whom the most

essential of these factors were absent. The only wonder is, that

precisely what is now called "culture" in Germany did not prove an

obstacle to the military operations which seemed vitally necessary to

a great victory. Perhaps, though, this was only owing to the fact that

this "thing" which dubs itself "culture" saw its advantage, for once,

in keeping in the background.

If however, it be permitted to grow and to spread, if it be spoilt by

the flattering and nonsensical assurance that it has been

victorious,--then, as I have said, it will have the power to extirpate

German mind, and, when that is done, who knows whether there will

still be anything to be made out of the surviving German body!

Provided it were possible to direct that calm and tenacious bravery

which the German opposed to the pathetic and spontaneous fury of the

Frenchman, against the inward enemy, against the highly suspicious

and, at all events, unnative "cultivation" which, owing to a dangerous

misunderstanding, is called "culture" in Germany, then all hope of a

really genuine German "culture"--the reverse of that

"cultivation"--would not be entirely lost. For the Germans have never

known any lack of clear-sighted and heroic leaders, though these,

often enough, probably, have lacked Germans. But whether it be

possible to turn German bravery into a new direction seems to me to

become ever more and more doubtful; for I realise how fully convinced

every one is that such a struggle and such bravery are no longer

requisite; on the contrary, that most things are regulated as

satisfactorily as they possibly can be--or, at all events, that

everything of moment has long ago been discovered and accomplished: in

a word, that the seed of culture is already sown everywhere, and is

now either shooting up its fresh green blades, or, here and there,

even bursting forth into luxuriant blossom. In this sphere, not only

happiness but ecstasy reigns supreme. I am conscious of this ecstasy

and happiness, in the ineffable, truculent assurance of German

journalists and manufacturers of novels, tragedies, poems, and

histories (for it must be clear that these people belong to one

category), who seem to have conspired to improve the leisure and

ruminative hours--that is to say, "the intellectual lapses"--of the

modern man, by bewildering him with their printed paper. Since the

war, all is gladness, dignity, and self-consciousness in this merry

throng. After the startling successes of German culture, it regards

itself, not only as approved and sanctioned, but almost as sanctified.

It therefore speaks with gravity, affects to apostrophise the German

People, and issues complete works, after the manner of the classics;

nor does it shrink from proclaiming in those journals which are open

to it some few of its adherents as new German classical writers and

model authors. It might be supposed that the dangers of such an _abuse

of success_ would be recognised by the more thoughtful and enlightened

among cultivated Germans; or, at least, that these would feel how

painful is the comedy that is being enacted around them: for what in

truth could more readily inspire pity than the sight of a cripple

strutting like a cock before a mirror, and exchanging complacent

glances with his reflection! But the "scholar" caste willingly allow

things to remain as they are, and are too much concerned with their own

affairs to busy themselves with the care of the German mind. Moreover,

the units of this caste are too thoroughly convinced that their own

scholarship is the ripest and most perfect fruit of the age--in fact,

of all ages--to see any necessity for a care of German culture in

general; since, in so far as they and the legion of their brethren are

concerned, preoccupations of this order have everywhere been, so to

speak, surpassed. The more conscientious observer, more particularly

if he be a foreigner, cannot help noticing withal that no great

disparity exists between that which the German scholar regards as his

culture and that other triumphant culture of the new German classics,

save in respect of the quantum of knowledge. Everywhere, where

knowledge and not ability, where information and not art, hold the

first rank,--everywhere, therefore, where life bears testimony to the

kind of culture extant, there is now only one specific German

culture--and this is the culture that is supposed to have conquered

France?

The contention appears to be altogether too preposterous. It was

solely to the more extensive knowledge of German officers, to the

superior training of their soldiers, and to their more scientific

military strategy, that all impartial Judges, and even the French

nation, in the end, ascribed the victory. Hence, if it be intended to

regard German erudition as a thing apart, in what sense can German

culture be said to have conquered? In none whatsoever; for the moral

qualities of severe discipline, of more placid obedience, have nothing

in common with culture: these were characteristic of the Macedonian

army, for instance, despite the fact that the Greek soldiers were

infinitely more cultivated. To speak of German scholarship and culture

as having conquered, therefore, can only be the outcome of a

misapprehension, probably resulting from the circumstance that every

precise notion of culture has now vanished from Germany.

Culture is, before all things, the unity of artistic style, in every

expression of the life of a people. Abundant knowledge and learning,

however, are not essential to it, nor are they a sign of its

existence; and, at a pinch, they might coexist much more harmoniously

with the very opposite of culture--with barbarity: that is to say,

with a complete lack of style, or with a riotous jumble of all styles.

But it is precisely amid this riotous jumble that the German of to-day

subsists; and the serious problem to be solved is: how, with all his

learning, he can possibly avoid noticing it; how, into the bargain, he

can rejoice with all his heart in his present "culture"? For

everything conduces to open his eyes for him--every glance he casts at

his clothes, his room, his house; every walk he takes through the

streets of his town; every visit he pays to his art-dealers and to his

trader in the articles of fashion. In his social intercourse he ought

to realise the origin of his manners and movements; in the heart of

our art-institutions, the pleasures of our concerts, theatres, and

museums, he ought to become apprised of the super- and juxta-position

of all imaginable styles. The German heaps up around him the forms,

colours, products, and curiosities of all ages and zones, and thereby

succeeds in producing that garish newness, as of a country fair, which

his scholars then proceed to contemplate and to define as "Modernism

per se"; and there he remains, squatting peacefully, in the midst of

this conflict of styles. But with this kind of culture, which is, at

bottom, nothing more nor less than a phlegmatic insensibility to real

culture, men cannot vanquish an enemy, least of all an enemy like the

French, who, whatever their worth may be, do actually possess a

genuine and productive culture, and whom, up to the present, we have

systematically copied, though in the majority of cases without skill.

Even supposing we had really ceased copying them, it would still not

mean that we had overcome them, but merely that we had lifted their

yoke from our necks. Not before we have succeeded in forcing an

original German culture upon them can there be any question of the

triumph of German culture. Meanwhile, let us not forget that in all

matters of form we are, and must be, just as dependent upon Paris now

as we were before the war; for up to the present there has been no

such thing as a original German culture.

We all ought to have become aware of this, of our own accord. Besides,

one of the few who had he right to speak to Germans in terms of

reproach Publicly drew attention to the fact. "We Germans are of

yesterday," Goethe once said to Eckermann. "True, for the last hundred

years we have diligently cultivated ourselves, but a few centuries may

yet have to run their course before our fellow-countrymen become

permeated with sufficient intellectuality and higher culture to have

it said of them, _it is a long time since they were barbarians_."