Respect, I hope, will teach us how we may
Our lighter disposition keep at bay.
Our course is only zig-zag as a rule.
The philosopher was surprised, and stood still. "You astonish me, you
will-o'-the-wisps," he said; "this is no quagmire we are on now. Of
what use is this ground to you? What does the proximity of a
philosopher mean to you? For around him the air is sharp and clear,
the ground dry and hard. You must find out a more fantastic region for
your zig-zagging inclinations."
"I think," interrupted the philosopher's companion at this point, "the
gentlemen have already told us that they promised to meet some one
here at this hour; but it seems to me that they listened to our comedy
of education like a chorus, and truly 'idealistic spectators'--for
they did not disturb us; we thought we were alone with each other."
"Yes, that is true," said the philosopher, "that praise must not be
withheld from them, but it seems to me that they deserve still higher
praise----"
Here I seized the philosopher's hand and said: "That man must be as
obtuse as a reptile, with his stomach on the ground and his head
buried in mud, who can listen to such a discourse as yours without
becoming earnest and thoughtful, or even excited and indignant.
Self-accusation and annoyance might perhaps cause a few to get angry;
but our impression was quite different: the only thing I do not know
is how exactly to describe it. This hour was so well-timed for us, and
our minds were so well prepared, that we sat there like empty vessels,
and now it seems as if we were filled to overflowing with this new
wisdom: for I no longer know how to help myself, and if some one asked
me what I am thinking of doing to-morrow, or what I have made up my
mind to do with myself from now on, I should not know what to answer.
For it is easy to see that we have up to the present been living and
educating ourselves in the wrong way--but what can we do to cross over
the chasm between to-day and to-morrow?"
"Yes," acknowledged my friend, "I have a similar feeling, and I ask
the same question: but besides that I feel as if I were frightened
away from German culture by entertaining such high and ideal views of
its task; yea, as if I were unworthy to co-operate with it in carrying
out its aims. I only see a resplendent file of the highest natures
moving towards this goal; I can imagine over what abysses and through
what temptations this procession travels. Who would dare to be so bold
as to join in it?"
At this point the philosopher's companion again turned to him and
said: "Don't be angry with me when I tell you that I too have a
somewhat similar feeling, which I have not mentioned to you before.
When talking to you I often felt drawn out of myself, as it were, and
inspired with your ardour and hopes till I almost forgot myself. Then
a calmer moment arrives; a piercing wind of reality brings me back to
earth--and then I see the wide gulf between us, over which you
yourself, as in a dream, draw me back again. Then what you call
'culture' merely totters meaninglessly around me or lies heavily on my
breast: it is like a shirt of mail that weighs me down, or a sword
that I cannot wield."
Our minds, as we thus argued with the philosopher, were unanimous,
and, mutually encouraging and stimulating one another, we slowly
walked with him backwards and forwards along the unencumbered space
which had earlier in the day served us as a shooting range. And then,
in the still night, under the peaceful light of hundreds of stars, we
all broke out into a tirade which ran somewhat as follows:--
"You have told us so much about the genius," we began, "about his
lonely and wearisome journey through the world, as if nature never
exhibited anything but the most diametrical contraries: in one place
the stupid, dull masses, acting by instinct, and then, on a far higher
and more remote plane, the great contemplating few, destined for the
production of immortal works. But now you call these the apexes of the
intellectual pyramid: it would, however, seem that between the broad,
heavily burdened foundation up to the highest of the free and
unencumbered peaks there must be countless intermediate degrees, and
that here we must apply the saying _natura non facit saltus_. Where
then are we to look for the beginning of what you call culture; where
is the line of demarcation to be drawn between the spheres which are
ruled from below upwards and those which are ruled from above
downwards? And if it be only in connection with these exalted beings
that true culture may be spoken of, how are institutions to be founded
for the uncertain existence of such natures, how can we devise
educational establishments which shall be of benefit only to these
select few? It rather seems to us that such persons know how to find
their own way, and that their full strength is shown in their being
able to walk without the educational crutches necessary for other
people, and thus undisturbed to make their way through the storm and
stress of this rough world just like a phantom."
We kept on arguing in this fashion, speaking without any great ability
and not putting our thoughts in any special form: but the
philosopher's companion went even further, and said to him: "Just
think of all these great geniuses of whom we are wont to be so proud,
looking upon them as tried and true leaders and guides of this real
German spirit, whose names we commemorate by statues and festivals,
and whose works we hold up with feelings of pride for the admiration
of foreign lands--how did they obtain the education you demand for
them, to what degree do they show that they have been nourished and
matured by basking in the sun of national education? And yet they are
seen to be possible, they have nevertheless become men whom we must
honour: yea, their works themselves justify the form of the
development of these noble spirits; they justify even a certain want
of education for which we must make allowance owing to their country
and the age in which they lived. How could Lessing and Winckelmann
benefit by the German culture of their time? Even less than, or at all
events just as little as Beethoven, Schiller, Goethe, or every one of
our great poets and artists. It may perhaps be a law of nature that
only the later generations are destined to know by what divine gifts
an earlier generation was favoured."
At this point the old philosopher could not control his anger, and
shouted to his companion: "Oh, you innocent lamb of knowledge! You
gentle sucking doves, all of you! And would you give the name of
arguments to those distorted, clumsy, narrow-minded, ungainly,
crippled things? Yes, I have just now been listening to the fruits of
some of this present-day culture, and my ears are still ringing with
the sound of historical 'self-understood' things, of over-wise and
pitiless historical reasonings! Mark this, thou unprofaned Nature:
thou hast grown old, and for thousands of years this starry sky has
spanned the space above thee--but thou hast never yet heard such
conceited and, at bottom, mischievous chatter as the talk of the
present day! So you are proud of your poets and artists, my good
Teutons? You point to them and brag about them to foreign countries,
do you? And because it has given you no trouble to have them amongst
you, you have formed the pleasant theory that you need not concern
yourselves further with them? Isn't that so, my inexperienced
children: they come of their own free will, the stork brings them to
you! Who would dare to mention a midwife! You deserve an earnest
teaching, eh? You should be proud of the fact that all the noble and
brilliant men we have mentioned were prematurely suffocated, worn out,
and crushed through you, through your barbarism? You think without
shame of Lessing, who, on account of your stupidity, perished in
battle against your ludicrous gods and idols, the evils of your
theatres, your learned men, and your theologians, without once daring
to lift himself to the height of that immortal flight for which he
was brought into the world. And what are your impressions when you
think of Winckelmann, who, that he might rid his eyes of your
grotesque fatuousness, went to beg help from the Jesuits, and whose
disgraceful religious conversion recoils upon you and will always
remain an ineffaceable blemish upon you? You can even name Schiller
without blushing! Just look at his picture! The fiery, sparkling eyes,
looking at you with disdain, those flushed, death-like cheeks: can you
learn nothing from all that? In him you had a beautiful and divine
plaything, and through it was destroyed. And if it had been possible
for you to take Goethe's friendship away from this melancholy, hasty
life, hunted to premature death, then you would have crushed him even
sooner than you did. You have not rendered assistance to a single one
of our great geniuses--and now upon that fact you wish to build up the
theory that none of them shall ever be helped in future? For each of
them, however, up to this very moment, you have always been the
'resistance of the stupid world' that Goethe speaks of in his
"Epilogue to the Bell"; towards each of them you acted the part of
apathetic dullards or jealous narrow-hearts or malignant egotists. In
spite of you they created their immortal works, against you they
directed their attacks, and thanks to you they died so prematurely,
their tasks only half accomplished, blunted and dulled and shattered
in the battle. Who can tell to what these heroic men were destined to
attain if only that true German spirit had gathered them together
within the protecting walls of a powerful institution?--that spirit
which, without the help of some such institution, drags out an
isolated, debased, and degraded existence. All those great men were
utterly ruined; and it is only an insane belief in the Hegelian
'reasonableness of all happenings' which would absolve you of any
responsibility in the matter. And not those men alone! Indictments are
pouring forth against you from every intellectual province: whether I
look at the talents of our poets, philosophers, painters, or
sculptors--and not only in the case of gifts of the highest order--I
everywhere see immaturity, overstrained nerves, or prematurely
exhausted energies, abilities wasted and nipped in the bud; I
everywhere feel that 'resistance of the stupid world,' in other words,
_your_ guiltiness. That is what I am talking about when I speak of
lacking educational establishments, and why I think those which at
present claim the name in such a pitiful condition. Whoever is pleased
to call this an 'ideal desire,' and refers to it as 'ideal' as if he
were trying to get rid of it by praising me, deserves the answer that
the present system is a scandal and a disgrace, and that the man who
asks for warmth in the midst of ice and snow must indeed get angry if
he hears this referred to as an 'ideal desire.' The matter we are now
discussing is concerned with clear, urgent, and palpably evident
realities: a man who knows anything of the question feels that there
is a need which must be seen to, just like cold and hunger. But the
man who is not affected at all by this matter most certainly has a
standard by which to measure the extent of his own culture, and thus
to know what I call 'culture,' and where the line should be drawn
between that which is ruled from below upwards and that which is ruled
from above downwards."
The philosopher seemed to be speaking very heatedly. We begged him to
walk round with us again, since he had uttered the latter part of his
discourse standing near the tree-stump which had served us as a
target. For a few minutes not a word more was spoken. Slowly and
thoughtfully we walked to and fro. We did not so much feel ashamed of
having brought forward such foolish arguments as we felt a kind of
restitution of our personality. After the heated and, so far as we
were concerned, very unflattering utterance of the philosopher, we
seemed to feel ourselves nearer to him--that we even stood in a
personal relationship to him. For so wretched is man that he never
feels himself brought into such close contact with a stranger as when
the latter shows some sign of weakness, some defect. That our
philosopher had lost his temper and made use of abusive language
helped to bridge over the gulf created between us by our timid respect
for him: and for the sake of the reader who feels his indignation
rising at this suggestion let it be added that this bridge often leads
from distant hero-worship to personal love and pity. And, after the
feeling that our personality had been restored to us, this pity
gradually became stronger and stronger. Why were we making this old
man walk up and down with us between the rocks and trees at that time
of the night? And, since he had yielded to our entreaties, why could
we not have thought of a more modest and unassuming manner of having
ourselves instructed, why should the three of us have contradicted him
in such clumsy terms?
For now we saw how thoughtless, unprepared, and baseless were all the
objections we had made, and how greatly the echo of _the_ present was
heard in them, the voice of which, in the province of culture, the old
man would fain not have heard. Our objections, however, were not
purely intellectual ones: our reasons for protesting against the
philosopher's statements seemed to lie elsewhere. They arose perhaps
from the instinctive anxiety to know whether, if the philosopher's
views were carried into effect, our own personalities would find a
place in the higher or lower division; and this made it necessary for
us to find some arguments against the mode of thinking which robbed us
of our self-styled claims to culture. People, however, should not
argue with companions who feel the weight of an argument so
personally; or, as the moral in our case would have been: such
companions should not argue, should not contradict at all.
So we walked on beside the philosopher, ashamed, compassionate,
dissatisfied with ourselves, and more than ever convinced that the old
man was right and that we had done him wrong. How remote now seemed
the youthful dream of our educational institution; how clearly we saw
the danger which we had hitherto escaped merely by good luck, namely,
giving ourselves up body and soul to the educational system which
forced itself upon our notice so enticingly, from the time when we
entered the public schools up to that moment. How then had it come
about that we had not taken our places in the chorus of its admirers?
Perhaps merely because we were real students, and could still draw
back from the rough-and-tumble, the pushing and struggling, the
restless, ever-breaking waves of publicity, to seek refuge in our own
little educational establishment; which, however, time would have soon
swallowed up also.
Overcome by such reflections, we were about to address the philosopher
again, when he suddenly turned towards us, and said in a softer tone--
"I cannot be surprised if you young men behave rashly and
thoughtlessly; for it is hardly likely that you have ever seriously
considered what I have just said to you. Don't be in a hurry; carry
this question about with you, but do at any rate consider it day and
night. For you are now at the parting of the ways, and now you know
where each path leads. If you take the one, your age will receive you
with open arms, you will not find it wanting in honours and
decorations: you will form units of an enormous rank and file; and
there will be as many people like-minded standing behind you as in
front of you. And when the leader gives the word it will be re-echoed
from rank to rank. For here your first duty is this: to fight in rank
and file; and your second: to annihilate all those who refuse to form
part of the rank and file. On the other path you will have but few
fellow-travellers: it is more arduous, winding and precipitous; and
those who take the first path will mock you, for your progress is more
wearisome, and they will try to lure you over into their own ranks.
When the two paths happen to cross, however, you will be roughly
handled and thrust aside, or else shunned and isolated.
"Now, take these two parties, so different from each other in every
respect, and tell me what meaning an educational establishment would
have for them. That enormous horde, crowding onwards on the first path
towards its goal, would take the term to mean an institution by which
each of its members would become duly qualified to take his place in
the rank and file, and would be purged of everything which might tend
to make him strive after higher and more remote aims. I don't deny, of
course, that they can find pompous words with which to describe their
aims: for example, they speak of the 'universal development of free
personality upon a firm social, national, and human basis,' or they
announce as their goal: 'The founding of the peaceful sovereignty of
the people upon reason, education, and justice.'
"An educational establishment for the other and smaller company,
however, would be something vastly different. They would employ it to
prevent themselves from being separated from one another and
overwhelmed by the first huge crowd, to prevent their few select
spirits from losing sight of their splendid and noble task through
premature weariness, or from being turned aside from the true path,
corrupted, or subverted. These select spirits must complete their
work: that is the _raison d'être_ of their common institution--a work,
indeed, which, as it were, must be free from subjective traces, and
must further rise above the transient events of future times as the
pure reflection of the eternal and immutable essence of things. And
all those who occupy places in that institution must co-operate in the
endeavour to engender men of genius by this purification from
subjectiveness and the creation of the works of genius. Not a few,
even of those whose talents may be of the second or third order, are
suited to such co-operation, and only when serving in such an
educational establishment as this do they feel that they are truly
carrying out their life's task. But now it is just these talents I
speak of which are drawn away from the true path, and their instincts
estranged, by the continual seductions of that modern 'culture.'
"The egotistic emotions, weaknesses, and vanities of these few select
minds are continually assailed by the temptations unceasingly murmured
into their ears by the spirit of the age: 'Come with me! There you are
servants, retainers, tools, eclipsed by higher natures; your own
peculiar characteristics never have free play; you are tied down,
chained down, like slaves; yea, like automata: here, with me, you will
enjoy the freedom of your own personalities, as masters should, your
talents will cast their lustre on yourselves alone, with their aid you
may come to the very front rank; an innumerable train of followers
will accompany you, and the applause of public opinion will yield you
more pleasure than a nobly-bestowed commendation from the height of
genius.' Even the very best of men now yield to these temptations: and
it cannot be said that the deciding factor here is the degree of
talent, or whether a man is accessible to these voices or not; but
rather the degree and the height of a certain moral sublimity, the
instinct towards heroism, towards sacrifice--and finally a positive,
habitual need of culture, prepared by a proper kind of education,
which education, as I have previously said, is first and foremost
obedience and submission to the discipline of genius. Of this
discipline and submission, however, the present institutions called by
courtesy 'educational establishments' know nothing whatever, although
I have no doubt that the public school was originally intended to be
an institution for sowing the seeds of true culture, or at least as a
preparation for it. I have no doubt, either, that they took the first
bold steps in the wonderful and stirring times of the Reformation, and
that afterwards, in the era which gave birth to Schiller and Goethe,
there was again a growing demand for culture, like the first
protuberance of that wing spoken of by Plato in the _Phaedrus_, which,
at every contact with the beautiful, bears the soul aloft into the
upper regions, the habitations of the gods."
"Ah," began the philosopher's companion, "when you quote the divine
Plato and the world of ideas, I do not think you are angry with me,
however much my previous utterance may have merited your disapproval
and wrath. As soon as you speak of it, I feel that Platonic wing
rising within me; and it is only at intervals, when I act as the
charioteer of my soul, that I have any difficulty with the resisting
and unwilling horse that Plato has also described to us, the
'crooked, lumbering animal, put together anyhow, with a short, thick
neck; flat-faced, and of a dark colour, with grey eyes and blood-red
complexion; the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf,
hardly yielding to whip or spur.'[8] Just think how long I have lived
at a distance from you, and how all those temptations you speak of
have endeavoured to lure me away, not perhaps without some success,
even though I myself may not have observed it. I now see more clearly
than ever the necessity for an institution which will enable us to
live and mix freely with the few men of true culture, so that we may
have them as our leaders and guiding stars. How greatly I feel the
danger of travelling alone! And when it occurred to me that I could
save myself by flight from all contact with the spirit of the time, I
found that this flight itself was a mere delusion. Continuously, with
every breath we take, some amount of that atmosphere circulates
through every vein and artery, and no solitude is lonesome or distant
enough for us to be out of reach of its fogs and clouds. Whether in
the guise of hope, doubt, profit, or virtue, the shades of that
culture hover about us; and we have been deceived by that jugglery
even here in the presence of a true hermit of culture. How steadfastly
and faithfully must the few followers of that culture--which might
almost be called sectarian--be ever on the alert! How they must
strengthen and uphold one another! How adversely would any errors be
criticised here, and how sympathetically excused! And thus, teacher, I
ask you to pardon me, after you have laboured so earnestly to set me
in the right path!"
"You use a language which I do not care for, my friend," said the
philosopher, "and one which reminds me of a diocesan conference. With
that I have nothing to do. But your Platonic horse pleases me, and on
its account you shall be forgiven. I am willing to exchange my own
animal for yours. But it is getting chilly, and I don't feel inclined
to walk about any more just now. The friend I was waiting for is
indeed foolish enough to come up here even at midnight if he promised
to do so. But I have waited in vain for the signal agreed upon; and I
cannot guess what has delayed him. For as a rule he is punctual, as we
old men are wont, to be, something that you young men nowadays look
upon as old-fashioned. But he has left me in the lurch for once: how
annoying it is! Come away with me! It's time to go!"
At this moment something happened.