CHAPTER I

REGENERATION

A REPLY TO

MAX NORDAU

WITH INTRODUCTION BY

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

Professor of Philosophy and Education

in Columbia College in the City of New York

New York

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

London: ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO.

1896

Copyright, 1896

BY

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

The Knickerbocker Press, New Rochelle, N. Y.

INTRODUCTION

Max Nordau is perhaps the most daring toreador of recent years. He

challenged Modern Civilization to mortal combat in the presence of

assembled thousands. Had the customs of the Roman arena prevailed, the

thumbs of the interested spectators would doubtless have been extended

or pressed down in about equal numbers, when the huge beast lay

momentarily stunned by his blow. That Nordau had ingeniously tormented

the monster was apparent; had he earned the right to put an end to

its existence? The shrill cries of the excitable and easily moved

predominated for a moment, but they were soon drowned by the insistent

demands of the sober-minded for a calm consideration of the fairness of

the blows that had been struck, as well as of the permissibility of the

weapons that had been used. Yet the contest, whether fair or unfair,

had been exciting; and it was not without its uses.

It stimulated thought among the habitually unthinking. The habit of

reflective analysis, like letter-writing and other accomplishments that

require much leisure, is slipping away from us under the pressure of

our complex modern life. The newspaper, with its surges of insensate

passion and unreasoned opinion, thinks for large portions of the

community; and its thinking, like the amusements of the nursery,

expresses itself in ways that appeal chiefly to the eye and to the

ear. Information about things is too often mistaken for knowledge of

things. Highly specialized activities on the one hand, and the task of

adjusting our part in the struggle for existence to economic conditions

wholly new in the world’s history, on the other, mark off our

civilization from any that have preceded it. The activities of modern

men are so numerous, so varied, and so interesting, that we often omit

to ask on what principles they are based and whither they are tending.

Apparent success has led us to forget sometimes that all sound practice

has a reason behind it, and reasons are seldom asked for or given.

To say the least, then, it is somewhat surprising to be stopped on

the street corner and assured, with due emphasis and the appearance

of authority, that nineteenth-century men and women are absorbed in

interests that mark a diseased type of mind, and are given over to a

literature, an art, and a music that, themselves produced by madmen,

are rapidly reducing us all to the mad-house level; in other words,

that we and our boasted civilization are degenerates.

There is, as I have said, a certain use in this brutal proceeding, for

it causes us to stop and think. It shatters our conceit and shakes our

confidence. If we pause only for a moment, yet pause we must. The mere

daring of the attack forces this. So it has come about that Nordau’s

_Degeneration_, quite apart from its intrinsic merits or demerits, has

been widely read and much talked of throughout the civilized world. It

has provoked some anger, not a little amusement, and a fair measure

of contempt. Yet in a certain subtle way it has set us to examining

the reasons that lead most of us to deny the essential viciousness and

abnormality of some of the most salient and striking characteristics of

contemporary culture.

If Nordau’s indictment be classed as pessimism, it at least has the

merit of novelty of statement. From Homer’s time to the present poets

and philosophers have not forgotten, even in moments of highest

exaltation, to remind man that his life has a dark and hopeless side.

Our own century has listened to Leopardi, who envied only the dead,

and to Schopenhauer, who called man both the priest and the victim of

nature. And yet we have not been altogether unhappy.

But Nordau is no ordinary pessimist. He does not lead us to despair

through the by-paths of metaphysical subtlety, nor does he take

advantage of the awful mystery of pain to perplex and distract us.

Rather he drags us into the laboratory and, stretching us on a table

of definitions made for the purpose, proceeds to measure our faces

and our skulls, our teeth, the lobes of our ears, and our palates;

we pay the penalty of our individuality in being found to be “morbid

deviations from an original type,” and are therefore degenerate. Next

comes an examination of a selected group of man’s newer interests. The

music of Wagner, the dramas of Ibsen, the romances of Zola, the art of

the pre-Raphaelites, the mystics, the symbolists, the Parnassians—who

but a “decadent” would treat all these alike?—are passed in review

and pronounced to be proofs of the decadence of mankind even more

conclusive than those based upon physical measurements. All this is

done in the name of Science, which, reversing the procedure of Saturn,

thus hastens to devour the parent that begot it, Modern Civilization.

A long chapter might be written on the credulity of men of science.

The hypotheses that they have chased out of the door complacently fly

in at the window. Many scientists, fresh from apparently important

discoveries in narrow fields, need to be reminded of the lesson

contained in the legend of St. Augustine, who when walking on the shore

one day, absorbed in meditation, suddenly perceived a child that with

a shell was ladling the sea into a hole in the sand. “What are you

doing, my child?” asked St. Augustine. “I am emptying the ocean,” was

the reply, “into this hole.”—“That is impossible.” “Not more impossible

than for you to empty the universe into your intellect,” said the

child, and vanished. Nordau is particularly prone to regard the small

achievements of a certain school of alienists as having supplied him

with a conclusive test of all excellence. Indeed, no part of his

diatribe is more open to criticism than the use he makes of Science.

If modern science is demonstrating any one thing more clearly than

another, it is that the insights of the seers of our race as to the

highest human aspirations and the deepest needs of the human spirit,

meet not with contradiction but with support as knowledge of the cosmos

becomes more extensive and more accurate. Nordau has neglected to

reckon with the profound truth that finds expression in the celebrated

saying of Lotze:

“The more I myself have laboured to prepare the way for acceptance of

the mechanical view of Nature in the region of organic life—in which

region this view seemed to advance more timidly than the nature of the

thing required—the more do I now feel impelled to bring into prominence

the other aspect which was equally near to my heart during all these

endeavours.... It is in such mediation [between the two aspects] that

the true source of the life of science is to be found; not indeed in

affirming now a fragment of one view and now a fragment of the other,

but in showing how _absolutely universal is the extent_, and at the

same time how _completely subordinate is the significance, of the

mission which mechanism has to fulfil in the structure of the world_.”

There is also hidden from Nordau’s view that noble conception of the

place and significance of Science to which Tyndall gave expression in

the eloquent peroration of his Belfast address more than twenty years

ago:

“Science itself not unfrequently derives motive-power from an

ultra-scientific source. Some of its greatest discoveries have been

made under the stimulus of a non-scientific ideal.... The world

embraces not only a Newton, but a Shakspere—not only a Boyle, but a

Raphael—not only a Kant, but a Beethoven—not only a Darwin, but a

Carlyle. Not in each of these, but in all, is human nature whole.

They are not opposed, but supplementary—not mutually exclusive, but

reconcilable. And if, unsatisfied with them all, the human mind, with

the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will still turn to

the Mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to

give unity to thought and faith, so long as this is done, not only

without intolerance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened

recognition that ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable,

and that each succeeding age must be held free to fashion the

mystery in accordance with its own needs—then, casting aside all the

restrictions of Materialism, I would affirm this to be a field for the

noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the knowing faculties, may

be called the creative faculties of man.”

Why, then, should not literature and art and music enter and occupy

the very field that the apostles of Science assign to them, without

being exposed to the alienists’ sneers for their symbolism and their

mysticism? The truth is that Nordau is the slave of one idea, and that

the logical outcome of his definition and conception of abnormality.

Ribot described such a case perfectly when he said that “nothing is

more common or better known than the momentary appropriation of the

personality by some intense and fixed idea. As long as this idea

occupies consciousness, we may say without exaggeration that it

constitutes the individual.” Degeneration constitutes Nordau. He is

himself an abnormality and a pathological type. Every large hospital

for the insane knows his representative—the one sane man in a world of

lunatics.

To perceive the true direction and to estimate the relative force of

a large human movement requires a long interval of time. Caught in

an eddy of the moment, we may seem to be drifting backward, when in

reality to the spectator on the shore we are being swept onward with

great rapidity. The same world of experience seemed to Parmenides to

exclude by its very nature all motion, and to Heraclitus to derive its

only reality from its perpetual change. It is the standard and the

point of view that control such judgments, and we are entitled to ask

of any standard or point of view, _Quid juris?_ Nordau, however, has

not asked himself that question. Seizing upon some partially completed

anthropological investigations, with their half-speculative inferences,

he has fashioned for himself a yard-stick with which to measure

civilization. Aristotle long ago pointed out that the true difference

between the poet and the historian is to be found in the fact that the

former relates what may happen, the latter what has happened. One might

similarly distinguish the man of science, who applies what has been

proved, from the charlatan, who seeks to apply what has not been proved.

As a result of dissenting from Nordau’s premises, method, and

conclusions, it is by no means necessary to be forced to defend all the

phases of modern civilization that he attacks. Some of them, no doubt,

are unwholesome, but for reasons other than those which this critic

adduces. Many of them are mere fleeting phenomena, confined within

the narrowest limits, and the world at large first heard of them from

Nordau’s pages. It is only a lack of humour that can elevate such

traits and tendencies into the position of powerful forces in human

culture, such as Platonism, Humanism, or Christianity. The old Sophist

was right when he commended humour as the test of gravity.

The author of _Regeneration_ is successful in turning the flank of

Nordau’s attacking forces at more points than one. He is able at times,

without over-exertion, to convict Nordau not only of lack of knowledge,

but of what is far worse—knowledge of things that are not true. His

view of life is more sane and better-balanced than that of Nordau,

despite an anti-Teutonic tendency that perhaps partakes of the nature

of an argument _ad hominem_. The judgment of the average man who knows

the history of the past two centuries will sustain him in holding that

“there are a host of indications in all civilized countries pointing

to an increase in intellectual power, moral strength, and æsthetic

refinement.” Those to whom Lincoln applied the affectionate designation

of “the plain people” have advanced and are advancing by tremendous

strides in knowledge and refinement. They, and not a group or two of

men and women in each of the capitals of Europe, are the real index

to the degeneracy, or the contrary, of modern life. If democracy is

to establish itself more widely and more efficiently as a form of

government, it must rest upon the common sense of the plain people.

So far from being influenced by the tendencies that Nordau exploits

with so much vigour, it is not improbable that even the names of the

representatives of most of those tendencies are unknown to them.

Progress in education, in philanthropy, in commerce and industry, and

in the comforts of life, has developed a seriousness and a sense of

responsibility that have brought into many an English and American face

the lines that distinguished the countenance of the typical Senator

of Rome. The higher altruism of our time believes that life is not

only worth living, but worth working for. Long ago Mr. Herbert Spencer

remarked that the current conception of progress is vague, and that it

is in a great measure erroneous. It takes in, he said, not so much the

reality of progress as its accompaniments—not so much the substance

as the shadow. Nordau, with all of the superficiality, the absence of

any sense of proportion, and the lack of humour that so often mark the

extreme specialist, has hardly come in sight of even the shadow.

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER.

Columbia College,

_January, 1896._

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I PAGE

Who is the Critic? 1

CHAPTER II

Dusk or Dawn! 27

CHAPTER III

Mysticism and the Unknowable 44

CHAPTER IV

The Bankruptcy of Science 73

CHAPTER V

Symbolism and Logic 94

CHAPTER VI

The Light of Russia 108

CHAPTER VII

The Real Ibsen 132

CHAPTER VIII

Richard Wagner 183

CHAPTER IX

The Religion of Self 230

CHAPTER X

An Ethical Inquisition 241

CHAPTER XI

Vigorous Affirmations 258

CHAPTER XII

Regeneration 290

REGENERATION

CHAPTER I

_WHO IS THE CRITIC?_

Voltaire said that if all the celestial bodies are inhabited, our earth

must be the mad-house of the universe. To us who know the era of the

great cynic only as recorded by the history of Dryasdusts, and the

flippant memoirs and autobiographies of his contemporaries, his biting

sarcasm cannot be considered undeserved. But, with regard to our own

times, most of us would probably hesitate to brand our present state of

culture, our modern civilization, as a fool’s paradise.

It is a truism that an historical epoch can only be correctly studied

at a distance in time, as the outlines of a mountain can only be

studied at a distance in space. The actor in a piece, though intimately

acquainted with his own part and the accessories with which he comes

in contact, cannot form a just idea of the impression which the play,

with its more or less successful rendering, its scenery, and other

spectacular effects, produces on the mind of the average spectator. A

super who is ignorant of stage management and of the precise results

the manager aims at might deem many things going on behind the stage

both foolish and ridiculous. To him the frantic efforts of some actor,

or scene-shifter, to produce some ordinary effect might well appear as

lunacy.

The judgment we form concerning the time we live in runs a great risk

of being biassed by the narrowness of the vista we can command. The

interdependence of causes simultaneously at work, the co-operation of

impulses active at a great distance, the peculiarities of circumstances

surrounding each leading phenomenon, the real intentions of leading

characters, secret motives in groups and parties—all this represents so

many sealed books to the contemporary to be gradually opened only by

future historians.

There are no doubt many facilities ready to hand for the man who in

modern times desires to study his own epoch, which were not available

in the past. Distances are practically suppressed, the whole of

civilized humanity has been placed in intimate connection, a highly

developed Press records daily events everywhere in a minute fashion,

to the making of books there is no end, and in every direction an

elaborate mechanism is established for the obtaining of rapid and

precise information. In fact, the _Kammergelehrte_, who, like Kant,

would study the world-phenomenon without leaving his native town, would

in our days stand a better chance of obtaining completer and exacter

information than any philosopher before him.

But, despite the quasi-ubiquitousness the modern philosopher enjoys, he

would indulge in self-deception were he tempted to believe that he had

secured all the data requisite to judge the contemporaries of his race

as they act, live, feel, and think during the closing years of this

century.

For, against the easy access to information, must be placed the mass

of intricate problems that arise with every step of progress, the

multitude of ideas which strive for realization, the bewilderment

which ensues on crumbling systems and religions, new discoveries,

new theories, new and complicated associations of ideas, new and

hazy aspirations, sympathies, and yearnings—for all of which words

cannot be coined fast enough. Every day we witness political, social,

economic, and psychological phenomena, the explanation of which would

demand not only an enormous amount of knowledge, but reasoning powers

and a freedom from bias seldom blended in one human mind. Facts,

circumstances, theories, human actions, and human ideas, change and

intermingle so constantly and so rapidly as to produce bewilderment

capable of misleading any philosopher who attempts to gauge them with

the instruments of the past and in conformity with the doctrines of the

school to which he belongs.

What renders it still more difficult to appraise any epoch, and

especially the present one, is the intimate interdependence of all

the phenomena to be observed. The idiosyncrasies of a sovereign, or

of a minister, influence legislation, legislation influences public

institutions, public institutions influence the upper classes, and the

upper classes influence the masses. But legislation, institutions,

the upper classes, and the people are influenced from a great number

of other directions, while they again influence the sovereign and

the minister. Thus it would be impossible to attribute with accuracy

a given number of effects to special causes: for every cause is the

effect of another cause, and every effect produces other effects.

For instance, art and literature may strongly influence men in power

as well as the masses, while no one will deny that men in power, as

well as the political and social condition of the masses, exercise

a strong influence on art and literature. And then, on top of it

all,—as if worse to confound the confusion of the man with a system,

trivial incidents intervene and bring about a new series of causes

and effects evidently destined to operate as long as humanity lasts.

So interdependent are the actors in the human drama, so complete is

the intricate and sensitive mechanism of causes and effects, and so

overcharged with energy are the social dynamos, that any fool, any

child, any trivial accident, may move one of the countless points

arranged by circumstances, and thus hurl the engine of events in new

and dangerous directions.

These and many other difficulties encountered by the student of his own

time are largely responsible for his opinions, often savouring as much

of his idiosyncrasy, his professional and national prejudices as of an

independent inquiry. In order to choose between the maze of highways

and by-ways, in order to judge whether he moved forwards, backwards,

or in a circle, he gropes for some kind of a compass and naturally

clutches at that which his idiosyncrasy proffers. When we therefore

meet with an appraiser of his own epoch, it behooves us to bear in mind

the standpoint from which he has contemplated the world-phenomenon,

and with what bias and prejudice his views have been coloured. The old

Greek story of the sandal-maker who became prejudiced against a work

of art because the artist had made a mistake in the arrangement of the

sandal-strings, points its moral. The prejudices arising from trade,

personal interests, and many other palpable sources are not difficult

to trace and to evade, but where is the man whose views have not been

influenced by his nationality, his religion, his favourite science or

art, his love, his hatred, or his ambition?

It is to such influences, often considered by the influenced as so many

advantages and seldom sufficiently noticed by his critics, that we

often owe the apparent profundity and exhaustiveness of an appreciation

which in reality is one-sided.

Education, and, still more, an intense study of one special branch

of knowledge, rich in important and striking results, naturally tend

to strengthen the student’s faith and his belief in the capabilities

of his favourite science. The brain-cells, influenced by the will,

and habitually becoming stimulated by presentations—emanating from

the subject on which the student has concentrated his attention—adapt

themselves gradually to the perception of such presentations, and by

re-acting on other cells render the whole organism disposed to seek

such presentations. In plain language, the specialist in one science

has a great aptitude for discovering such causes and such effects

as his favourite science has best elucidated, while he is tempted

to overlook other causes and other effects which may be of equal or

greater importance.

The specialist attains to a mastery of his own subject, and often

acquires a strong bias regarding other subjects, because he pursues his

inquiries somewhat after the same fashion as the dog follows the scent

of the game. By training, the dog is familiar with the smell of the

animal pursued, and, bent on following the trail, he pays no attention

to any other scents or smells that he encounters in his course. In

the same way the specialist rapidly perceives and minutely studies

any phenomena, however slight, with which his favourite science has

rendered him familiar, while he is apt to disregard phenomena demanding

fresh studies and threatening to be inexplicable by investigation

confined to the lines which he prefers to follow.

Thus, if a law-student were to write a treatise on our epoch, he would

endeavour to show that the jurisprudence, the law, and the courts—in

fact, the whole legal mechanism—is the most important feature in our

civilization, and that on which progress or retrogression most depends.

As remedies for our evils, he would propose simpler or more complicated

forms of procedure, more or less enactments, according to his own

idiosyncrasies.

A military man would consider a development on military lines as true

progress. He would yearn to draft the whole nation into the army! He

would favour universal conscription, as Lord Wolseley does, and might,

like Count Moltke, look upon war as a healthy bracing, an epuration, of

a race, and as an indispensable corrective to over-population. He would

cite the expansion of the chest in Germany as a proof of the power of

military training to further physical development, and would look upon

strict military discipline as the means of establishing moral order in

a country.

A theologian would point to the immense influence exercised by

Christianity upon humanity, and would insist upon the religious aspect

of every question, and, like Mr. Drummond, would see in every new

discovery a confirmation of his peculiar dogmas. His remedy would be

more ritualism, or more liberal doctrines, or more emotion in religion,

according to his High Church, Broad Church, or Low Church creed.

Philosophical religionists, like Mr. Benjamin Kidd and others who

pin their faith to the development of the altruistic feeling in

human beings, would endeavour to reconcile all phenomena under their

observation with their theory of social evolution.

If therefore we wish to form a correct judgment of our own time and

our own contemporaries, we must not allow ourselves to be guided

exclusively by a scientist of one specialty. We ought to be all the

more on our guard, as the great erudition and the profound study which

each modern specialist has brought to bear on his subject gives to his

theories a striking plausibility, a savour of exact science to such an

extent as to sway our opinions in favour of the latest treatise we have

read.

Politicians, sociologists, economists, biologists, theologians, and

the æsthetes have had their say and have each in their turn exercised

a periodical spell over the public mind. It is now the turn of the

alienists. Dr. Max Nordau has by his book entitled _Degeneration_

produced no small sensation throughout the world, and not least

in this country. Though his work may not have made the stir of a

sensational novel read by the millions, there can be little doubt

that it has imposed itself on every educated mind in the country. It

is no exaggeration to say that, like a sharp trumpet-blast, it has

awakened the educated classes from the lethargy consequent upon the

din of clashing opinions and contradictory systems. This volume has

once more roused us to the fact that we, as individuals, as a nation,

as a race, are travelling at comet-speed towards a goal of which we

have no inkling. It sternly suggests that we are on the wrong road and

that a fate of a most horrible description is rapidly befalling us—an

affliction in most people’s view worse than annihilation. Madness is

shown to be insidiously invading our minds, and by its contagious

nature threatening to prove Voltaire’s biting sarcasm a stern prophecy.

It is no wonder that his work has become as it were a nightmare

to millions of minds. If its diagnosis and its conclusions are as

irrefutable as to most people they appear to be, we indeed live in a

fool’s paradise: our leaders, our authorities, our men of genius,

are not the beacons we have held them to be, but will-o’-the-wisps

luring us into the bottomless quagmires of lunacy; the progression we

vaunted is a slippery plane sliding us back to bestiality; our means

for raising the masses are so many slashes at the bonds of moral

order and decency, calculated to unloose the brutish Loke of modern

democracy; unbridled animal appetites threaten to take the place of

law and religion; all social order is being undermined; and the vilest

instincts press for gratification in lust, rapine, and murder. With

all the solemnity, moral persuasiveness, and scientific authority of

a medical practitioner, Max Nordau tells us that a mortal disease is

invading our race, and that with the end of the century the “dusk” of

humanity begins.

Before we accept the views of Max Nordau, before we have recourse

to the drastic remedies he seems to recommend, it is right that we

should subject his theories to the closest investigation. If his work

were one of exact science, there would be no necessity to refer to

the personality of the author, to his peculiar point of view, and to

his predilections. But, as his work partakes largely of the nature

of special pleading, as his methods of reasoning are those of the

enthusiastic specialist, and as his postulates are strongly coloured

by racial, national, and professional bias, the more we know of him

the more easily shall we follow him in his progress on the highways of

logic and in his deviations from them. Human language is not so perfect

as to allow us to dispense with the additional light on expressed

ideas which may be derived from one’s knowledge of the speaker who

gives utterance to them. To study the author as well as his work is

all the more permissible, as this volume is not intended as a complete

refutation of Max Nordau’s conclusions, but rather aims at separating

the dross from the gold and at giving him, as well as his work, their

right place and their true value as telling factors in the development

of our race. Indeed, this is exactly the method adopted by Max Nordau

in his study, not to say dissection, of his contemporaries.

It must be clearly understood however that there is no intention of

going to the length to which Max Nordau has gone in speaking of men of

the day—an abuse of literature which recalls the literary squabbles

of past generations. The gross vituperation and the coarse calumny

he levels against those he denounces will certainly not enhance his

popularity or inspire confidence in his methods in England. In fact,

his frequent indulgence in personalities would have prejudiced his work

enormously were it not for the overwhelming testimony it offers of the

fact that its author’s mind is conspicuously devoid of the sense of

the ridiculous. Had it not been for this peculiar mental defect, his

treatment of his opponents could not have failed to remind him of the

disputing doctors in Molière’s _Malade Imaginaire_.

Here we have to do not with the man, but with the author,—not with his

relations to his private surroundings, but with his relation to the

presentations he receives, the ideas he elaborates, and the conclusions

he proclaims.

In _Degeneration_ Max Nordau evidently strives to take a cosmopolitan

standpoint. Only in three or four places does he speak of Germany as

his own country, while he displays a remarkable erudition in foreign

literature, but only a superficial knowledge of foreign circumstances.

Unconsciously however he constantly betrays his German nationality.

To say that he is a typical German involves by no means any slur upon

his views, has nothing to do with the fact that the Germans are at

this moment—for reasons entirely independent of German worth—rather

unpopular in this country. It is his book that clearly announces him

as a German, just as the books of Drummond and Benjamin Kidd announce

them to be English. In other words, his methods, his views, his

predispositions, his standards, his ideals, are thoroughly German.

Few countries have so strong a power of inspiring love for their

institutions and their characteristics as Germany. Not only is the

German spell over those who are born and bred in the country, but

foreigners who reside there any length of time generally become

thoroughly Germanized. Even English people, whose characteristic it is

to create a little England around them wherever they go, are remarkably

susceptible to German influence when living in the country.

Despite the propensity of many Germans, complained of by Max Nordau in

his book, to imitate French art and literature, the German people have

strongly pronounced characteristics, opinions, feelings, and views.

We, here in England, have ample opportunity of observing the tenacity

of the German bias. We sometimes meet with Germans who have conquered

their native propensities and thoroughly assimilated themselves with

the English nation. But, on the other hand, many Germans, when settled

among us, continue to look on everything through German spectacles,

and utterly fail to grasp, or even superficially to understand, the

English spirit. This refers, of course, only to those who are actually

born in Germany. The second generation is invariably more English

than the English. We often meet with Teutons who have come young to

England, gained a position here, married English wives, brought up a

large family of English children, and who yet remain as German as any

_Spiesbürger_ in Berlin. They do not appear so to the casual observer.

Their business relations, their acquaintances, their wives, and their

children, being all English, expect them to be English. They therefore

assume an English outward garb, but as soon as circumstances allow them

to drop their English character the German characteristics of these

“tame Englishmen” come out as strong as ever. These facts are elicited

in no critical spirit, but simply as proofs of the tenacity of the

German bias.

The practical result of this bias is an open or secret contempt for

English views, a distrust in English institutions, a want of sympathy

with the English race, and doubts about the future of the British

Empire.

If we wish Max Nordau’s nationality to throw light on the working of

his mind, we must realize what are the most essential traits of the

average German.

Not yet completely freed from feudal institutions, it is natural that

the German people should associate moral and political order, good

administration, and personal protection, with feudal institutions.

Hence an immense respect for those in authority and a contempt for

the masses, even on the part of the masses. Democratic government and

individual liberty inspire the German with great distrust, because he

considers that the introduction into Germany of such features would

mean a social upheaval in which the meagre advantages which now each

individual enjoys might be lost.

As in Germany all initiative belongs to the authorities, the people

have become accustomed to bend to superiors, and where an Englishman

would attempt to establish a Free Order, the Germans can conceive

nought but discipline. A great number of enlightened Germans submit

tacitly to all kinds of authorities because they are morally convinced

that this is best for themselves and their country; but a large part

of the masses, having always found that the authorities gain their

ends by the use of police and military force, submit only because they

are obliged. Hence a deep-rooted feeling of discontent in a nation

constantly compelled to do the bidding of others. This discontent has

engendered a hatred against the upper classes similar to that which in

France paved the way for the first Revolution. The fear of the outbreak

of this hatred gives, in the eyes of the German middle-class, an extra

halo to authority.

The love of following authorities, instead of standing alone, is in

Germany not confined to the domain of politics. While Englishmen, down

to the wage-earning labourer, have, or believe they have, their own

opinions about politics, administration, religion, social affairs, and

even scientific problems, the Germans have an accepted authority in

each of these branches. Were we to question, say, a hundred Germans

in a _Bierhalle_, or any other public place, as to their opinions on

the above-named subjects, the replies would be simply an enumeration

of their authorities in each branch of knowledge. Though this

characteristic is a misfortune to Germany, to the Germans it savours

of a quaint reasonableness. A German Socialist, asked why he blindly

accepted Liebknecht’s views, replied: “I should be both silly and

conceited if I, a scantily educated man, with no leisure and means for

study, could believe myself capable of forming a better opinion than

Herr Liebknecht, who has brought a remarkable mind and great knowledge

to bear on political questions.”

This reasoned self-depreciation, this blind faith in authorities,

accounts for much in Germany which would be impossible in England. The

way, for example, in which the youths of the country are forced into

the ranks of the army against their will and inclination would be out

of the question with us. Here, the great majority of young men would

simply refuse, and to coerce them by military executions would involve

a wholesale slaughter against which the whole nation would revolt.

There have been young men in Germany who, on principle, have resisted

the compulsory service, but brutal punishment has quickly dissuaded

those of their comrades who secretly admired them from following their

example. Nothing could be more unjust to the German people than to

attribute to cowardice this lamb-like submission. German youths are

as brave as those of any other nation, and what to us English might

appear a want of both moral and physical courage is simply the powerful

influence of the German bias.

Enough has been said to show that German education and German

surroundings tend to foster in the human mind veneration for authority

and aristocracy, contempt for the plebeian, distrust of liberty, a firm

belief in the unquenchable power of man’s lowest instincts, a nervous

demand for authoritative repression of human passions, contentment with

a prosaic existence, small resources, and poor prospects.

It is natural that a nation whose mind is moulded in such a form

should despair of the practical realization of its ideals; that the

aspirations of the German race for liberty, enjoyment, and romance

should seek an outlet in the realms of the imagination; and that the

Germans should be a sentimental race. In this they differ diametrically

from our nation. The young German, when his humdrum work-day is over,

will plunge into books of poetry, romance, and adventure. He will

worship and eagerly follow his pet heroes, but to emulate them in

practical life, as a rule, does not occur to him.

His romantic admiration of female beauty, and his sentiment of love,

have nothing to do with his marriage. He postpones, as a rule, the

taking to himself a wife until he is fairly successful in life, when

pure romantic love has ceased to exercise any spell over him, and

he expects that his marriage should improve his social position and

procure him a circle of desirable friends. His poetical notions of love

do not interfere with the choice of a wife. What he looks for is a

young woman with practical qualities, likely to be a useful _Hausfrau_,

and when he has found her, he loses no time in suppressing all her

poetical notions and soon reduces her to a submissive drudge.

No suspicion of inconsistency enters the mind of an average German

when he reads or writes romances of love and chivalry in which the

hero shows the most refined courtesy, commits deeds of self-abnegation

and daring in honour of his lady-love, and exercises the utmost tact

in shielding her from every harsh and unpleasant impression, and at

the same time treats his wife as one devoid of all claims upon his

consideration. He will exact from her such small menial services as the

slave performs for his master. He will expect her to work constantly

for him, the family, and the house. He will not allow her enough

time or money for her toilet, for pleasure, for book, and social

intercourse. He will not stir to save her trouble or fatigue. He will

come to the table in dressing-gown and slippers, and coolly look for

special dishes for himself, while his wife and children have to content

themselves with cheap garbage.

Germans of the middle-class who come to England frequently express

their amazement at the way in which English husbands constantly pay

attention to their wives. They call it undignified for the breadwinner

and master of the house, on return from a day of professional work, to

“dance attendance” on his wife, whose duty it is to serve her husband.

The German, prior to marriage, allows his poetical notions to be

disturbed as little by his sexual emotions as by his marriage plans.

In a methodical and business-like way he gratifies the former

in police-supervised establishments, and what he looks upon as

“constitutional sprees” are never allowed to interfere with the course

of his affairs. After a night of debauch he will turn up in his studio,

his office, or his home, smiling and happy as if nothing had happened.

We record these observations with no desire to criticise or to

underrate the German character. Nor do we wish to insinuate that

hypocrisy and profligacy are non-existent in England. We simply wish

to show that the development of the German race has induced them to

conceive ideals entirely unrealizable, and to dream of aims so far off

in time as to render them unattainable.

It will be evident to all who have read _Degeneration_ that Max Nordau

is under the influence of a strong German bias. As we proceed, we shall

have occasion to point out how in many instances this bias has warped

his perceptions, his reasoning, and his conclusions.

From characteristics revealed in his work, the observant reader will,

no doubt, conclude that Max Nordau belongs to the Jewish race. The view

he takes of the disgraceful Jew-baiting tendencies now prevailing in

Germany is based on exactly the same mistakes committed by the Jews

themselves, as we shall have an opportunity of verifying later on. He

is evidently a free-thinking Jew, a type which we meet with everywhere,

and against which as few objections can be raised as against any

other type of man. The free-thinking Jew is generally clever,

well-instructed, moral, and cheerful. His good qualities however

do not prevent him from having his peculiar characteristics, which

naturally influence his perceptions and his feelings. He has generally

a cut-and-dried life-philosophy based on science and common-sense as

well as on Jewish authorities. He distrusts democracy, especially

Christian democracy, and feels never quite safe except under laws and

institutions which allow him to assume such ascendancy as his mental

qualifications can secure for him, and those who think with him. He

does not seek for primary causes, and sets up no spiritual ideals.

Though he may not be religious, he has yet retained something of the

monotheist creed, the predilection for worldly affairs, and the habit

of looking forward to a future life rather in his descendants than in

a heaven—a view which always characterized his race. His philosophy is

nothing if not practical. His aims are immediate, and, as a rule, he

eagerly embraces all the teachings of the materialist scientists.

Max Nordau is a modern scientist. He is not a pioneer in science, but

a most persevering and plodding student of the works of others. He

belongs to that class of _savants_ who spend almost all their time and

all their energy in reading up the authorities. So vast an erudition

as he has acquired cannot be attained to without some sacrifice in

other directions. The constant absorption of other peoples’ opinions

and theories compels the judgment to lean more and more on authorities,

and this unfits it, to some extent, for independent action. It is the

indefatigable readers who most blindly follow authorities, and it

suffices to glance at Max Nordau’s dedication to Professor Lombroso

to understand to what an extent he is subject to the influence of

“Masters.”

The pride taken by a scientist in his science, and the great practical

results achieved by scientific investigations, naturally tend to

foster an implicit confidence in its tenets. This has been especially

the case during the last decades, so remarkable for religious

tolerance. As the faith in old dogmas has receded, science has

advanced, and in many cases taken its place. That such has been the

case has naturally flattered the votaries of science, and tempted them

to become prophets as well as investigators. They have come to look

upon systems as dogmas, speculations as absolute truths, and in this

fashion scientific superstition tends to take the place of religious

superstition.

The scientifically superstitious man is an example of the dangers

of a little knowledge. Not that our men of science, including the

superstitious scientists, are defective in such knowledge as is

attainable at our present stage, but the sum total of all human

knowledge is still, and is probably destined ever to be, only partial

and extremely superficial. Compared with the knowledge in the past,

modern science represents an immense progress, but as to throwing light

on the great secret of the Universe, far from having done anything of

the sort, it has, on the contrary, revealed more and more inexplicable

wonders, and placed us face to face with more insoluble problems.

Though trite, the aphorism that the more we learn the more we realize

our ignorance is truer to-day than ever. It is natural and excusable

that devotees of a science which to them has revealed wonderful

results should raise abnormal expectations with regard to its future

possibilities, and also that vanity, a weakness often co-existent with

vast knowledge, should prompt a scientist to extol and glorify science

far beyond the bounds of reason; for any worship offered to science

rebounds necessarily on its high priests. This impossibility to realize

the limits in which science moves, and the yearning for admiration, lie

at the base of scientific superstition.

The scientifically superstitious man believes that science has

adequately replied to those great questions which humanity has been

asking itself for the last five thousand years. How was creation

originated? For what purpose did it come into existence? What is man?

What does the scheme of humanity involve? Have we existed before our

birth? Shall we live after death? What is the origin of evil? What

is eternity? What is boundlessness in space? What is reason? What is

instinct? and so on.

If his excessive study has not seriously impaired his independent

reasoning powers, the superstitious scientist may confess that these

questions have not been replied to by science, but there will still

lurk in his mind the belief that one day science will answer them.

He does not distinguish between nomenclature, registration, and

classification on the one hand, and explanation on the other. When he

has named any newly-discovered substance, force, or phenomenon, he

imagines that he has explained them. He believes that he has accounted

for what is called matter when he has evolved the atom, and that he has

unveiled the secret of life when he has discovered the protoplasm or

the cell.

All scientists are not affected by scientific superstition. They

generally suffer from it in an inverse ratio to the actual knowledge

they have acquired. The pioneer in science generally exhibits less of

this weakness than those who simply act as commentators and elaborators

of other men’s discoveries.

The votaries of certain sciences are less apt to indulge in scientific

superstition than those of other branches. Thus, astronomers rarely

exhibit any such symptoms, while biologists are more apt to do so, and

psychologists are more scientifically superstitious than any other

class of scientists. It might be hazardous to attempt an explanation

of this fact, but may it not be found in the obviousness of outward

infinity, and the impalpability of inward infinity?

Later on we shall have ample occasion to show to what an extent Max

Nordau’s mind has been clouded by scientific superstition.

Finally, it must be pointed out that Max Nordau is an enemy to France.

It is only human in any German. The stupendous armament of France

is ostentatiously promoted with the object of revenge upon Germany.

France, in her sulks over the lost provinces, takes every opportunity

of showing animosity, and this despite the conciliatory attitude of her

Government.

Though nearly a quarter of a century has elapsed since the disastrous

war between Germany and France, the bad feeling between the two

nations has unfortunately been kept up. France cannot forget the loss

of her provinces, and, though the attitude of the French Government

is conciliatory, outbursts of a feeling of hatred against Germany,

accompanied by provocative language on the part of irresponsible men,

constantly occur.

The German people, with a vivid recollection of the French invasion

early in the century, and perhaps taking the expressions of the

war-party in France too seriously, look upon the French nation as

their arch-enemies. By the celebration of anniversaries painful to the

French, and other means, the German Government keeps the animosity

between the two nations alive, and impresses the people with the

opinion that the heavy taxes it has to pay for armaments are made

indispensable by the enmity of France. It, is therefore, natural that

hatred against France should prevail in Germany.

We understand that Max Nordau for a considerable time was the Paris

correspondent of German papers, and we may take for granted that he

would not have been able to please his German readers had he not been

strongly biassed in favour of Germany against France—a fact to which

his work bears ample witness.

Such is, then, the man who, in his undaunted faith in his science and

in himself, in the name of truth and the welfare of humanity, and

undeterred by the penalties of the Great Council and Hell Fire, has

said to his brethren,—to the one, “You are Raca!” and to the other,

“Thou fool!”