{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_42208/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_42208","id":"gutenberg_42208","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42208","summary":null,"tags":["Category: German Literature","Category: History - European","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Philosophy, German"],"text":"GERMAN PHILOSOPHY\n                         AND POLITICS\n\n\n                              BY\n                          JOHN DEWEY\n        Professor of Philosophy in Columbia University\n\n\n                           NEW YORK\n                    HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\n                             1915\n\n\n\n\n                       COPYRIGHT, 1915,\n                              BY\n                    HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\n\n\n                 THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS\n                        RAHWAY, N. J.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe will of John Calvin McNair established a Foundation at the\nUniversity of North Carolina upon which public lectures are to be given\nfrom time to time to the members of the University. This book contains\nthree lectures which were given in February of this year upon this\nFoundation. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the many courtesies enjoyed\nduring my brief stay at Chapel Hill, the seat of the University.\n\n     J. D.\n\n     Columbia University,\n     New York City, April, 1915.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                        PAGE\n       I GERMAN PHILOSOPHY: THE TWO WORLDS                 3\n\n      II GERMAN MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY            47\n\n     III THE GERMANIC PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY               91\n\n         INDEX                                           133\n\n\n\n\nGERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nGERMAN PHILOSOPHY: THE TWO WORLDS\n\n\nThe nature of the influence of general ideas upon practical affairs is a\ntroubled question. Mind dislikes to find itself a pilgrim in an alien\nworld. A discovery that the belief in the influence of thought upon\naction is an illusion would leave men profoundly saddened with\nthemselves and with the world. Were it not that the doctrine forbids any\ndiscovery influencing affairs--since the discovery would be an idea--we\nshould say that the discovery of the wholly _ex post facto_ and idle\ncharacter of ideas would profoundly influence subsequent affairs. The\nstrange thing is that when men had least control over nature and their\nown affairs, they were most sure of the efficacy of thought. The\ndoctrine that nature does nothing in vain, that it is directed by\npurpose, was not engrafted by scholasticism upon science; it formulates\nan instinctive tendency. And if the doctrine be fallacious, its pathos\nhas a noble quality. It testifies to the longing of human thought for a\nworld of its own texture. Yet just in the degree in which men, by means\nof inventions and political arrangements, have found ways of making\ntheir thoughts effective, they have come to question whether any\nthinking is efficacious. Our notions in physical science tend to reduce\nmind to a bare spectator of a machine-like nature grinding its\nunrelenting way. The vogue of evolutionary ideas has led many to regard\nintelligence as a deposit from history, not as a force in its making. We\nlook backward rather than forward; and when we look forward we seem to\nsee but a further unrolling of a panorama long ago rolled up on a cosmic\nreel. Even Bergson, who, to a casual reader, appears to reveal vast\nunexplored vistas of genuinely novel possibilities, turns out, upon\ncareful study, to regard _intellect_ (everything which in the past has\ngone by the name of observation and reflection) as but an evolutionary\ndeposit whose importance is confined to the conservation of a life\nalready achieved, and bids us trust to instinct, or something akin to\ninstinct, for the future:--as if there were hope and consolation in\nbidding us trust to that which, in any case, we cannot intelligently\ndirect or control.\n\nI do not see that the school of history which finds Bergson mystic and\nromantic, which prides itself upon its hard-headed and scientific\ncharacter, comes out at a different place. I refer to the doctrine of\nthe economic interpretation of history in its extreme form--which, so\nits adherents tell us, is its only logical form. It is easy to follow\nthem when they tell us that past historians have ignored the great part\nplayed by economic forces, and that descriptions and explanations have\nbeen correspondingly superficial. When one reflects that the great\nproblems of the present day are those attending economic reorganization,\none might even take the doctrine as a half-hearted confession that\nhistorians are really engaged in construing the past in terms of the\nproblems and interests of an impending future, instead of reporting a\npast in order to discover some mathematical curve which future events\nare bound to describe. But no; our strictly scientific economic\ninterpreters will have it that economic forces present an inevitable\nevolution, of which state and church, art and literature, science and\nphilosophy are by-products. It is useless to suggest that while modern\nindustry has given an immense stimulus to scientific inquiry, yet\nnevertheless the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century comes\nafter the scientific revolution of the seventeenth. The dogma forbids\nany connection.\n\nBut when we note that Marx gave it away that his materialistic\ninterpretation of history was but the Hegelian idealistic dialectic\nturned upside down, we may grow wary. Is it, after all, history we are\ndealing with or another philosophy of history? And when we discover that\nthe great importance of the doctrine is urged upon us, when we find that\nwe are told that the general recognition of its truth helps us out of\nour present troubles and indicates a path for future effort, we\npositively take heart. These writers do not seem to mean just what they\nsay. Like the rest of us, they are human, and infected with a belief\nthat ideas, even highly abstract theories, are of efficacy in the\nconduct of human affairs influencing the history which is yet to be.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have, however, no intention of entering upon this controversy, much\nless of trying to settle it. These remarks are but preliminary to a\nconsideration of some of the practical affiliations of portions of the\nmodern history of philosophical thought with practical social affairs.\nAnd if I set forth my own position in the controversy in question, the\nstatement is frankly a personal one, intended to make known the\nprepossessions with which I approach the discussion of the political\nbearings of one phase of modern philosophy. I do not believe, then, that\n_pure_ ideas, or pure thought, ever exercised any influence upon human\naction. I believe that very much of what has been presented as\nphilosophic reflection is in effect simply an idealization, for the sake\nof emotional satisfaction, of the brutely given state of affairs, and is\nnot a genuine discovery of the practical influence of ideas. In other\nwords, I believe it to be esthetic in type even when sadly lacking in\nesthetic form. And I believe it is easy to exaggerate the practical\ninfluence of even the more vital and genuine ideas of which I am about\nto speak.\n\nBut I also believe that there are no such things as _pure_ ideas or\n_pure_ reason. Every living thought represents a gesture made toward\nthe world, an attitude taken to some practical situation in which we\nare implicated. Most of these gestures are ephemeral; they reveal the\nstate of him who makes them rather than effect a significant alteration\nof conditions. But at some times they are congenial to a situation in\nwhich men in masses are acting and suffering. They supply a model for\nthe attitudes of others; they condense into a dramatic type of action.\nThey then form what we call the \"great\" systems of thought. Not all\nideas perish with the momentary response. They are voiced and others\nhear; they are written and others read. Education, formal and informal,\nembodies them not so much in other men's minds as in their permanent\ndispositions of action. They are in the blood, and afford sustenance to\nconduct; they are in the muscles and men strike or retire. Even\nemotional and esthetic systems may breed a disposition toward the world\nand take overt effect. The reactions thus engendered are, indeed,\nsuperficial as compared with those in which more primitive instincts are\nembodied. The business of eating and drinking, buying and selling,\nmarrying and being given in marriage, making war and peace, gets somehow\ncarried on along with any and every system of ideas which the world has\nknown. But how, and when and where and for what men do even these things\nis tremendously affected by the abstract ideas which get into\ncirculation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI take it that I may seem to be engaged in an emphatic urging of the\nobvious. However it may be with a few specialized schools of men, almost\neverybody takes it as a matter of course that ideas influence action and\nhelp determine the subsequent course of events. Yet there is a purpose\nin this insistence. Most persons draw the line at a certain kind of\ngeneral ideas. They are especially prone to regard the ideas which\nconstitute philosophic theories as practically innocuous--as more or\nless amiable speculations significant at the most for moments of\nleisure, in moments of relief from preoccupation with affairs. Above\nall, men take the particular general ideas which happen to affect their\nown conduct of life as normal and inevitable. Pray what other ideas\nwould any sensible man have? They forget the extent to which these ideas\noriginated as parts of a remote and technical theoretical system, which\nby multitudes of non-reflective channels has infiltrated into their\nhabits of imagination and behavior. An expert intellectual anatomist,\nmy friends, might dissect you and find Platonic and Aristotelian\ntissues, organs from St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, Locke and\nDescartes, in the make-up of the ideas by which you are habitually\nswayed, and find, indeed, that they and other thinkers of whose names\nyou have never heard constitute a larger part of your mental structure\nthan does the Calvin or Kant, Darwin or Spencer, Hegel or Emerson,\nBergson or Browning to whom you yield conscious allegiance.\n\nPhilosophers themselves are naturally chiefly responsible for the\nordinary estimate of their own influence, or lack of influence. They\nhave been taken mostly at their own word as to what they were doing, and\nwhat for the most part they have pretended to do is radically different\nfrom what they have actually done. They are quite negligible as seers\nand reporters of ultimate reality, or the essential natures of things.\nAnd it is in this aspect that they have mostly fancied seeing\nthemselves. Their actual office has been quite other. They have told\nabout nature and life and society in terms of collective human desire\nand aspiration as these were determined by contemporary difficulties\nand struggles.\n\nI have spoken thus far as if the influence of general ideas upon action\nwere likely to be beneficial. It goes against the grain to attribute\nevil to the workings of intelligence. But we might as well face the\ndilemma. What is called pure thought, thought freed from the empirical\ncontingencies of life, would, even if it existed, be irrelevant to the\nguidance of action. For the latter always operates amid the circumstance\nof contingencies. And thinking which is colored by time and place must\nalways be of a mixed quality. In part, it will detect and hold fast to\nmore permanent tendencies and arrangements; in part, it will take the\nlimitations of its own period as necessary and universal--even as\nintrinsically desirable.\n\nThe traits which give thinking effectiveness for the good give it also\npotency for harm. A physical catastrophe, an earthquake or\nconflagration, acts only where it happens. While its effects endure, it\npasses away. But it is of the nature of ideas to be abstract: that is to\nsay, severed from the circumstances of their origin, and through\nembodiment in language capable of operating in remote climes and alien\nsituations. Time heals physical ravages, but it may only accentuate the\nevils of an intellectual catastrophe--for by no lesser name can we call\na systematic intellectual error. To one who is professionally\npreoccupied with philosophy there is much in its history which is\nprofoundly depressing. He sees ideas which were not only natural but\nuseful in their native time and place, figuring in foreign contexts so\nas to formulate defects as virtues and to give rational sanction to\nbrute facts, and to oppose alleged eternal truths to progress. He sees\nmovements which might have passed away with change of circumstance as\ncasually as they arose, acquire persistence and dignity because thought\nhas taken cognizance of them and given them intellectual names. The\nwitness of history is that to think in general and abstract terms is\ndangerous; it elevates ideas beyond the situations in which they were\nborn and charges them with we know not what menace for the future. And\nin the past the danger has been the greater because philosophers have so\nlargely purported to be concerned not with contemporary problems of\nliving, but with essential Truth and Reality viewed under the form of\neternity.\n\nIn bringing these general considerations to a close, I face an\nembarrassment. I must choose some particular period of intellectual\nhistory for more concrete illustration of the mutual relationship of\nphilosophy and practical social affairs--which latter, for the sake of\nbrevity, I term Politics. One is tempted to choose Plato. For in spite\nof the mystic and transcendental coloring of his thought, it was he who\ndefined philosophy as the science of the State, or the most complete and\norganized whole known to man; it is no accident that his chief work is\ntermed the \"Republic.\" In modern times, we are struck by the fact that\nEnglish philosophy from Bacon to John Stuart Mill has been cultivated by\nmen of affairs rather than by professors, and with a direct outlook upon\nsocial interests. In France, the great period of philosophy, the period\nof _les philosophes_, was the time in which were forged the ideas which\nconnect in particular with the French Revolution and in general with the\nconceptions which spread so rapidly through the civilized world, of the\nindefinite perfectibility of humanity, the rights of man, and the\npromotion of a society as wide as humanity, based upon allegiance to\nreason.\n\nSomewhat arbitrarily I have, however, selected some aspects of classic\nGerman thought for my illustrative material. Partly, I suppose, because\none is piqued by the apparent challenge which its highly technical,\nprofessorial and predominantly _a priori_ character offers to the\nproposition that there is close connection between abstract thought and\nthe tendencies of collective life. More to the point, probably, is the\nfact that the heroic age of German thought lies almost within the last\ncentury, while the creative period of continental thought lies largely\nin the eighteenth century, and that of British thought still earlier. It\nwas Taine, the Frenchman, who said that all the leading ideas of the\npresent day were produced in Germany between 1780 and 1830. Above all,\nthe Germans, as we say, have philosophy in their blood. Such phrases\ngenerally mean something not about hereditary qualities, but about the\nsocial conditions under which ideas propagate and circulate.\n\nNow Germany is the modern state which provides the greatest facilities\nfor general ideas to take effect through social inculcation. Its system\nof education is adapted to that end. Higher schools and universities in\nGermany are really, not just nominally, under the control of the state\nand part of the state life. In spite of freedom of academic instruction\nwhen once a teacher is installed in office, the political authorities\nhave always taken a hand, at critical junctures, in determining the\nselection of teachers in subjects that had a direct bearing upon\npolitical policies. Moreover, one of the chief functions of the\nuniversities is the preparation of future state officials. Legislative\nactivity is distinctly subordinate to that of administration conducted\nby a trained civil service, or, if you please, bureaucracy. Membership\nin this bureaucracy is dependent upon university training. Philosophy,\nboth directly and indirectly, plays an unusually large role in the\ntraining. The faculty of law does not chiefly aim at the preparation of\npracticing lawyers. Philosophies of jurisprudence are essential parts of\nthe law teaching; and every one of the classic philosophers took a hand\nin writing a philosophy of Law and of the State. Moreover, in the\ntheological faculties, which are also organic parts of state-controlled\ninstitutions, the theology and higher criticism of Protestant Germany\nhave been developed, and developed also in close connection with\nphilosophical systems--like those of Kant, Schleiermacher and Hegel. In\nshort, the educational and administrative agencies of Germany provide\nready-made channels through which philosophic ideas may flow on their\nway to practical affairs.\n\nPolitical public opinion hardly exists in Germany in the sense in which\nit obtains in France, Great Britain or this country. So far as it\nexists, the universities may be said to be its chief organs. They,\nrather than the newspapers, crystallize it and give it articulate\nexpression. Instead of expressing surprise at the characteristic\nutterances of university men with reference to the great war, we should\nthen rather turn to the past history in which the ideas now uttered were\ngenerated.\n\nIn an account of German intellectual history sufficiently extensive we\nshould have to go back at least to Luther. Fortunately, for our\npurposes, what he actually did and taught is not so important as the\nmore recent tradition concerning his peculiarly Germanic status and\noffice. All peoples are proud of all their great men. Germany is proud\nof Luther as its greatest national hero. But while most nations are\nproud of their great men, Germany is proud of itself rather for\nproducing Luther. It finds him as a Germanic product quite natural--nay,\ninevitable. A belief in the universal character of his genius thus\nnaturally is converted into a belief of the essentially universal\nquality of the people who produced him.\n\nHeine was not disposed by birth or temperament to overestimate the\nsignificance of Luther. But here is what he said:\n\n     \"Luther is not only the greatest but the most _German_ man in\n     our history. . . . He possessed qualities that we seldom see\n     associated--nay, that we usually find in the most hostile\n     antagonism. He was at once a dreamy mystic and a practical man\n     of action. . . . He was both a cold scholastic word-sifter and\n     an inspired God-drunk prophet. . . . He was full of the awful\n     reverence of God, full of self-sacrificing devotion to\n     the Holy Spirit, he could lose himself entirely in pure\n     spirituality. Yet he was fully acquainted with the glories of\n     this earth; he knew how estimable they are; it was his lips\n     that uttered the famous maxim--\n\n          \"'Who loves not woman, wine and song,\n          Remains a fool his whole life long.'\n\n     He was a complete man, I might say an absolute man, in whom\n     there was no discord between matter and spirit. To call\n     him a spiritualist would be as erroneous as to call him a\n     sensualist. . . . Eternal praise to the man whom we have to\n     thank for the deliverance of our most precious possessions.\"\n\nAnd again speaking of Luther's work:\n\n     \"Thus was established in Germany spiritual freedom, or as it\n     is called, freedom of thought. Thought became a right and the\n     decisions of reason legitimate.\"\n\nThe specific correctness of the above is of slight importance as\ncompared with the universality of the tradition which made these ideas\npeculiarly Germanic, and Luther, therefore, a genuine national hero and\ntype.\n\nIt is, however, with Kant that I commence. In Protestant Germany his\nname is almost always associated with that of Luther. That he brought to\nconsciousness the true meaning of the Lutheran reformation is a\ncommonplace of the German historian. One can hardly convey a sense of\nthe unique position he occupies in the German thought of the last two\ngenerations. It is not that every philosopher is a Kantian, or that the\nprofessed Kantians stick literally to his text. Far from it. But Kant\nmust always be reckoned with. No position unlike his should be taken up\ntill Kant has been reverently disposed of, and the new position\nevaluated in his terms. To scoff at him is fair sacrilege. In a genuine\nsense, he marks the end of the older age. He _is_ the transition to\ndistinctively modern thought.\n\nOne shrinks at the attempt to compress even his leading ideas into an\nhour. Fortunately for me, few who read my attempt will have sufficient\nacquaintance with the tomes of Kantian interpretation and exposition to\nappreciate the full enormity of my offense. For I cannot avoid the\neffort to seize from out his highly technical writings a single idea and\nto label that his germinal idea. For only in this way can we get a clew\nto those general ideas with which Germany characteristically prefers to\nconnect the aspirations and convictions that animate its deeds.\n\nAdventuring without further preface into this field, I find that Kant's\ndecisive contribution is the idea of a dual legislation of reason by\nwhich are marked off two distinct realms--that of science and that of\nmorals. Each of these two realms has its own final and authoritative\nconstitution: On one hand, there is the world of sense, the world of\nphenomena in space and time in which science is at home; on the other\nhand, is the supersensible, the noumenal world, the world of moral duty\nand moral freedom.\n\nEvery cultivated man is familiar with the conflict of science and\nreligion, brute fact and ideal purpose, what is and what ought to be,\nnecessity and freedom. In the domain of science causal dependence is\nsovereign; while freedom is lord of moral action. It is the proud boast\nof those who are Kantian in spirit that Kant discovered laws deep in the\nvery nature of things and of human experience whose recognition puts an\nend forever to all possibility of conflict.\n\nIn principle, the discovery is as simple as its application is\nfar-reaching. Both science and moral obligation exist. Analysis shows\nthat each is based upon laws supplied by one and the same reason (of\nwhich, as he is fond of saying, reason is the legislator); but laws of\nsuch a nature that their respective jurisdictions can never compete. The\nmaterial for the legislation of reason in the natural world is sense. In\nthis sensible world of space and time, causal necessity reigns: such is\nthe decree of reason itself. Every attempt to find freedom, to locate\nideals, to draw support for man's moral aspirations in nature, is\npredoomed to failure. The effort of reason to do these things is\ncontrary to the very nature of reason itself: it is self-contradictory,\nsuicidal.\n\nWhen one considers the extent in which religion has been bound up with\nbelief in miracles, or departures from the order of nature; when one\nnotes how support for morals has been sought in natural law; how morals\nhave been tied up with man's natural tendencies to seek happiness and\nwith consequences in the way of reward of virtue and punishment of vice;\nhow history has been explained as a play of moral forces--in short, the\nextent to which both the grounds and the sanctions for morality have\nbeen sought within the time and space world, one realizes the scope of\nthe revolution wrought by Kant, provided his philosophy be true. Add to\nthis the fact that men in the past have not taken seriously the idea\nthat every existence in space, every event in time, is connected by\nbonds of causal necessity with other existences and events, and\nconsequently have had no motive for the systematic pursuit of science.\nHow is the late appearance of science in human history to be accounted\nfor? How are we to understand the comparatively slight influence which\nscience still has upon the conduct of life? Men, when they have not\nconsciously looked upon nature as a scene of caprice, have failed to\nbring home to themselves that nature is a scene of the legislative\nactivity of reason in the material of sense. This fact the Kantian\nphilosophy brings home to man once for all; it brings it home not as a\npious wish, nor as a precarious hope confirmed empirically here and\nthere by victories won by a Galileo or a Newton, but as an indubitable\nfact necessary to the existence of any cognitive experience at all. The\nreign of law in nature is the work of the same reason which proceeds\nempirically and haltingly to the discovery of law here and there. Thus\nthe acceptance of the Kantian philosophy not only frees man at a single\nstroke from superstition, sentimentalism and moral and theological\nromanticism, but gives at the same stroke authorization and stimulation\nto the detailed efforts of man to wrest from nature her secrets of\ncausal law. What sparse groups of men of natural science had been doing\nfor the three preceding centuries, Kant proclaimed to be the\nmanifestation of the essential constitution of man as a knowing being.\nFor those who accept the Kantian philosophy, it is accordingly the\n_magna charta_ of scientific work: the adequate formulation of the\nconstitution which directs and justifies their scientific inquiries. It\nis a truism to say that among the Germans as nowhere else has developed\na positive reverence for science. In what other land does one find in\nthe organic law mention of Science, and read in its constitution an\nexpress provision that \"Science and its teaching are free\"?\n\nBut this expresses only half of Kant's work. Reason is itself\nsupersensible. Giving law to the material of sense and so constituting\nnature, it is in itself above sense and nature, as a sovereign is above\nhis subjects. The supersensible world is thus a more congenial field for\nits legislative activity than the physical world of space and time. But\nis any such field open to human experience? Has not Kant himself closed\nand locked the gates in his assertion that the entire operation of man's\nknowing powers is confined to the realm of sense in which causal\nnecessity dominates? Yes, as far as knowledge is concerned. No, as far\nas moral obligation is concerned. The fact of duty, the existence of a\ncategorical command to act thus and so, no matter what the pressure of\nphysical surroundings or the incitation of animal inclinations, is as\nmuch a fact as the existence of knowledge of the physical world. Such a\ncommand cannot proceed from nature. What is cannot introduce man to what\nought to be, and thus impose its own opposite upon him. Nature only\nenmeshes men in its relentless machine-like movement. The very existence\nof a command in man to act for the sake of what ought to be--no matter\nwhat actually is--is thus of itself final proof of the operation of\nsupersensible reason within human experience: not, indeed, within\ntheoretical or cognitive experience, but within moral experience.\n\nThe moral law, the law of obligation, thus proceeds from a source in man\nabove reason. It is token of his membership as a moral being in a\nkingdom of absolute ends above nature. But it is also directed to\nsomething in man which is equally above nature: it appeals to and\ndemands freedom. Reason is incapable of anything so irrational, so\nself-contradictory, as imposing a law of action to which no faculty of\naction corresponds. The freedom of the moral will is the answer to the\nunqualified demand of duty. It is not open to man to accept or reject\nthis truth as he may see fit. It is a principle of reason which is\ninvolved in every exercise of reason. In denying it in name, man none\nthe less acknowledges it in fact. Only men already sophisticated by vice\nwho are seeking an excuse for their viciousness ever try to deny, even\nin words, the response which freedom makes to the voice of duty. Since,\nhowever, freedom is an absolute stranger to the natural and sensible\nworld, man's possession of moral freedom is the final sign and seal of\nhis membership in a supersensible world. The existence of an ideal or\nspiritual realm with its own laws is thus certified to by the fact of\nman's own citizenship within it. But, once more, this citizenship and\nthis certification are solely moral. Scientific or intellectual warrant\nfor it is impossible or self-contradictory, for science works by the\nlaw of causal necessity with respect to what is, ignorant of any law of\nfreedom referring to what should be.\n\nWith the doors to the supersensible world now open, it is but a short\nstep to religion. Of the negative traits of true religion we may be sure\nin advance. It will not be based upon intellectual grounds. Proofs of\nthe existence of God, of the creation of nature, of the existence of an\nimmaterial soul from the standpoint of knowledge are all of them\nimpossible. They transgress the limits of knowledge, since that is\nconfined to the sensible world of time and space. Neither will true\nreligion be based upon historic facts such as those of Jewish history or\nthe life of Jesus or the authority of a historic institution like a\nchurch. For all historic facts as such fall within the realm of time\nwhich is sensibly conditioned. From the points of view of natural\ntheology and historic religions Kant was greeted by his contemporaries\nas the \"all-shattering.\" Quite otherwise is it, however, as to moral\nproofs of religious ideas and ideals. In Kant's own words: \"I have found\nit necessary to deny knowledge of God, freedom and immortality in order\nto find a place for faith\"--faith being a moral act.\n\nThen he proceeds to reinterpret in terms of the sensuous natural\nprinciple and the ideal rational principle the main doctrines of\nLutheran Protestantism. The doctrines of incarnation, original sin,\natonement, justification by faith and sanctification, while baseless\nliterally and historically, are symbols of the dual nature of man, as\nphenomenal and noumenal. And while Kant scourges ecclesiastical\nreligions so far as they have relied upon ceremonies and external\nauthority, upon external rewards and punishments, yet he ascribes\ntransitional value to them in that they have symbolized ultimate moral\ntruths. Although dogmas are but the external vesture of inner truths,\nyet it may be good for us \"to continue to pay reverence to the outward\nvesture since that has served to bring to general acceptance a doctrine\nwhich really rests upon an authority within the soul of man, and which,\ntherefore, needs no miracle to commend it.\"\n\nIt is a precarious undertaking to single out some one thing in German\nphilosophy as of typical importance in understanding German national\nlife. Yet I am committed to the venture. My conviction is that we have\nits root idea in the doctrine of Kant concerning the two realms, one\nouter, physical and necessary, the other inner, ideal and free. To this\nwe must add that, in spite of their separateness and independence, the\nprimacy always lies with the inner. As compared with this, the\nphilosophy of a Nietzsche, to which so many resort at the present time\nfor explanation of what seems to them otherwise inexplicable, is but a\nsuperficial and transitory wave of opinion. Surely the chief mark of\ndistinctively German civilization is its combination of self-conscious\nidealism with unsurpassed technical efficiency and organization in the\nvaried fields of action. If this is not a realization in fact of what is\nfound in Kant, I am totally at loss for a name by which to characterize\nit. I do not mean that conscious adherence to the philosophy of Kant has\nbeen the cause of the marvelous advances made in Germany in the natural\nsciences and in the systematic application of the fruits of intelligence\nto industry, trade, commerce, military affairs, education, civic\nadministration and industrial organization. Such a claim would be\nabsurd. But I do mean, primarily, that Kant detected and formulated the\ndirection in which the German genius was moving, so that his philosophy\nis of immense prophetic significance; and, secondarily, that his\nformulation has furnished a banner and a conscious creed which in solid\nand definite fashion has intensified and deepened the work actually\nundertaken.\n\nIn bringing to an imaginative synthesis what might have remained an\nimmense diversity of enterprises, Kantianism has helped formulate a\nsense of a national mission and destiny. Over and above this, his\nformulation and its influence aids us to understand why the German\nconsciousness has never been swamped by its technical efficiency and\ndevotion, but has remained self-consciously, not to say\nself-righteously, idealistic. Such a work as Germany has undertaken\nmight well seem calculated to generate attachment to a positivistic or\neven materialistic philosophy and to a utilitarian ethics. But no; the\nteaching of Kant had put mechanism forever in its subordinate place at\nthe very time it inculcated devotion to mechanism in its place. Above\nand beyond as an end, for the sake of which all technical achievements,\nall promotion of health, wealth and happiness, exist, lies the realm of\ninner freedom, of the ideal and the supersensible. The more the Germans\naccomplish in the way of material conquest, the more they are conscious\nof fulfilling an ideal mission; every external conquest affords the\ngreater warrant for dwelling in an inner region where mechanism does not\nintrude. Thus it turns out that while the Germans have been, to employ a\ncatchword of recent thought, the most technically pragmatic of all\npeoples in their actual conduct of affairs, there is no people so\nhostile to the spirit of a pragmatic philosophy.\n\nThe combination of devotion to mechanism and organization in outward\naffairs and of loyalty to freedom and consciousness in the inner realm\nhas its obvious attractions. Realized in the common temper of a people\nit might well seem invincible. Ended is the paralysis of action arising\nfrom the split between science and useful achievements on one side and\nspiritual and ideal aspirations on the other. Each feeds and reinforces\nthe other. Freedom of soul and subordination of action dwell in harmony.\nObedience, definite subjection and control, detailed organization is the\nlesson enforced by the rule of causal necessity in the outer world of\nspace and time in which action takes place. Unlimited freedom, the\nheightening of consciousness for its own sake, sheer reveling in noble\nideals, the law of the inner world. What more can mortal man ask?\n\nIt would not be difficult, I imagine, to fill the three hours devoted to\nthese lectures with quotations from representative German authors to the\neffect that supreme regard for the inner meaning of things, reverence\nfor inner truth in disregard of external consequences of advantage or\ndisadvantage, is the distinguishing mark of the German spirit as\nagainst, say, the externality of the Latin spirit or the utilitarianism\nof Anglo-Saxondom. I content myself with one quotation, a quotation\nwhich also indicates the same inclination to treat historic facts as\nsymbolic of great truths which is found in Kant's treatment of church\ndogmas. Speaking of the Germanic languages, an historian of German\ncivilization says:\n\n     \"While all other Indo-European languages allow a wide liberty\n     in placing the accent and make external considerations,\n     such as the quantity of the syllables and euphony, of\n     deciding influence, the Germanic tribes show a remarkable\n     and intentional transition to an internal principle of\n     accentuation. . . . Of all related peoples the Germanic alone\n     puts the accent on the root syllable of the word, that is, on\n     the part that gives it its meaning. There is hardly an\n     ethnological fact extant which gives so much food for thought\n     as this. What leads these people to give up a habit which must\n     have been so old that it had become instinctive, and to evolve\n     out of their own minds a principle which indicates a power of\n     discrimination far in advance of anything we are used to\n     attribute to the lower stages of civilization? Circumstances\n     of which we are not now aware must have compelled them to\n     distinguish the inner essence of things from their external\n     form, and must have taught them to appreciate the former as of\n     higher, indeed as of sole, importance. It is this accentuation\n     of the real substance of things, the ever-powerful desire to\n     discover this real substance, and the ever-present impulse to\n     give expression to this inner reality which has become the\n     controlling trait of the Germanic soul. Hence the conviction\n     gained by countless unfruitful efforts, that reason alone will\n     never get at the true foundation of things; hence the\n     thoroughness of German science; hence a great many of the\n     qualities that explain Germanic successes and failures; hence,\n     perhaps, a certain stubbornness and obstinacy, the\n     unwillingness to give up a conviction once formed; hence the\n     tendency to mysticism; hence that continuous struggle which\n     marks the history of German art,--the struggle to give to the\n     contents powerful and adequate expression, and to satisfy at\n     the same time the requirements of esthetic elegance and\n     beauty, a struggle in which the victory is ever on the side of\n     truth, though it be homely, over beauty of form whenever it\n     appears deceitful; hence the part played by music as the only\n     expression of those imponderable vibrations of the soul for\n     which language seems to have no words; hence the faith of the\n     German in his mission among the nations as a bringer of truth,\n     as a recognizer of the real value of things as against the\n     hollow shell of beautiful form, as the doer of right deeds for\n     their own sake and not for any reward beyond the natural\n     outcome of the deed itself.\"\n\nThe division established between the outer realm, in which of course\nacts fall, and the inner realm of consciousness explains what is\notherwise so paradoxical to a foreigner in German writings: The constant\nassertion that Germany brought to the world the conscious recognition of\nthe principle of freedom coupled with the assertion of the relative\nincompetency of the German folk _en masse_ for political self-direction.\nTo one saturated by the English tradition which identifies freedom with\npower to act upon one's ideas, to make one's purposes effective in\nregulation of public affairs, the combination seems self-contradictory.\nTo the German it is natural. Readers who have been led by newspaper\nquotations to regard Bernhardi as preaching simply a gospel of superior\nforce will find in his writings a continual assertion that _the_ German\nspirit is the spirit of freedom, of complete intellectual\nself-determination; that the Germans have \"always been the standard\nbearers of free thought.\" We find him supporting his teachings not by\nappeal to Nietzsche, but by the Kantian distinction between the\n\"empirical and rational ego.\"\n\nIt is Bernhardi who says:\n\n     \"Two great movements were born from the German intellectual\n     life, on which, henceforth, _all the intellectual and moral\n     progress of mankind must rest_:--The Reformation and the\n     critical philosophy. The Reformation that broke the\n     intellectual yoke imposed by the Church, which checked all\n     free progress; and the Critique of Pure Reason which put a\n     stop to the caprice of philosophic speculation by defining for\n     the human mind the limitations of its capacities for\n     knowledge, and at the same time pointed out the way in which\n     knowledge is really possible. On this substructure was\n     developed the intellectual life of our time, whose deepest\n     significance consists in the attempt to reconcile the result\n     of free inquiry with the religious needs of the heart, and\n     thus to lay a foundation for the harmonious organization of\n     mankind. . . . The German nation not only laid the foundations\n     of this great struggle for a harmonious development of humanity\n     but took the lead in it. We are thus incurring an obligation\n     for the future from which we cannot shrink. We must be\n     prepared to be the leader in this campaign which is being\n     fought for the highest stake that has been offered to human\n     efforts. . . . To no nation except the German has it been given\n     to enjoy in its inner self 'that which is given to mankind as\n     a whole.' . . . It is this quality which especially fits us for\n     leadership in the intellectual domain and _imposes upon us the\n     obligation to maintain that position_.\"[35:A]\n\n          [35:A] Bernhardi, \"Germany and the Next War,\" pp.\n          73-74. Italics not in the original text.\n\nMore significant than the words themselves are their occasion and the\noccupation of the one who utters them. Outside of Germany, cavalry\ngenerals who employ philosophy to bring home practical lessons are, I\nthink, rare. Outside of Germany, it would be hard to find an audience\nwhere an appeal for military preparedness would be reinforced by\nallusions to the Critique of Pure Reason.\n\nYet only by taking such statements seriously can one understand the\ntemper in which opinion in Germany meets a national crisis. When the\nphilosopher Eucken (who received a Nobel prize for contributing to the\nidealistic literature of the world) justifies the part taken by Germany\nin a world war because the Germans alone do not represent a\nparticularistic and nationalistic spirit, but embody the \"universalism\"\nof humanity itself, he utters a conviction bred in German thought by the\nruling interpretation of German philosophic idealism. By the side of\nthis _motif_ the glorification of war as a biologic necessity, forced by\nincrease of population, is a secondary detail, giving a totally false\nimpression when isolated from its context. The main thing is that\nGermany, more than any other nation, in a sense alone of all nations,\nembodies the essential principle of humanity: freedom of spirit,\ncombined with thorough and detailed work in the outer sphere where\nreigns causal law, where obedience, discipline and subordination are\nthe necessities of successful organization. It is perhaps worth while to\nrecall that Kant lived, taught and died in Koenigsberg; and that\nKoenigsberg was the chief city of east Prussia, an island still cut off\nin his early years from western Prussia, a titular capital for the\nPrussian kings where they went for their coronations. His lifework in\nphilosophy coincides essentially with the political work of Frederick\nthe Great, the king who combined a regime of freedom of thought and\ncomplete religious toleration with the most extraordinary display known\nin history of administrative and military efficiency. Fortunately for\nour present purposes, Kant, in one of his minor essays, has touched upon\nthis combination and stated its philosophy in terms of his own thought.\n\nThe essay in question is that entitled \"What is the Enlightenment?\" His\nreply in substance is that it is the coming of age on the part of\nhumanity: the transition from a state of minority or infancy wherein man\ndoes not dare to think freely to that period of majority or maturity in\nwhich mankind dares to use its own power of understanding. The growth of\nthis power of free use of reason is the sole hope of progress in human\naffairs. External revolutions which are not the natural expression of an\ninner or intellectual revolution are of little significance. Genuine\ngrowth is found in the slow growth of science and philosophy and in the\ngradual diffusion throughout the mass of the discoveries and conclusions\nof those who are superior in intelligence. True freedom is inner\nfreedom, freedom of thought together with the liberty consequent upon it\nof teaching and publication. To check this rational freedom \"is a sin\nagainst the very nature of man, the primary law of which consists in\njust the advance in rational enlightenment.\"\n\nIn contrast with this realm of inner freedom stands that of civil and\npolitical action, the principle of which is obedience or subordination\nto constituted authority. Kant illustrates the nature of the two by the\nposition of a military subordinate who is given an order to execute\nwhich his reason tells him is unwise. His sole duty in the realm of\npractice is to obey--to do his duty. But as a member not of the State\nbut of the kingdom of science, he has the right of free inquiry and\npublication. Later he might write upon the campaign in which this event\ntook place and point out, upon intellectual grounds, the mistake\ninvolved in the order. No wonder that Kant proclaims that the age of the\nenlightenment is the age of Frederick the Great. Yet we should do\ninjustice to Kant if we inferred that he expected this dualism of\nspheres of action, with its twofold moral law of freedom and obedience,\nto endure forever. By the exercise of freedom of thought, and by its\npublication and the education which should make its results permeate the\nwhole state, the habits of a nation will finally become elevated to\nrationality, and the spread of reason will make it possible for the\ngovernment to treat men, not as cogs in a machine, but in accord with\nthe dignity of rational creatures.\n\nBefore leaving this theme, I must point out one aspect of the work of\nreason thus far passed over. Nature, the sensible world of space and\ntime, is, as a knowable object, constituted by the legislative work of\nreason, although constituted out of a non-rational sensible stuff. This\ndetermining work of reason forms not merely the Idealism of the Kantian\nphilosophy but determines its emphasis upon the _a priori_. The\nfunctions of reason through which nature is rendered a knowable object\ncannot be derived from experience, for they are necessary to the\nexistence of experience. The details of this _a priori_ apparatus lie\nfar outside our present concern. Suffice it to say that as compared with\nsome of his successors, Kant was an economical soul and got along with\nonly two _a priori_ forms and twelve _a priori_ categories. The mental\nhabitudes generated by attachment to _a priori_ categories cannot\nhowever be entirely neglected in even such a cursory discussion as the\npresent.\n\nIf one were to follow the suggestion involved in the lately quoted\npassage as to the significant symbolism of the place of the accent in\nGerman speech, one might discourse upon the deep meaning of the\nCapitalization of Nouns in the written form of the German language,\ntogether with the richness of the language in abstract nouns. One might\nfancy that the dignity of the common noun substantive, expressing as it\ndoes the universal or generic, has bred an intellectual deference. One\nmay fancy a whole nation of readers reverently bowing their heads at\neach successively capitalized word. In such fashion one might arrive at\na picture, not without its truth, of what it means to be devoted to _a\npriori_ rational principles.\n\nA number of times during the course of the world war I have heard\nsomeone remark that he would not so much mind what the Germans did if it\nwere not for the reasons assigned in its justification. But to\nrationalize such a tangled skein as human experience is a difficult\ntask. If one is in possession of antecedent rational concepts which are\nlegislative for experience, the task is much simplified. It only remains\nto subsume each empirical event under its proper category. If the\noutsider does not see the applicability of the concept to the event, it\nmay be argued that his blindness shows his ineptness for truly universal\nthinking. He is probably a crass empiric who thinks in terms of material\nconsequences instead of upon the basis of antecedent informing\nprinciples of reason.\n\nThus it has come about that no moral, social or political question is\nadequately discussed in Germany until the matter in hand has been\nproperly deduced from an exhaustive determination of its fundamental\n_Begriff_ or _Wesen_. Or if the material is too obviously empirical to\nallow of such deduction, it must at least be placed under its\nappropriate rational form. What a convenience, what a resource, nay,\nwhat a weapon is the Kantian distinction of _a priori_ rational form and\n_a posteriori_ empirical matter. Let the latter be as brutely\ndiversified, as chaotic as you please. There always exists a form of\nunity under which it may be brought. If the empirical facts are\nrecalcitrant, so much the worse for them. It only shows how empirical\nthey are. To put them under a rational form is but to subdue their\nirrational opposition to reason, or to invade their lukewarm neutrality.\nAny violence done them is more than indemnified by the favor of bringing\nthem under the sway of _a priori_ reason, the incarnation of the\nAbsolute on earth.\n\nYet there are certain disadvantages attached to _a priori_ categories.\nThey have a certain rigidity, appalling to those who have not learned to\nidentify stiffness with force. Empirical matters are subject to\nrevision. The strongest belief that claims the support of experience is\nsubject to modification when experience testifies against it. But an _a\npriori_ conception is not open to adverse evidence. There is no court\nhaving jurisdiction. If, then, an unfortunate mortal should happen to\nbe imposed upon so that he was led to regard a prejudice or predilection\nas an _a priori_ truth, contrary experience would have a tendency to\nmake him the more obstinate in his belief. History proves what a\ndangerous thing it has been for men, when they try to impose their will\nupon other men, to think of themselves as special instruments and organs\nof Deity. The danger is equally great when an _a priori_ Reason is\nsubstituted for a Divine Providence. Empirically grounded truths do not\nhave a wide scope; they do not inspire such violent loyalty to\nthemselves as ideas supposed to proceed directly from reason itself. But\nthey are discussable; they have a humane and social quality, while\ntruths of pure reason have a paradoxical way, in the end, of escaping\nfrom the arbitrament of reasoning. They evade the logic of experience,\nonly to become, in the phrase of a recent writer, the spoil of a \"logic\nof fanaticism.\" Weapons forged in the smithy of the Absolute become\nbrutal and cruel when confronted by merely human resistance.\n\nThe stiffly constrained character of an _a priori_ Reason manifests\nitself in another way. A category of pure reason is suspiciously like a\npigeonhole. An American writer, speaking before the present war,\nremarked with witty exaggeration that \"Germany is a monstrous set of\npigeonholes, and every mother's son of a German is pigeoned in his\nrespective hole--tagged, labeled and ticketed. Germany is a huge human\ncheck-room, and the government carries the checks in its pocket.\" John\nLocke's deepest objection to the older form of the _a priori_\nphilosophy, the doctrine of innate ideas, was the readiness with which\nsuch ideas become strongholds behind which authority shelters itself\nfrom questioning. And John Morley pointed out long ago the undoubted\nhistoric fact that the whole modern liberal social and political\nmovement has allied itself with philosophic empiricism. It is hard here,\nas everywhere, to disentangle cause and effect. But one can at least say\nwith considerable assurance that a hierarchically ordered and subordered\nState will feel an affinity for a philosophy of fixed categories, while\na flexible democratic society will, in its crude empiricism, exhibit\nloose ends.\n\nThere is a story to the effect that the good townspeople of Koenigsberg\nwere accustomed to their watches by the time at which Kant passed upon\nhis walks--so uniform was he. Yielding to the Teutonic temptation to\nfind an inner meaning in the outer event, one may wonder whether German\nthought has not since Kant's time set its intellectual and spiritual\nclocks by the Kantian standard: the separation of the inner and the\nouter, with its lesson of freedom and idealism in one realm, and of\nmechanism, efficiency and organization in the other. A German professor\nof philosophy has said that while the Latins live in the present moment,\nthe Germans live in the infinite and ineffable. His accusation (though I\nam not sure he meant it as such) is not completely justified. But it\ndoes seem to be true that the Germans, more readily than other peoples,\ncan withdraw themselves from the exigencies and contingencies of life\ninto a region of _Innerlichkeit_ which at least _seems_ boundless; and\nwhich can rarely be successfully uttered save through music, and a frail\nand tender poetry, sometimes domestic, sometimes lyric, but always full\nof mysterious charm. But technical ideas, ideas about means and\ninstruments, can readily be externalized because the outer world is in\ntruth their abiding home.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nGERMAN MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY\n\n\nIt is difficult to select sentences from Kant which are intelligible to\nthose not trained in his vocabulary, unless the selection is accompanied\nby an almost word-by-word commentary. His writings have proved an\nadmirable _terrain_ for the display of German _Gruendlichkeit_. But I\nventure upon the quotation of one sentence which may serve the purpose\nof at once recalling the main lesson of the previous lecture and\nfurnishing a transition to the theme of the present hour.\n\n     \"Even if an immeasurable gulf is fixed between the sensible\n     realm of the concept of nature and the supersensible realm of\n     the concept of freedom, so that it is not possible to go from\n     the first to the second (at least by means of the theoretical\n     use of reason) any more than if they were two separate worlds\n     of which the first could have no influence upon the\n     second,--yet the second is _meant_ to have an influence upon\n     the first. The concept of freedom is meant to actualize in the\n     world of sense the purpose proposed by its laws.\" . . .\n\nThat is, the relation between the world of space and time where physical\ncausality reigns and the moral world of freedom and duty is not a\nsymmetrical one. The former cannot intrude into the latter. But it is\nthe very nature of moral legislation that it is meant to influence the\nworld of sense; its object is to realize the purposes of free rational\naction within the sense world. This fact fixes the chief features of\nKant's philosophy of Morals and of the State.\n\nIt is a claim of the admirers of Kant that he first brought to\nrecognition the true and infinite nature of the principle of\nPersonality. On one side, the individual is _homo phenomenon_--a part of\nthe scheme of nature, governed by its laws as much as any stone or\nplant. But in virtue of his citizenship in the kingdom of supersensible\nLaws and Ends, he is elevated to true universality. He is no longer a\nmere occurrence. He is a Person--one in whom the purpose of Humanity is\nincarnate. In English and American writings the terms subjective and\nsubjectivism usually carry with them a disparaging color. Quite\notherwise is it in German literature. This sets the age of subjectivism,\nwhose commencement, roughly speaking, coincides with the influence of\nKantian thought, in sharp opposition to the age of individualism, as\nwell as to a prior period of subordination to external authority.\nIndividualism means isolation; it means external relations of human\nbeings with one another and with the world; it looks at things\nquantitatively, in terms of wholes and parts. Subjectivism means\nrecognition of the principle of free personality: the self as creative,\noccupied not with an external world which limits it from without, but,\nthrough its own self-consciousness, finding a world within itself; and\nhaving found the universal within itself, setting to work to recreate\nitself in what had been the external world, and by its own creative\nexpansion in industry, art and politics to transform what had been mere\nlimiting material into a work of its own. Free as was Kant from the\nsentimental, the mystic and the romantic phases of this Subjectivism, we\nshall do well to bear it in mind in thinking of his ethical theory.\nPersonality means that man as a rational being does not receive the end\nwhich forms the law of his action from without, whether from Nature, the\nState or from God, but from his own self. Morality is autonomous; man,\nhumanity, is an end in itself. Obedience to the self-imposed law will\ntransform the sensible world (within which falls all social ties so far\nas they spring from natural instinct desire) into a form appropriate to\nuniversal reason. Thus we may paraphrase the sentence quoted from Kant.\n\nThe gospel of duty has an invigorating ring. It is easy to present it as\nthe most noble and sublime of all moral doctrines. What is more worthy\nof humanity, what better marks the separation of man from brute, than\nthe will to subordinate selfish desire and individual inclination to the\ncommands of stern and lofty duty? And if the idea of command (which\ninevitably goes with the notion of duty) carries a sinister suggestion\nof legal authority, pains and penalties and of subservience to an\nexternal authority who issues the commands, Kant seems to have provided\na final corrective in insisting that duty is self-imposed. Moral\ncommands are imposed by the higher, supranatural self upon the lower\nempirical self, by the rational self upon the self of passions and\ninclinations. German philosophy is attached to antitheses and their\nreconciliation in a higher synthesis. The Kantian principle of Duty is a\nstriking case of the reconciliation of the seemingly conflicting ideas\nof freedom and authority.\n\nUnfortunately, however, the balance cannot be maintained in practice.\nKant's faithful logic compels him to insist that the concept of duty is\nempty and formal. It tells men that to do their duty is their supreme\nlaw of action, but is silent as to what men's duties specifically are.\nKant, moreover, insists, as he is in logic bound to do, that the motive\nwhich measures duty is wholly inner; it is purely a matter of inner\nconsciousness. To admit that consequences can be taken into account in\ndeciding what duty is in a particular case would be to make concessions\nto the empirical and sensible world which are fatal to the scheme. The\ncombination of these two features of pure internality and pure formalism\nleads, in a world where men's _acts_ take place wholly in the external\nand empirical region, to serious consequences.\n\nThe dangerous character of these consequences may perhaps be best\ngathered indirectly by means of a quotation.\n\n     \"While the French people in savage revolt against spiritual\n     and secular despotism had broken their chains and proclaimed\n     their _rights_, another quite different revolution was working\n     in Prussia--the revolution of _duty_. The assertion of the\n     rights of the individual leads ultimately to individual\n     irresponsibility and to a repudiation of the State. Immanuel\n     Kant, the founder of the critical philosophy, taught, in\n     opposition to this view, the gospel of moral duty, and\n     Scharnhorst grasped the idea of universal military service. By\n     calling upon which individual to sacrifice property and life\n     for the good of the community, he gave the clearest expression\n     to the idea of the State, and created a sound basis on which\n     the claims to individual rights might rest.\"[52:A]\n\n          [52:A] Bernhardi, \"Germany and the Next War,\" pp.\n          63-64.\n\nThe sudden jump, by means of only a comma, from the gospel of moral duty\nto universal military service is much more logical than the shock which\nit gives to an American reader would indicate. I do not mean, of course,\nthat Kant's teaching was the cause of Prussia's adoption of universal\nmilitary service and of the thoroughgoing subordination of individual\nhappiness and liberty of action to that capitalized entity, the State.\nBut I do mean that when the practical political situation called for\nuniversal military service in order to support and expand the existing\nstate, the gospel of a Duty devoid of content naturally lent itself to\nthe consecration and idealization of such specific duties as the\nexisting national order might prescribe. The sense of duty must get its\nsubject-matter somewhere, and unless subjectivism was to revert to\nanarchic or romantic individualism (which is hardly in the spirit of\nobedience to authoritative law) its appropriate subject-matter lies in\nthe commands of a superior. Concretely what the State commands is the\ncongenial outer filling of a purely inner sense of duty. That the\ndespotism of Frederick the Great and of the Hohenzollerns who remained\ntrue to his policy was at least that hitherto unknown thing, an\nenlightened despotism, made the identification easier. Individuals have\nat all times, in epochs of stress, offered their supreme sacrifice to\ntheir country's good. In Germany this sacrifice in times of peace as\nwell as of war has been systematically reinforced by an inner mystic\nsense of a Duty elevating men to the plane of the universal and\neternal.\n\nIn short, the sublime gospel of duty has its defects. Outside of the\ntheological and the Kantian moral traditions, men have generally agreed\nthat duties are relative to ends. Not the obligation, but some purpose,\nsome good, which the fulfillment of duty realizes, is the principle of\nmorals. The business of reason is to see that the end, the good, for\nwhich one acts is a reasonable one--that is to say, as wide and as\nequitable in its working out as the situation permits. Morals which are\nbased upon consideration of good and evil consequences not only allow,\nbut imperiously demand the exercise of a discriminating intelligence. A\ngospel of duty separated from empirical purposes and results tends to\ngag intelligence. It substitutes for the work of reason displayed in a\nwide and distributed survey of consequences in order to determine where\nduty lies an inner consciousness, empty of content, which clothes with\nthe form of rationality the demands of existing social authorities. A\nconsciousness which is not based upon and checked by consideration of\nactual results upon human welfare is none the less socially\nirresponsible because labeled Reason.\n\nProfessor Eucken represents a type of idealistic philosophy which is\nhardly acceptable to strict Kantians. Yet only where the fundamental\nKantian ideas were current would such ethical ideas as the following\nflourish:\n\n     \"When justice is considered as a mere means of securing man's\n     welfare, and is treated accordingly--whether it be the welfare\n     of individuals or of society as a whole makes no essential\n     difference--it loses all its characteristic features. No\n     longer can it compel us to see life from its own standpoint;\n     no longer can it change the existing condition of things; no\n     longer can it sway our hearts with the force of a primitive\n     passion, and oppose to all consideration of consequences an\n     irresistible spiritual compulsion. It degenerates rather into\n     the complaisant servant of utility; it adopts herself to her\n     demands, and in so doing suffers inward annihilation. It can\n     maintain itself only when it comes as a unique revelation of\n     the Spiritual Life within our human world, as a lofty Presence\n     transcending all considerations of expediency.\"[55:A]\n\n          [55:A] Eucken, \"The Meaning and Value of Life,\"\n          translated by Gibson, p. 104.\n\nSuch writing is capable of arousing emotional reverberations in the\nbreasts of many persons. But they are emotions which, if given headway,\nsmother intelligence, and undermine its responsibility for promoting the\nactual goods of life. If justice loses all its characteristic features\nwhen regarded as a means (the word \"mere\" inserted before \"means\" speaks\nvolumes) of the welfare of society as a whole, then there is no\nobjective and responsible criterion for justice at all. A justice which,\nirrespective of the determination of social well-being, proclaims itself\nas an irresistible spiritual impulsion possessed of the force of a\nprimitive passion, is nothing but a primitive passion clothed with a\nspiritual title so that it is protected from having to render an account\nof itself. During an ordinary course of things, it passes for but an\nemotional indulgence; in a time of stress and strain, it exhibits itself\nas surrender of intelligence to passion.\n\nThe passage (from Bernhardi) quoted earlier puts the German principle of\nduty in opposition to the French principle of rights--a favorite\ncontrast in German thought. Men like Jeremy Bentham also found the\nRevolutionary Rights of Man doctrinaire and conducing to tyranny rather\nthan to freedom. These Rights were _a priori_, like Duty, being derived\nfrom the supposed nature or essence of man, instead of being adopted as\nempirical expedients to further progress and happiness. But the\nconception of duty is one-sided, expressing command on one side and\nobedience on the other, while rights are at least reciprocal. Rights are\nsocial and sociable in accord with the spirit of French philosophy. Put\nin a less abstract form than the revolutionary theory stated them, they\nare things to be discussed and measured. They admit of more and less, of\ncompromise and adjustment. So also does the characteristic moral\ncontribution of English thought--intelligent self-interest. This is\nhardly an ultimate idea. But at least it evokes a picture of merchants\nbargaining, while the categorical imperative calls up the drill\nsergeant. Trafficking ethics, in which each gives up something which he\nwants to get something which he wants more, is not the noblest kind of\nmorals, but at least it is socially responsible as far as it goes. \"Give\nso that it may be given to you in return\" has at least some tendency to\nbring men together; it promotes agreement. It requires deliberation and\ndiscussion. This is just what the authoritative voice of a superior will\nnot tolerate; it is the one unforgiveable sin.\n\nThe morals of bargaining, exchange, the mutual satisfaction of wants may\nbe outlived in some remote future, but up to the present they play an\nimportant part in life. To me there is something uncanny in the scorn\nwhich German ethics, in behalf of an unsullied moral idealism, pours\nupon a theory which takes cognizance of practical motives. In a highly\nesthetic people one might understand the display of contempt. But when\nan aggressive and commercial nation carries on commerce and war simply\nfrom the motive of obedience to duty, there is awakened an unpleasant\nsuspicion of a suppressed \"psychic complex.\" When Nietzsche says, \"Man\ndoes not desire happiness; only the Englishman does that,\" we laugh at\nthe fair hit. But persons who profess no regard for happiness as a test\nof action have an unfortunate way of living up to their principle by\nmaking others _un_happy. I should entertain some suspicion of the\ncomplete sincerity of those who profess disregard for their own\nhappiness, but I should be quite certain of their sincerity when it\ncomes to a question of _my_ happiness.\n\nWithin the Kantian philosophy of morals there is an idea which conducts\nnecessarily to a philosophy of society and the State. Leibniz was the\ngreat German source of the philosophy of the enlightenment. Harmony was\nthe dominant thought of this philosophy; the harmony of nature with\nitself and with intelligence; the harmony of nature with the moral ends\nof humanity. Although Kant was a true son of the enlightenment, his\ndoctrine of the radically dual nature of the legislation of Reason put\nan end to its complacent optimism. According to Kant, morality is in no\nway a work of nature. It is the achievement of the self-conscious reason\nof man through conquest of nature. The ideal of a final harmony remains,\nbut it is an ideal to be won through a battle with the natural forces of\nman. His breach with the enlightenment is nowhere as marked as in his\ndenial that man is by nature good. On the contrary, man is by nature\nevil--that is, his philosophical rendering of the doctrine of original\nsin. Not that the passions, appetites and senses are of themselves evil,\nbut they tend to usurp the sovereignty of duty as the _motivating_\nforce of human action. Hence morality is a ceaseless battle to transform\nall the natural desires of man into willing servants of the law and\npurpose of reason.\n\nEven the kindly and sociable instincts of man, in which so many have\nsought the basis of both morality and organized society, fall under\nKant's condemnation. As natural desires, they aspire to an illegitimate\ncontrol in man's motives. They are parts of human self-love: the\nunlawful tendency to make happiness the controlling purpose of action.\nThe natural relations of man to man are those of an unsocial\nsociableness. On the one hand, men are forced together by natural ties.\nOnly in social relations can individuals develop their capacities. But\nno sooner do they come together than disintegrating tendencies set in.\nUnion with his fellows give a stimulus to vanity, avarice and gaining\npower over others--traits which cannot show in themselves in individuals\nwhen they are isolated. This mutual antagonism is, however, more of a\nforce in evolving man from savagery to civilization than are the kindly\nand sociable instincts.\n\n     \"Without these unlovely qualities which set man over against\n     man in strife, individuals would have lived on in perfect\n     harmony, contentment and mutual love, with all their\n     distinctive abilities latent and undeveloped.\"\n\nIn short, they would have remained in Rousseau's paradise of a state of\nnature, and\n\n     \"perhaps Rousseau was right when he preferred the savage state\n     to the state of civilization provided we leave out of account\n     the last stage to which our species is yet destined to rise.\"\n\nBut since the condition of civilization is but an intermediary between\nthe natural state and the truly or rational moral condition to which man\nis to rise, Rousseau was wrong.\n\n     \"Thanks then be to nature for the unsociableness, the spiteful\n     competition of vanity, the insatiate desires for power and\n     gain.\"\n\nThese quotations, selected from Kant's little essay on an \"Idea for a\nUniversal History,\" are precious for understanding two of the most\ncharacteristic traits of subsequent German thought, the distinctions\nmade between Society and the State and between Civilization and\nCulture. Much of the trouble which has been experienced in respect to\nthe recent use of _Kultur_ might have been allayed by a knowledge that\n_Kultur_ has little in common with the English word \"culture\" save a\nlikeness in sound. _Kultur_ is sharply antithetical to civilization in\nits meaning. Civilization is a natural and largely unconscious or\ninvoluntary growth. It is, so to speak, a by-product of the needs\nengendered when people live close together. It is external, in short.\nCulture, on the other, is deliberate and conscious. It is a fruit not of\nmen's natural motives, but of natural motives which have been\ntransformed by the inner spirit. Kant made the distinction when he said\nthat Rousseau was not so far wrong in preferring savagery to\ncivilization, since civilization meant simply social decencies and\nelegancies and outward proprieties, while morality, that is, the rule of\nthe end of Reason, is necessary to culture. And the real significance of\nthe term \"culture\" becomes more obvious when he adds that it involves\nthe slow toil of education of the Inner Life, and that the attainment of\nculture on the part of an individual depends upon long effort by the\ncommunity to which he belongs. It is not primarily an individual trait\nor possession, but a conquest of the community won through devotion to\n\"duty.\"\n\nIn recent German literature, Culture has been given even a more sharply\ntechnical distinction from Civilization and one which emphasizes even\nmore its collective and nationalistic character. Civilization as\nexternal and uncontrolled by self-conscious purpose includes such things\nas language in its more spontaneous colloquial expression, trade,\nconventional manners or etiquette, and the police activities of\ngovernment. _Kultur_ comprises language used for purposes of higher\nliterature; commerce pursued not as means of enriching individuals but\nas a condition of the development of national life; art, philosophy\n(especially in that untranslatable thing, the \"Welt-Anschauung\");\nscience, religion, and the activities of the state in the nurture and\nexpansion of the other forms of national genius, that is, its activities\nin education and the army. The legislation of Bismarck with reference to\ncertain Roman Catholic orders is nicknamed _Kultur-kampf_, for it was\nconceived as embodying a struggle between two radically different\nphilosophies of life, the Roman, or Italian, and the true Germanic, not\nsimply as a measure of political expediency. Thus it is that a trading\nand military post like Kiao-Chou is officially spoken of as a \"monument\nof Teutonic _Kultur_.\" The war now raging is conceived of as an outer\nmanifestation of a great spiritual struggle, in which what is really at\nstake is the supreme value of the Germanic attitude in philosophy,\nscience and social questions generally, the \"specifically German habits\nof feeling and thinking.\"\n\nVery similar motives are at work in the distinction between society and\nthe State, which is almost a commonplace of German thought. In English\nand American writings the State is almost always used to denote society\nin its more organized aspects, or it may be identified with government\nas a special agency operating for the collective interests of men in\nassociation. But in German literature society is a technical term and\nmeans something empirical and, so to speak, external; while the State,\nif not avowedly something mystic and transcendental, is at least a moral\nentity, the creation of self-conscious reason operating in behalf of the\nspiritual and ideal interests of its members. Its function is cultural,\neducative. Even when it intervenes in material interests, as it does in\nregulating lawsuits, poor laws, protective tariffs, etc., etc., its\naction has ultimately an ethical significance: its purpose is the\nfurthering of an ideal community. The same thing is to be said of wars\nwhen they are really national wars, and not merely dynastic or\naccidental.\n\nSociety is an expression of man's egoistic nature; his natural seeking\nfor personal advantage and profit. Its typical manifestation is in\ncompetitive economic struggle and in the struggle for honor and\nrecognized social status. These have their proper place; but with\nrespect even to them it is the duty of the State to intervene so that\nthe struggle may contribute to ideal ends which alone are universal.\nHence the significance of the force or power of the State. Unlike other\nforms of force, it has a sort of sacred import, for it represents force\nconsecrated to the assertion and expansion of final goods which are\nspiritual, moral, rational. These absolute ends can be maintained only\nin struggle against man's individualistic ends. Conquest through\nconflict is the law of morals everywhere.\n\nIn Kant we find only the beginnings of this political philosophy. He is\nstill held back by the individualism of the eighteenth century.\nEverything legal and political is conceived by him as external and hence\noutside the strictly moral realm of inner motivation. Yet he is not\ncontent to leave the State and its law as a wholly unmoral matter. The\n_natural_ motives of man are, according to Kant (evidently following\nHobbes), love of power, love of gain, love of glory. These motives are\negoistic; they issue in strife--in the war of all against all. While\nsuch a state of affairs does not and cannot invade the inner realm of\nduty, the realm of the moral motive, it evidently presents a regime in\nwhich the conquest of the world of sense by the law of reason cannot be\neffected. Man in his rational or universal capacity must, therefore,\nwill an outward order of harmony in which it is at least possible for\nacts dictated by rational freedom to get a footing. Such an outer order\nis the State. Its province is not to promote moral freedom\ndirectly--only the moral will can do that. But its business is to hinder\nthe hindrances to freedom: to establish a social condition of outward\norder in which truly moral acts may gradually evolve a kingdom of\nhumanity. Thus while the State does not have a directly moral scope of\naction (since the coercion of motive is a moral absurdity), it does have\na moral basis and an ultimate moral function.\n\nIt is the law of reason, \"holy and inviolable,\" which impels man to the\ninstitution of the State, not natural sociability, much less\nconsiderations of expediency. And so necessary is the State to\nhumanity's realization of its moral purpose that there can be no right\nof revolution. The overthrow and execution of the sovereign (Kant\nevidently had the French Revolution and Louis XVI in mind) is \"an\nimmortal and inexpiable sin like the sin against the Holy Ghost spoken\nof by theologians, which can never be forgiven in this world or in the\nnext.\"\n\nKant was enough of a child of the eighteenth century to be cosmopolitan,\nnot nationalistic, in his feeling. Since humanity as a whole, in its\nuniversality, alone truly corresponds to the universality of reason, he\nupheld the ideal of an ultimate republican federation of states; he was\none of the first to proclaim the possibility of enduring peace among\nnations on the basis of such a federated union of mankind.\n\nThe threatened domination of Europe by Napoleon following on the wars\nwaged by republican France put an end, however, to cosmopolitanism.\nSince Germany was the greatest sufferer from these wars, and since it\nwas obvious that the lack of national unity, the division of Germany\ninto a multitude of petty states, was the great source of her weakness;\nsince it was equally obvious that Prussia, the one strong and\ncentralized power among the German states, was the only thing which\nsaved them all from national extinction, subsequent political philosophy\nin Germany rescued the idea of the State from the somewhat ambiguous\nmoral position in which Kant had left it. Since a state which is an\nabsolute moral necessity and whose actions are nevertheless lacking in\ninherent moral quality is an anomaly, the doctrine almost calls for a\ntheory which shall make the State the supreme moral entity.\n\nFichte marks the beginning of the transformation; and, in his writings,\nit is easy to detect a marked difference of attitude toward the\nnationalistic state before and after 1806, when in the battle of Jena\nGermany went down to inglorious defeat. From the time of Fichte, the\nGerman philosophy of the State blends with its philosophy of history, so\nthat my reservation of the latter topic for the next section is somewhat\narbitrary, and I shall not try rigidly to maintain the division of\nthemes.\n\nI have already mentioned the fact that Kant relaxes the separation of\nthe moral realm of freedom from the sensuous realm of nature\nsufficiently to assert that the former is _meant_ to influence the\nlatter and finally to subjugate it. By means of the little crack thus\nintroduced into nature, Fichte rewrites the Kantian philosophy. The\nworld of sense must be regarded from the very start as material which\nthe free, rational, moral Ego has created in order to have material for\nits own adequate realization of will. Fichte had a longing for an\nabsolute unity which did not afflict Kant, to whom, save for the\nconcession just referred to, a complete separation of the two operations\nof legislative reason sufficed. Fichte was also an ardently _active_\nsoul, whose very temperament assured him of the subordination of\ntheoretical knowledge to moral action.\n\nIt would be as difficult to give, in short space, an adequate sketch of\nFichte's philosophy as of Kant's. To him, however, reason was the\nexpression of the will, not (as with Kant) the will an application of\nreason to action. \"_Im Anfang war die That_\" is good Fichteanism. While\nKant continued the usual significance of the term Reason (with only such\nmodifications as the rationalism of his century had made current),\nFichte began the transformation which consummated in later German\nidealism. If the world of nature and of human relations is an expression\nof reason, then reason must be the sort of thing, and have the sort of\nattributes by means of which the world may be construed, no matter how\nfar away this conception of reason takes us from the usual meaning of\nthe term. To Fichte the formula which best described such aspects of the\nworld and of life as he was interested in was effort at self-realization\nthrough struggle with difficulties and overcoming opposition. Hence his\nformula for reason was a Will which, having \"posited\" itself, then\n\"posited\" its antithesis in order, through further action subjugating\nthis opposite, to conquer its own freedom.\n\nThe doctrine of the primacy of the Deed, and of the Duty to achieve\nfreedom through moral self-assertion against obstacles (which, after\nall, are there only to further this self-assertion) was one which could,\nwith more or less plausibility, be derived from Kant. More to our\npresent point, it was a doctrine which could be preached with noble\nmoral fervor in connection with the difficulties and needs of a divided\nand conquered Germany. Fichte saw himself as the continuator of the work\nof Luther and Kant. His final \"science of knowledge\" brought the German\npeople alone of the peoples of the world into the possession of the idea\nand ideal of absolute freedom. Hence the peculiar destiny of the German\nscholar and the German State. It was the duty and mission of German\nscience and philosophy to contribute to the cause of the spiritual\nemancipation of humanity. Kant had already taught that the acts of men\nwere to become gradually permeated by a spirit of rationality till there\nshould be an equation of inner freedom of mind and outer freedom of\naction. Fichte's doctrine demanded an acceleration of the process. Men\nwho have attained to a consciousness of the absolute freedom and\nself-activity must necessarily desire to see around them similar free\nbeings. The scholar who is truly a scholar not merely knows, but he\nknows the nature of knowledge--its place and function as a manifestation\nof the Absolute. Hence he is, in a peculiar sense, the direct\nmanifestation of God in the world--the true priest. And his priestly\nfunction consists in bringing other men to recognize moral freedom in\nits creative operation. Such is the dignity of education as conducted by\nthose who have attained true philosophic insight.\n\nFichte made a specific application of this idea to his own country and\ntime. The humiliating condition of contemporary Germany was due to the\nprevalence of egoism, selfishness and particularism: to the fact that\nmen had lowered themselves to the plane of sensuous life. The fall was\nthe worse because the Germans, more than any other people, were by\nnature and history conscious of the ideal and spiritual principle, the\nprinciple of freedom, lying at the very basis of all things. The key to\nthe political regeneration of Germany was to be found in a moral and\nspiritual regeneration effected by means of education. The key, amid\npolitical division, to political unity was to be sought in devotion to\nmoral unity. In this spirit Fichte preached his \"Addresses to the\nGerman Nation.\" In this spirit he collaborated in the foundation of the\nUniversity of Berlin, and zealously promoted all the educational reforms\nintroduced by Stein and Humboldt into Prussian life.\n\nThe conception of the State as an essential moral Being charged with an\nindispensable moral function lay close to these ideas. Education is\n_the_ means of the advancement of humanity toward realization of its\ndivine perfection. Education is the work of the State. The syllogism\ncompletes itself. But in order that the State may carry on its\neducational or moral mission it must not only possess organization and\ncommensurate power, but it must also control the conditions which secure\nthe possibility offered to the individuals composing it. To adopt\nAristotle's phrase, men must live before they can live nobly. The\nprimary condition of a secure life is that everyone be able to live by\nhis own labor. Without this, moral self-determination is a mockery. The\nbusiness of the State, outside of its educational mission, is concerned\nwith property, and this business means insuring property to everyone as\nwell as protecting him in what he already possesses. Moreover, property\nis not mere physical possession. It has a profound moral significance,\nfor it means the subjugation of physical things to will. It is a\nnecessary part of the realization of moral personality: the conquest of\nthe non-ego by the ego. Since property does not mean mere appropriation,\nbut is a right recognized and validated by society itself, property has\na social basis and aim. It is an expression not of individual egotism\nbut of the universal will. Hence it is essential to the very idea of\nproperty and of the State that all the members of society have an equal\nopportunity for property. Hence it is the duty of the State to secure to\nits every member the right to work and the reward of his work.\n\nThe outcome, as expressed in his essay on \"The Closed Industrial State,\"\nis State Socialism, based on moral and idealistic grounds, not on\neconomic considerations. In order that men may have a real opportunity\nto develop their moral personalities, their right to labor and to\nadequate living, in return for their labor must be assured. This cannot\nhappen in a competitive society. Industry must be completely regulated\nby the State if these indispensable rights to labor and resulting\ncomfort and security of life as means to moral volition are to be\nachieved. But a state engaged in unrestricted foreign trade will leave\nits workingmen at the mercy of foreign conditions. It must therefore\nregulate or even eliminate foreign commerce so far as is necessary to\nsecure its own citizens. The ultimate goal is a universal state as wide\nas humanity, and a state in which each individual will act freely,\nwithout state-secured rights and state-imposed obligations. But before\nthis cosmopolitan and philosophically anarchic condition can be reached,\nwe must pass through a period of the nationalistic closed state. Thus at\nthe end a wide gulf separates Fichte from Kant. The moral individualism\nof the latter has become an ethical socialism. Only in and by means of a\ncircle of egos or personalities does a human being attain the moral\nreason and freedom which Kant bestowed upon him as his birthright. Only\nthrough the educational activities of the State and its complete\nregulation of the industrial activities of its members does the\npotential moral freedom of individuals become an established reality.\n\nIf I have devoted so much space to Fichte it is not because of his\ndirect influence upon affairs or even upon thought. He did not found a\nschool. His system was at once too personal and too formal.\nNevertheless, he expressed ideas which, removed from their special\ncontext in his system, were taken up into the thought of cultivated\nGermany. Heine, speaking of the vogue of systems of thought, says with\nprofound truth that \"nations have an instinctive presentiment of what\nthey require to fulfill their mission.\"\n\nAnd Fichte's thought infiltrated through many crevices. Rodbertus and\nLasalle, the socialists, were, for example, profoundly affected by him.\nWhen the latter was prosecuted in a criminal suit for his \"Programme of\nWorkingmen,\" his reply was that his programme was a distinctively\nphilosophic utterance, and hence protected by the constitutional\nprovision for freedom of science and its teaching. And this is his\nphilosophy of the State:\n\n     \"The State is the unity and cooperation of individuals in a\n     moral whole. . . . The ultimate and intrinsic end of the State\n     is, therefore, to further the positive unfolding, the\n     progressive development of human life. Its function is to work\n     out the true end of man; that is to say, the full degree of\n     culture of which human nature is capable.\"\n\nAnd he quotes with approval the words:\n\n     \"The concept of the State must be broadened so as to make the\n     State the contrivance whereby all human virtue is to be\n     realized to the full.\"\n\nAnd if he differs from Fichte, it is but in the assertion that since the\nlaboring class is the one to whom the need most directly appeals, it is\nworkingmen who must take the lead in the development of the true\nfunctions of the State.\n\nPantheism is a philosophic nickname which should be sparingly employed;\nso also should the term Monism. To call Fichte's system an ethical\npantheism and monism is not to say much that is enlightening. But with\nfree interpretation the designation may be highly significant in\nreference to the spiritual temper of the Germany of the first part of\nthe nineteenth century. For it gives a key to the presentiment of what\nGermany needed to fulfill its mission.\n\nIt is a commonplace of German historians that its unity and expansion to\na great state powerful externally, prosperous internally, was wrought,\nunlike that of any other people, from within outward. In Lange's words,\n\"our national development started from the most ideal and approximated\nmore and more to the real.\" Hegel and Heine agree that in Germany the\nFrench Revolution and the Napoleonic career were paralleled by a\nphilosophic revolution and an intellectual empire. You recall the bitter\nword that, when Napoleon was finally conquered and Europe partitioned,\nto Germany was assigned the kingdom of the clouds. But this aerial and\ntenuous kingdom became a mighty power, working with and in the statesmen\nof Prussia and the scholars of Germany to found a kingdom on the solid\nearth. Spiritual and ideal Germany made common cause with realistic and\npractical Prussia. As says Von Sybel, the historian of the \"Founding of\nthe German Empire\":\n\n     \"Germany had been ruined through its own disintegration and\n     had dragged Prussia with it into the abyss. It was well known\n     that the wild fancies of the Conqueror hovered about the utter\n     annihilation of Prussia; if this should take place, then east\n     as well as west of the Elbe, not only political independence,\n     but every trace of a German spirit, the German language and\n     customs, German art and learning--everything would be wiped\n     out by the foreigners. But this fatal danger was perceived\n     just at the time when everybody had been looking up to Kant\n     and Schiller, had been admiring Faust, the world-embracing\n     masterpiece of Goethe's, and had recognized that Alexander von\n     Humboldt's cosmological studies and Niebuhr's \"Roman History\"\n     had created a new era in European science and learning. In\n     such intellectual attainments the Germans felt that they were\n     far superior to the vanquisher of the world and his great\n     nation; and so the political interests of Prussia and the\n     salvation of the German nationality exactly coincided.\n     Schleiermacher's patriotic sermons, Fichte's stirring\n     addresses to the German people, Humboldt's glorious founding\n     of the Berlin University, served to augment the resisting\n     power of Prussia, while Scharnhorst's recruits and militia\n     were devoted to the defense of German honor and German\n     customs. Everyone felt that German nationality was lost if\n     Prussia did not come to its rescue, and that, too, there was\n     no safety possible for Prussia unless all Germany was free.\n\n     \"What a remarkable providence it was that brought together, as\n     in the Middle Ages, on this ancient colonial ground, a throng\n     of the most energetic men from all districts of Germany. For\n     neither Stein nor his follower, Hardenberg, nor the generals\n     Scharnhorst, Bluecher and Gneisenau, nor the authors, Niebuhr,\n     Fichte and K. F. Eichorn, nor many others who might be\n     mentioned, were born in Prussia; yet because their thoughts\n     centered in Germany, they had become loyal Prussians. The name\n     Germany had been blotted from the political map of Europe, but\n     never had so many hearts thrilled at the thought of being\n     German.\n\n     \"Thus on the most eastern frontier of German life, in the\n     midst of troubles which seemed hopeless, the idea of German\n     unity, which had lain dormant for centuries, now sprang up in\n     a new birth. At first this idea was held exclusively by the\n     great men of the times and remained the invaluable possession\n     of the cultivated classes; but once started it spread far and\n     wide among the younger generation. . . . But it was easier to\n     defeat the mighty Napoleon than to bend the German sentiments\n     of dualism and individualism to the spirit of national unity.\"\n\nWhat I have called the ethical pantheism and monistic idealism of Fichte\n(a type of philosophy reigning almost unchallenged in Germany till\nalmost the middle of the century) was an effective weapon in fighting\nand winning this more difficult battle. In his volume on the \"Romantic\nSchool in Germany,\" Brandes quotes from the diary of Hoffman a passage\nwritten in 1809.\n\n     \"Seized by a strange fancy at the ball on the 6th, I imagine\n     myself looking at my own Ego through a kaleidoscope. All the\n     forms moving around me are Egos and annoy me by what they do\n     and leave undone.\"\n\nIt is a temptation to find in this passage a symbol both of German\nphilosophy and of the temper of Germany at the time. Its outer defeats,\nits weakness in the world of action, had developed an exasperated\nintrospection. This outer weakness, coinciding, as Von Sybel points out,\nwith the bloom of Germany in art, philosophy, history, philology and\nphilosophy, made the Ego of Germany the noblest contemporary object of\ncontemplation, yet one surrounded with other national Egos who offended\nby what they did and what they did not do. Patriotism, national feeling,\nnational consciousness are common enough facts. But nowhere save in\nGermany, in the earlier nineteenth century, have these sentiments and\nimpulses been transformed by deliberate nurture into a mystic cult. This\nwas the time when the idea of the _Volks-seele_, the _Volks-geist_, was\nborn; and the idea lost no time in becoming a fact. Not merely poetry\nwas affected by it, but philology, history and jurisprudence. The\nso-called historic school is its offspring. The science of social\npsychology derives from it at one remove. The soul, however, needed a\nbody, and (quite in accord with German idealism) it formed a body for\nitself--the German State as a unified Empire.\n\nWhile the idealistic period came first, it is important to bear in mind\nthe kind of idealism it was. At this point the pantheistic allusion\nbecomes significant. The idealism in question was not an idealism of\nanother world but of _this_ world, and especially of the State. The\nembodiment of the divine and absolute will and ideal is the existing\nworld of nature and of men. Especially is the human ego the authorized\nand creative agent of absolute purpose. The significance of German\nphilosophy was precisely to make men aware of their nature and destiny\nas the direct and active representatives of absolute and creative\npurpose.\n\nIf I again quote Heine, it is because, with his contempt for technical\nphilosophy, he had an intimate sense of its human meaning. Of German\npantheistic idealism, he wrote in 1833 while it was still in its prime:\n\n     \"God is identical with the world. . . . But he manifests\n     himself most gloriously in man, who feels and thinks at\n     the same time, who is capable of distinguishing his own\n     individuality from objective nature, whose intellect\n     already bears within itself the ideas that present themselves\n     to him in the phenomenal world. In man Deity reaches\n     self-consciousness, and this self-consciousness God again\n     reveals through man. But this revelation does not take place\n     in and through individual man, but in and through collective\n     humanity . . . which comprehends and represents in idea and in\n     reality the whole God-universe. . . . It is an error to suppose\n     that this religion leads men to indifference. On the contrary,\n     the consciousness of his divinity will inspire man with\n     enthusiasm for its manifestation, and from this moment the\n     really noble achievements of true heroism glorify the earth.\"\n\nIn one respect, Heine was a false prophet. He thought that this\nphilosophy would in the end accrue to the profit of the radical, the\nrepublican and revolutionary party in Germany. The history of German\nliberalism is a complicated matter. Suffice it in general to say that\nthe honey the libertarians hived was appropriated in the end by the\nparty of authority. In Heine's assurance that these ideas would in due\ntime issue in action he was profoundly right. His essay closes with\nburning words, from which I extract the following:\n\n     \"It seems to me that a methodical people, such as we, must\n     begin with the reformation, must then occupy ourselves with\n     systems of philosophy, and only after their completion pass to\n     the political revolution. . . . Then will appear Kantians, as\n     little tolerant of piety in the world of deeds as in the world\n     of ideas, who will mercilessly upturn with sword and axe the\n     soil of our European life to extirpate the last remnants of\n     the past. Then will come upon the scene armed Fichteans, whose\n     fanaticism of will is to be restrained neither by fear nor\n     self-interest, for they live in the spirit. . . . Most of all\n     to be feared would be the philosophers of nature,[84:A] were\n     they actively to mingle. . . . For if the hand of the Kantian\n     strikes with strong unerring blow; if the Fichtean courageously\n     defies every danger, since for him danger has in reality no\n     existence;--the Philosopher of Nature will be terrible in that\n     he has allied himself with the primitive powers of nature, in\n     that he can conjure up the demoniac forces of old German\n     pantheism; and having done so, aroused in him that ancient\n     Germanic eagerness which combats for the joy of the combat\n     itself. . . . Smile not at my counsel as at the counsel of a\n     dreamer. . . . The thought precedes the deed as the lightning\n     the thunder. . . . The hour will come. As on the steps of an\n     amphitheater, the nations will group themselves around Germany\n     to witness the terrible combat.\"\n\n          [84:A] He refers to the followers of Schelling, who\n          as matter of fact had little vogue. But his words\n          may not unjustly be transferred to the naturalistic\n          schools, which have since affected German thought.\n\nIn my preoccupation with Heine, I seem to have wandered somewhat from\nour immediate topic: the connection of the idealistic philosophy with\nthe development and organization of the national state of Germany. But\nthe necessity of the organized State to care for the moral interests of\nmankind was an inherent part of Fichte's thought. At first, _what_ state\nwas a matter of indifference. In fact his sympathies were largely French\nand republican. Before Jena, he writes:\n\n     \"What is the nation for a truly civilized Christian European?\n     In a general way, Europe itself. More particularly at any time\n     the State which is at the head of civilization. . . . With this\n     cosmopolitan sense, we can be tranquil before the vicissitudes\n     and catastrophes of history.\"\n\nIn 1807 he writes:\n\n     \"The distinction between Prussia and the rest of Germany is\n     external, arbitrary and fortuitous. The distinction between\n     Germany and the rest of Europe is founded in nature.\"\n\nThe seeming gulf between the two ideas is easily bridged. The \"Addresses\non the Fundamental Features of the Present Age\" had taught that the end\nof humanity on earth is the establishment of a kingdom in which all\nrelations of humanity are determined with freedom or according to\nReason--according to Reason as conceived by the Fichtean formula. In his\n\"Addresses to the German Nation,\" in 1807-08, the unique mission of\nGermany in the establishment of this kingdom is urged as a motive for\nsecuring national unity and the overthrow of the conqueror. The Germans\nare the sole people who recognize the principles of spiritual freedom,\nof freedom won by action in accord with reason. Faithfulness to this\nmission will \"elevate the German name to that of the most glorious among\nall the peoples, making this Nation the regenerator and restorer of the\nworld.\" He personifies their ancestors speaking to them, and saying: \"We\nin our time saved Germany from the Roman World Empire.\" But \"yours is\nthe greater fortune. You may establish once for all the Kingdom of the\nSpirit and of Reason, bringing to naught corporeal might as the ruling\nthing in the world.\" And this antithesis of the Germanic and the Roman\nprinciples has become a commonplace in the German imagination. Moreover,\nfor Germany to win is no selfish gain. It is an advantage to all\nnations. \"The great promise of a kingdom of right reason and truth on\nearth must not become a vain and empty phantom; the present iron age is\nbut a transition to a better estate.\" Hence the concluding words: \"There\nis no middle road: If you sink, so sinks humanity entire with you,\nwithout hope of future restoration.\"\n\nThe premises of the historic syllogism are plain. First, the German\nLuther who saved for mankind the principle of spiritual freedom against\nLatin externalism; then Kant and Fichte, who wrought out the principle\ninto a final philosophy of science, morals and the State; as conclusion,\nthe German nation organized in order to win the world to recognition of\nthe principle, and thereby to establish the rule of freedom and science\nin humanity as a whole. The Germans are patient; they have a long\nmemory. Ideas produced when Germany was divided and broken were retained\nand cherished after it became a unified State of supreme military power,\nand one yielding to no other people in industrial and commercial\nprosperity. In the grosser sense of the words, Germany has not held that\nmight makes right. But it has been instructed by a long line of\nphilosophers that it is the business of ideal right to gather might to\nitself in order that it may cease to be merely ideal. The State\nrepresents exactly this incarnation of ideal law and right in effective\nmight. The military arm is part of this moral embodiment. Let\nsentimentalists sing the praises of an ideal to which no actual force\ncorresponds. Prussian faith in the reality and enforcement among men of\nthe ideal is of a more solid character. As past history is the record\nof the gradual realization in the Germanic State of the divine idea,\nfuture history must uphold and expand what has been accomplished.\nDiplomacy is the veiled display of law clothed with force in behalf of\nthis realization, and war is its overt manifestation. That war demands\nself-sacrifice is but the more convincing proof of its profound\nmorality. It is the final seal of devotion to the extension of the\nkingdom of the Absolute on earth.\n\nFor the philosophy stands or falls with the conception of an Absolute.\nWhether a philosophy of absolutes is theoretically sound or unsound is\nnone of my present concern. But that philosophical absolutism may be\npractically as dangerous as matter of fact political absolutism history\ntestifies. The situation puts in relief what finally is at issue between\na theory which is pinned to a belief in an Absolute beyond history and\nbehind experience, and one which is frankly experimental. For any\nphilosophy which is not consistently experimental will always traffic in\nabsolutes no matter in how disguised a form. In German political\nphilosophy, the traffic is without mask.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE GERMANIC PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY\n\n\nThe unity of the German people longed for and dreamed of after 1807\nbecame an established fact through the war of 1870 with France. It is\neasy to assign symbolic significance to this fact. Ever since the time\nof the French Revolution--if not before--German thought has taken shape\nin conflict with ideas that were characteristically French and in sharp\nand conscious antithesis to them. Rousseau's deification of Nature was\nthe occasion for the development of the conception of Culture. His\ncondemnation of science and art as socially corrupting and socially\ndivisive worked across the Rhine to produce the notion that science and\nart are the forces which moralize and unify humanity. The\ncosmopolitanism of the French Enlightenment was transformed by German\nthinkers into a self-conscious assertion of nationalism. The abstract\nRights of Man of the French Revolution were set in antithesis to the\nprinciple of the rights of the citizen secured to him solely by the\npower of the politically organized nation. The deliberate breach of the\nrevolutionary philosophy with the past, the attempt (foreshadowed in the\nphilosophy of Descartes) to make a _tabula rasa_ of the fortuitous\nassemblage of traditions and institutions which history offers, in order\nto substitute a social structure built upon Reason, was envisaged as the\n_fons et origo_ of all evil. That history is itself incarnate reason;\nthat history is infinitely more rational than the formal abstracting and\ngeneralizing reason of individuals; that individual mind becomes\nrational only through the absorption and assimilation of the universal\nreason embodied in historic institutions and historic development,\nbecame the articles of faith of the German intellectual creed. It is\nhardly an exaggeration to say that for almost a century the\ncharacteristic philosophy of Germany has been a philosophy of history\neven when not such in apparent form.\n\nYet the meaning of this appeal to history is lost unless we bear in mind\nthat the Enlightenment after all transmitted to Germany, from medieval\nthought, its foundation principle. The appeal was not from reason to\nexperience, but from analytic thought (henceforth condemned to be merely\n\"Understanding\"--\"_Verstand_\") to an absolute and universal Reason\n(_Vernunft_) partially revealed in nature and more adequately manifested\nin human history as an organic process. Recourse to history was required\nbecause not of any empirical lessons it has to teach, nor yet because\nhistory bequeathes to us stubborn institutions which must be reckoned\nwith, but because history is the dynamic and evolving realization of\nimmanent reason. The contrast of the German attitude with that of Edmund\nBurke is instructive. The latter had the same profound hostility to\ncutting loose from the past. But his objection was not that the past is\nan embodiment of transcendent reason, but that its institutions are an\n\"inheritance\" bequeathed to us from the \"collected wisdom\" of our\nforefathers. The continuity of political life centers not about an inner\nevolving Idea, but about \"our hearths, our sepulchers and our altars.\"\nHe has the same suspicion of abstract rights of man. But his appeal is\nto experience and to practical consequences. Since \"circumstances give\nin reality to every principle its distinguishing color and\ndiscriminating effect,\" there is no soundness in any principle when \"it\nstands stripped of every relation in all the nakedness and solitude of\nmetaphysical abstraction.\"\n\nAccording to the German view, the English protested because of\ninterference with empirically established rights and privileges; the\nGermans, because they perceived in the Revolution a radical error as to\nthe nature and work of reason. In point of fact, the Germans never made\nthat break with tradition, political or religious, of which the French\nRevolution is an emphatic symbol. I have already referred to Kant's\ndisposition to regard church dogmas (of which, as dogmas, he\ndisapproved) as vehicles of eternal spiritual truths--husks to preserve\nan inner grain. All of the great German idealists gave further\nexpression to this disposition. To Hegel, for example, the substance of\nthe doctrines of Protestant Christianity is identical with the truths of\nabsolute philosophy, except that in religion they are expressed in a\nform not adequate to their meaning, the form, namely, of imaginative\nthought in which most men live. The disposition to philosophize\nChristianity is too widely shown in Germany to be dismissed as a\ncowardly desire at accommodation with things established. It shows\nrather an intellectual piety among a people where freedom of thought and\nconscience had been achieved without a violent political upheaval. Hegel\nfinds that the characteristic weakness of Romance thought was an inner\nsplit, an inability to reconcile the spiritual and absolute essence of\nreality with which religion deals with the detailed work of intelligence\nin science and politics. The Germans, on the contrary, \"were predestined\nto be the bearers of the Christian principle and to carry out the Idea\nas the absolutely Rational end.\" They accomplished this, not by a flight\naway from the secular world, but by realizing that the Christian\nprinciple is in itself that of the unity of the subjective and the\nobjective, the spiritual and the worldly. The \"spirit finds the goal of\nits struggle, its harmony, in that very sphere which it made the object\nof its resistance,--it finds that secular pursuits are a spiritual\noccupation\";--a discovery, surely, which unites simplicity with\ncomprehensiveness and one which does not lead to criticism of the\nsecular pursuits carried on. Whatever is to be said of this as\nphilosophy, it expresses, in a way, the quality of German life and\nthought. More than other countries, Germany has had the fortune to\npreserve as food for its imaginative life and as emotional sanction the\ngreat ideas of the past. It has carried over their reinforcement into\nthe pursuit of science and into politics--into the very things which in\nother countries, notably in the Latin countries, have been used as\nweapons of attack upon tradition.\n\nPolitical development tells a somewhat similar tale. The painful\ntransition from feudalism to the modern era was, for the most part,\naccomplished recently in Germany, and accomplished under the guidance of\nestablished political authorities instead of by revolt against them.\nUnder their supervision, and mainly at their initiative, Germany has\npassed in less than a century to the regime of modern capitalistic\ncompetitive enterprise, moderated by the State, out of the dominion of\nthose local and guild restrictions which so long held economic activity\nin corporate bonds. The governing powers themselves secured to members\nof the State what seems, at least to Germans, to be a satisfying degree\nof political freedom. Along with this absence of internal disturbance\nand revolution, we must put the fact that every step in the development\nof Germany as a unified political power has been effected by war with\nsome of the neighbors by which it is hemmed in. There stands the\nunfolding sequence: 1815 (not to go back to Frederick the Great), 1864,\n1866, 1870. And the significant thing about these wars is not that\nexternal territory was annexed as their consequence, but the rebound of\nexternal struggle upon the achieving of internal unity. No wonder the\nGerman imagination has been impressed with the idea of an organic\nevolution from within, which takes the form of a unity achieved through\nconflict and the conquest of an opposing principle.\n\nSuch scattering comments as these prove nothing. But they suggest why\nGerman thought has been peculiarly sensitive to the idea of historic\ncontinuity; why it has been prone to seek for an original implicit\nessence which has progressively unfolded itself in a single development.\nIt would take much more than an hour to give even a superficial account\nof the growth of the historical sciences and historic methods of Germany\nduring the first half of the eighteenth century. It would involve an\naccount of the creation of philology, and the philological methods which\ngo by the name of higher criticism; of their extension to archeology; of\nthe historic schools of jurisprudence and political economy, as well as\nof the ways in which such men as Niebuhr, Mommsen and Ranke remade the\nmethods of studying the past. I can only say here that Germany developed\nsuch an effective historical technique that even mediocre men achieved\nrespectable results; and, much more significantly, that when Taine made\nthe remark (quoted earlier) that we owe to the Germany of the half\ncentury before 1830 all our distinctively modern ideas, his remarks\napply above all to the disciplines concerned with the historical\ndevelopment of mankind.\n\nThe bases of this philosophy are already before us. Even in Kant we find\nthe idea of a single continuous development of humanity, as a progress\nfrom a reign of natural instinct to a final freedom won through\nadherence to the law of reason. Fichte sketched the stages already\ntraversed on this road and located the point at which mankind now\nstands. In his later writings, the significance of history as the\nrealization of the absolute purpose is increasingly emphasized. History\nis the continuous life of a divine Ego by which it realizes in fact what\nit is in idea or destiny. Its phases are successive stages in the\nfounding of the Kingdom of God on earth. It and it only is the\nrevelation of the Absolute. Along with this growing deification of\nhistory is the increased significance attached to nationalism in general\nand the German nation in particular. The State is the concrete\nindividual interposed between generic humanity and particular beings. In\nhis words, the national folk is the channel of divine life as it pours\ninto particular finite human beings. He says:\n\n     \"While cosmopolitanism is the dominant will that the purpose\n     of the existence of humanity be actually realized in humanity,\n     patriotism is the will that this end be first realized in the\n     particular nation to which we ourselves belong, and that this\n     achievement _thence_ spread over the entire race.\"\n\nSince the State is an organ of divinity, patriotism is religion. As the\nGermans are the only truly religious people, they alone are truly\ncapable of patriotism. Other peoples are products of external causes;\nthey have no self-formed Self, but only an acquired self due to general\nconvention. In Germany there is a self which is self-wrought and\nself-owned. The very fact that Germany for centuries has had no external\nunity proves that its selfhood is metaphysical, not a gift of\ncircumstance. This conception of the German mission has been combined\nwith a kind of anthropological metaphysics which has become the rage in\nGermany. The Germans alone of all existing European nations are a pure\nrace. They alone have preserved unalloyed the original divine deposit.\nLanguage is the expression of the national soul, and only the Germans\nhave kept their native speech in its purity. In like vein, Hegel\nattributes the inner disharmony characteristic of Romance peoples to the\nfact that they are of mixed Germanic and Latin blood. A purely\nartificial cult of race has so flourished in Germany that many social\nmovements--like anti-Semitism--and some of Germany's political ambitions\ncannot be understood apart from the mystic identification of Race,\nCulture and the State. In the light of actual science, this is so\nmythological that the remark of an American periodical that race means a\nnumber of people reading the same newspapers is sober scientific fact\ncompared with it.[101:A]\n\n     [101:A] Chamberlain, for example, holds that Jesus must have\n     been of Teutonic birth--a perfect logical conclusion from the\n     received philosophy of the State and religion. Quite aware\n     that there is much Slav blood in northern Germany and Romance\n     blood in southern Germany, he explains that while with other\n     peoples crossing produces a mongrel race, the potency of the\n     German blood is such that cross-breeding strengthens it. While\n     at one time he explains the historic strength of the Jew on\n     the ground that he has kept his race pure, another place he\n     allows his indignation at the Jews to lead him to include them\n     among the most mongrel of all peoples. To one thing he remains\n     consistent: By the very essence of race, the Semites represent\n     a metaphysical principle inherently hostile to the grand\n     Germanic principle. It perhaps seems absurd to dignify the\n     vagaries of this garrulous writer, but according to all report\n     the volumes in which such expressions occur, \"The Foundations\n     of the Nineteenth Century,\" has had august approval and much\n     vogue.\n\nAt the beginning of history Fichte placed an \"_Urvolk_.\" His account of\nit seems an attempt to rationalize at one stroke the legends of the\nGolden Age, the Biblical account of man before the Fall and Rousseau's\nprimitive \"state of nature.\" The _Urvolk_ lived in a paradise of\ninnocence, a paradise without knowledge, labor or art. The philosophy\nwhich demands such a Folk is comparatively simple. Except as a\nmanifestation of Absolute Reason, humanity could not exist at all. Yet\nin the first stage of the manifestation, Reason could not have been\nappropriated by the self-conscious effort of man. It existed without\nconsciousness of itself, for it was given, not, like all true\nself-consciousness, won by morally creative struggle. Rational in\nsubstance, in form it was but feeling or instinct. In a sense, all\nsubsequent history is but a return to this primitive condition. But\n\"humanity must make the journey on its own feet; by its own strength it\nmust bring itself back to that state in which it was once without its\nown cooperating labor. . . . If humanity does not recreate its own true\nbeing, it has no real life.\" While philosophy compels us to assume a\nNormal People who, by \"the mere fact of their existence, without science\nand art, found themselves in a state of perfectly developed reason,\"\nthere is no ground for not admitting the existence at the same time of\n\"timid and rude earth-born savages.\" Thus the original state of humanity\nwould have been one of the greatest possible inequality, being divided\nbetween the Normal Folk existing as a manifestation of Reason and the\nwild and savage races of barbarism.\n\nIn his later period of inflamed patriotism this innocuous speculation\ngrew a sting. He had determined that the present age--the Europe of the\nEnlightenment and the French Revolution--is the age of liberation from\nthe external authority in which Reason had presented itself in the\nsecond age. Hence it is inherently negative: \"an age of absolute\nindifference toward the Truth, an age of entire and unrestrained\nlicentiousness.\" But the further evolution of the Divine Idea demands a\nFolk which has retained the primitive principle of Reason, which may\nredeem, therefore, the corrupt and rebellious modes of humanity\nelsewhere existing. Since the Germans are this saving remnant, they are\nthe _Urvolk_, the Normal Nation, of the modern period. From this point\non, idealization of past Germanic history and appeal to the nation to\nrealize its unique calling by victory over Napoleon blend.\n\nThe Fichtean scaffolding tumbled, but these ideas persisted. I doubt if\nit is possible to exaggerate the extent to which German history has\nbeen systematically idealized for the last hundred years. Technically\nspeaking, the Romantic movement may have passed away and an age of\nscientific history dawned. Actually the detailed facts have been\ndepicted by use of the palette of Romanticism. Space permits but one\nillustration which would be but a literary curiosity were it not fairly\ntypical. Tacitus called his account of the northern barbarians\nGermania--an unfortunate title in view of later developments. The\ncharacteristics assigned by him to the German tribes are such as any\nanthropologist could duplicate from any warlike barbaric tribe. Yet over\nand over again these traits (which Tacitus idealized as Cooper, say,\nidealized the North American Indian traits) are made the basis of the\nphilosophic history of the German people. The Germans, for example, had\nthat psychological experience now known as mana, manitou, tabu, etc.\nThey identified their gods, in Tacitus' phrase, with \"that mystery which\nthey perceive by experiencing sacred fear.\" This turns out to be the\ngerminal deposit of spiritual-mindedness which later showed itself in\nLuther and in the peculiar genius of the Germans for religious\nexperience.\n\nThe following words are from no less an authority than Pfleiderer:\n\n     \"Cannot we recognize in this point that truly German\n     characteristic of _Innerlichkeit_ which scorns to fix for\n     sensuous perception the divine something which makes itself\n     felt in the depths of the sensitive soul, which scorns to drag\n     down the sublime mystery of the unknowable to the vulgar\n     distinctness of earthly things? The fact that the Germans\n     attached but little importance to religious ceremonies accords\n     with this view.\"\n\nTo others, this sense of mystery is a prophetic anticipation of the\nKantian thing-in-itself.\n\nA similar treatment has been accorded to the personal and voluntary bond\nby which individuals attached themselves to a chieftain. Thus early was\nmarked out the fidelity or loyalty, _Treue_, which is uniquely\nGermanic--although some warlike tribes among our Indians carried the\nsystem still further. I can allow myself but one more example of the way\nin which the philosophic sophistication of history has worked. No\nhistorian can be unconscious of the extent to which European culture has\nbeen genuinely European--the extent to which it derives itself from a\ncommon heritage of the ancient world and the extent to which\nintermixtures and borrowings of culture have gone on ever since. As to\nGermany, however, these obvious facts have to be accommodated to the\ndoctrine of an original racial deposit steadily evolving from within.\n\nThe method is simple. As respects Germany, these cultural borrowings and\ncrosses represent the intrinsic universality of its genius. Through this\nuniversality, the German spirit finds itself at home everywhere.\nConsequently, it consciously appropriates and assimilates what other\npeoples have produced by a kind of blind unconscious instinct. Thus it\nwas German thought which revealed the truth of Hellenic culture, and\nrescued essential Christianity from its Romanized petrifaction. The\nprinciple of Reason which French enlightenment laid hold of only in its\nnegative and destructive aspect, the German spirit grasped in its\npositive and constructive form. Shakespeare happened to be born in\nEngland, but only the Germans have apprehended him in his spiritual\nuniversality so that he is now more his own than he is England's--and so\non. But with respect to other peoples, similar borrowings reveal only\ntheir lack of inner and essential selfhood. While Luther is universal\nbecause he is German, Shakespeare is universal because he is not\nEnglish.\n\nI have intimated that Fichte's actual influence was limited. But his\nbasic ideas of the State and of history were absorbed in the philosophy\nof Hegel, and Hegel for a considerable period absolutely dominated\nGerman thinking. To set forth the ground principles of his \"absolute\nidealism\" would be only to repeat what has already been said. Its chief\ndifference, aside from Hegel's encyclopedic knowledge, his greater\nconcrete historic interest and his more conservative temperament, is his\nbottomless scorn for an Idea, an Absolute, which merely ought to be and\nwhich is only going to be realized after a period of time. \"The Actual\nis the Rational and the Rational _is_ the Actual\"--and the actual means\nthe actuating force and movement of things. It is customary to call him\nan Idealist. In one sense of much abused terms, he is the greatest\nrealist known to philosophy. He might be called a Brutalist. In the\ninquiry Bourdon carried on in Germany a few years ago (published under\nthe title of the \"German Enigma\"), he records a conversation with a\nGerman who deplores the tendency of the Germans to forsake the solid\nbone of things in behalf of a romantic shadow. As against this he\nappeals to the realistic sense of Hegel, who, \"in opposition to the\nidealism which had lifted Germany on wings, arrayed and marshaled the\nmaxims of an unflinching realism. He had formulae for the justification\nof facts whatever they might be. That which _is_, he would say, is\nreason realized. And what did he teach? That the hour has sounded for\nthe third act in the drama of humanity, and that the German opportunity\nis not far off. . . . I could show you throughout the nineteenth century\nthe torrent of political and social ideas which had their source here.\"\n\nI have said that the essential points of the Fichtean philosophy of\nhistory were taken up into the Hegelian system. This assimilation\ninvolved, however, a rectification of an inconsistency between the\nearlier and the later moral theories of Fichte. In his earlier ethical\nwritings, emphasis fell upon conscious moral personality--upon the\ndeliberate identification by the individual will of its career and\ndestiny with the purpose of the Absolute. In his later patriotic\nphilosophy, he asserts that the organized nation is the channel by\nwhich a finite ego acquires moral personality, since the nation alone\ntransmits to individuals the generic principle of God working in\nhumanity. At the same time he appeals to the resolute will and\nconsciously chosen self-sacrifice of individuals to overthrow the enemy\nand re-establish the Prussian state. When Hegel writes that victory has\nbeen obtained, the war of Independence has been successfully waged. The\nnecessity of emphasizing individual self-assertion had given way to the\nneed of subordinating the individual to the established state in order\nto check the disintegrating tendencies of liberalism.\n\nHaym has said that Hegel's \"Philosophy of Law\" had for its task the\nexhibition as the perfect work of Absolute Reason up to date of the\n\"practical and political condition existing in Prussia in 1821.\" This\nwas meant as a hostile attack. But Hegel himself should have been the\nlast to object. With his scorn for an Ideal so impotent that its\nrealization must depend upon the effort of private selves, an Absolute\nso inconsequential that it must wait upon the accidents of future time\nfor manifestation, he sticks in politics more than elsewhere to the\nconviction that the actual _is_ the rational. \"The task of philosophy is\nto comprehend that which is, for that which is, is Reason.\" Alleged\nphilosophies which try to tell what the State should be or even what a\nstate ought in the future to come to be, are idle fantasies. Such\nattempts come too late. Human wisdom is like \"the bird of Minerva which\ntakes its flight only at the close of day.\"[110:A] It comes, after the\nissue, to acknowledge what has happened. \"The State is the rational in\nitself and for itself. Its substantial unity is an absolute end in\nitself. To it belongs supreme right in respect to individuals whose\nfirst duty is--just to be members of the State.\" . . . The State \"is the\nabsolute reality and the individual himself has objective existence,\ntruth and morality only in his capacity as a member of the State.\" It is\na commonplace of idealistic theism that nature is a manifestation of\nGod. But Hegel says that nature is only an externalized, unconscious and\nso incomplete expression. The State has more, not less, objective\nreality than physical nature, for it is a realization of Absolute\nspirit in the realm of consciousness. The doctrine presents an extreme\nform of the idea, not of the divine right of kings, but of the divine\nright of States. \"The march of God in history is the cause of the\nexistence of states; their foundation is the power of reason realizing\nitself as will. Every state, whatever it be, participates in the divine\nessence. The State is not the work of human art; only Reason could\nproduce it.\" The State is God on earth.\n\n     [110:A] Marx said of the historic schools of politics, law and\n     economics that to them, as Jehovah to Moses on Mt. Sinai, the\n     divine showed but its posterior side.\n\nHis depreciation of the individual as an individual appears in every\ntheme of his Philosophy of Right and History. At first sight, his theory\nof great world heroes seems inconsistent with his disregard of\nindividuals. While the morality of most men consists simply in\nassimilating into their own habits the customs already found in the\ninstitutions about them, great men initiate new historic epochs. They\nderive \"their purposes and their calling not from the calm regular\ncourse of things sanctioned by the existing order, but from a concealed\nfount, from that inner spirit hidden beneath the surface, which,\nstriking the outer world as a shell, bursts it to pieces.\" The heroes\nare thus the exception which proves the rule. They are world characters;\nwhile they seem to be seeking personal interests they are really acting\nas organs of a universal will, of God in his further march. In his\nidentification with the Absolute, the world-hero can have but one aim to\nwhich \"he is devoted regardless of all else. Such men may even treat\nother great and sacred interests inconsiderately. . . . But so mighty a\nform must trample down many an innocent flower--crush to pieces many an\nobject in its path.\" We are not surprised to see that Alexander, Caesar\nand Napoleon are the characters he prefers to cite. One can only regret\nthat he died before his contemplative piety could behold Bismarck.\n\nA large part of the intellectual machinery by which Hegel overcame the\nremnants of individualism found in prior philosophy came from the idea\nof organic development which had been active in German thought since the\ntime of Herder. In his chief work (\"Ideas for a Philosophy of the\nHistory of Humanity\"), written in the closing decades of the eighteenth\ncentury, Herder holds that history is a progressive education of\nhumanity. This idea, had from Lessing, is combined with the idea of\nLeibniz that change is evolution, by means of an internal force, of\npowers originally implicit in existence, and with the idea of Spinoza of\nan all-comprehensive substance. This idea of organic growth was then\napplied to language, literature and institutions. It soon obtained\nreinforcement from the rising science of biology. Long before the days\nof Darwin or Spencer, the idea of evolution had been a commonplace of\nGerman thought with respect to everything concerning the history of\nhumanity. The notion was set in sharp antithesis to the conception of\n\"making\" or manufacturing institutions and constitutions, which was\ntreated as one of the fallacies of the French philosophy of the\nEnlightenment. A combination of this notion of universal organic growth\nwith the technique of prior idealism may fairly be said to have\ndetermined Hegel's whole philosophy. While Leibniz and Herder had\nemphasized the notion of harmony as an essential factor of the working\nof organic forces, Hegel took from Fichte the notion of a unity or\nsynthesis arrived at by \"positing,\" and overcoming an opposite. Struggle\nfor existence (or realization) was thus an \"organic\" part of German\nthinking long before the teaching of Darwin, who, in fact, is usually\ntreated by German writers as giving a rather superficial empirical\nexpression to an idea which they had already grasped in its universal\nspeculative form. It is characteristic of the extent in which Hegel\nthought in terms of struggle and overcoming that after stating why it\nwas as yet impossible to include the Americas in his philosophy of\nhistory, and after saying that in the future the burden of world history\nwill reveal itself there, he surmises that it may take the form of a\n\"contest\" between North and South America. No philosopher has ever\nthought so consistently and so wholly in terms of strife and overcoming\nas Hegel. When he says the \"world history is the world judgment\" he\nmeans judgment in the sense of assize, and judgment as victory of one\nand defeat of another--victory being the final proof that the world\nspirit has now passed from one nation to take up its residence in\nanother. To be defeated in a way which causes the nation to take a\nsecondary position among nations is a sign that divine judgment has been\npassed upon it. When a recent German writer argues that for Germany to\nsurrender any territory which it has conquered during the present war\nwould be sacrilegious, since it would be to refuse to acknowledge the\nworkings of God in human history, he speaks quite in the Hegelian vein.\n\nAlthough the phenomenon of nationalism was very recent when Hegel wrote,\nindeed practically contemporary with his own day, he writes in\nnationalistic terms the entire history of humanity. The State is the\nIndividual of history: it is to history what a given man is to\nbiography. History gives us the progressive realization or evolution of\nthe Absolute, moving from one National Individual to another. It is law,\nthe universal, which makes the State a State, for law is reason, not as\nmere subjective reflection, but in its manifestation as supreme over and\nin particulars. On this account, Hegel's statement that the fundamental\nprinciple of history is the progressive realization of freedom does not\nmean what an uninstructed English reader would naturally take it to\nmean. Freedom is always understood in terms of Reason. Its expression in\nhistory means that Thought has progressively become conscious of itself;\nthat is, has made itself its own object. Freedom is the _consciousness_\nof freedom. Liberty of action has little to do with it. Obviously it is\nonly in the German idealistic system--particularly in the system of\nHegel himself--that this has fully taken place. Meantime, when citizens\nof a state (especially of the state in which this philosophic insight\nhas been achieved) take the laws of their state as their own ends and\nmotives of action, they attain the best possible substitute for a reason\nwhich is its own object. They appropriate as their own personal reason\nthe objective and absolute Reason embodied perforce in law and custom.\n\nAfter this detour, we are led back to the fact that the Germans possess\nthe greatest freedom yet attained by humanity, for the Prussian\npolitical organization most fully exemplifies Law, or the Universal,\norganizing under and within itself all particular arrangements of social\nand personal life. Some other peoples--particularly the Latin--have\nthought they could _make_ constitutions, or at least that the form of\ntheir constitution was a matter of choice. But this is merely setting up\nthe private conceit of individuals against the work of Absolute Reason,\nand thus marks the disintegration of a state rather than its existence.\nOther peoples have tried to found the government on the consent of the\ngoverned, unwitting of the fact that it is the government, the\n_specific_ realization of Reason, which makes a state out of what is\notherwise an anarchic mass of individuals. Other peoples have made a\nparliament or representative body the essential thing in government; in\nphilosophic reality this is only a consultative body, having as its main\nfunction communication between classes (which are indispensable to an\n\"organic\" state) and the real government. The chief function of\nparliament is to give the opinion of the social classes an opportunity\nto feel it is being considered and to enable the real government to take\nadvantage of whatever wisdom may chance to be expressed. Hegel seems\nquite prophetic when he says: \"By virtue of this participation\nsubjective liberty and conceit, with their general opinion, can show\nthemselves palpably efficacious and enjoy the satisfaction of feeling\nthemselves to count for something.\" Finally, the State becomes wholly\nand completely an organized Individual only in its external relations,\nits relations to other states. As his philosophy of history ignores the\npast in seizing upon the national state as the unit and focus of\nhistory, so it ignores all future possibility of a genuinely\ninternational federation to which isolated nationalism shall be\nsubordinated. Bernhardi writes wholly in the Hegelian sense when he says\nthat to expand the idea of the State into the idea of humanity is a\nUtopian error, for it would exclude the essential principle of life,\nstruggle.\n\nPhilosophical justification of war follows inevitably from a philosophy\nof history composed in nationalistic terms. History is the movement, the\nmarch of God on earth through time. Only one nation at a time can be the\nlatest and hence the fullest realization of God. The movement of God in\nhistory is thus particularly manifest in those changes by which unique\nplace passes from one nation to another. War is the signally visible\noccurrence of such a flight of the divine spirit in its onward movement.\nThe idea that friendly intercourse among all the peoples of the earth is\na legitimate aim of human effort is in basic contradiction of such a\nphilosophy. War is explicit realization of \"dialectic,\" of the negation\nby which a higher synthesis of reason is assured. It effectively\ndisplays the \"irony of the divine Idea.\" It is to national life what the\nwinds are to the sea, \"preserving mankind from the corruption\nengendered by immobility.\" War is the most effective preacher of the\nvanity of all merely finite interests; it puts an end to that selfish\negoism of the individual by which he would claim his life and his\nproperty as his own or as his family's. International law is not\nproperly law; it expresses simply certain usages which are accepted so\nlong as they do not come into conflict with the purpose of a state--a\npurpose which always gives the supreme law of national life.\nParticularly against the absolute right of the \"present bearer of the\nworld spirit, the spirits of the other nations are absolutely without\nright. The latter, just like the nations whose epochs have passed, count\nno longer in universal history.\" Since they are already passed over from\nthe standpoint of the divine idea, war can do no more than exhibit the\nfact that their day has come and gone. World history is the world's\njudgment seat.\n\nFor a period Hegelian thought was almost supreme in Germany. Then its\nrule passed away almost as rapidly as it had been achieved. After\nvarious shiftings, the trend of philosophic thought was definitely \"Back\nto Kant.\" Kant's greater sobriety, the sharp distinction he drew\nbetween the realm of phenomena and science and the ideal noumenal world,\ncommended him after the unbridled pretensions of Hegelian absolutism.\nFor more than a generation Hegel was spoken of with almost universal\ncontempt. Nevertheless his ideas, loosed from the technical apparatus\nwith which he surrounded them, persisted. Upon the historical\ndisciplines his influence was peculiarly deep and abiding. He fixed the\nideas of Fichte and fastened them together with the pin of evolution.\nSince his day, histories of philosophy, or religion, or institutions\nhave all been treated as developments through necessary stages of an\ninner implicit idea or purpose according to an indwelling law. And the\nidea of a peculiar mission and destiny of German history has lost\nnothing in the operation. Expressions which a bewildered world has\nsought since the beginning of the war to explain through the influence\nof a Darwinian struggle for existence and survival of the fittest, or\nthrough the influence of a Nietzschean philosophy of power, have their\nroots in the classic idealistic philosophy culminating in Hegel.\n\nKant still remains the philosopher of Germany. The division of life\nbetween the world of sense and of mechanism and the world of the\nsupersensible and purpose, the world of necessity and the world of\nfreedom, is more congenial than a complete monism. The attempts of his\nsuccessors to bridge the gap and set up a wholly unified philosophy\nfailed, historically speaking. But, nevertheless, they contributed an\nindispensable ingredient to the contemporary German spirit; they helped\npeople the Kantian void of the supersensible with the substantial\nfigures of the State and its Historical Evolution and Mission. Kant\nbequeathed to the world an intellect devoted to the congenial task of\ndiscovering causal law in external nature, and an inner intuition which,\nin spite of its sublimity, had nothing to look at except the bare form\nof an empty law of duty. Kant was kept busy in proving the existence of\nthis supernal but empty region. Consequently he was not troubled by\nbeing obliged to engage in the unremunerative task of spending his time\ngazing into a blank void. His successors were not so fortunate. The\nexistence of this ideal realm in which reason, purpose and freedom are\none was axiomatic to them; they could no longer busy themselves with\nproving its existence. Some of them, called the Romanticists, filled it\nwith visions, more or less poetic, which frankly drew their substance\nfrom an imagination inflamed by emotional aspiration in revolt at the\nlimitations of outward action. Others, called the idealistic\nphilosophers, filled in the void, dark because of excess of light, with\nless ghostly forms of Law and the unfolding in History of Absolute Value\nand Purpose. The two worlds of Kant were too far away from each other.\nThe later idealistic world constructions crumbled; but their debris\nsupplied material with which to fill in the middle regions between the\nKantian worlds of sense and of reason. This, I repeat, is their lasting\ncontribution to present German culture. Where Kantianism has not\nreceived a filling in from the philosophy of history and the State, it\nhas remained in Germany, as elsewhere, a critique of the methodology of\nscience; its importance has been professional rather than human.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the first lecture we set out with the suggestion of an inquiry into\nthe influence of general ideas upon practical affairs, upon those\nlarger practical affairs called politics. We appear to have concluded\nwith a conviction that (in the instance before us at least) politics has\nrather been the controlling factor in the formation of philosophic ideas\nand in deciding their vogue. Yet we are well within limits when we say\nthat ideas which were evoked in correspondence with concrete social\nconditions served to articulate and consolidate the latter. Even if we\nwent so far as to say that reigning philosophies simply reflect as in a\nmirror contemporary social struggles, we should have to add that seeing\none's self in a mirror is a definite practical aid in carrying on one's\nundertaking to its completion.\n\nWhen what a people sees in its intellectual looking glass is its own\norganization and its own historic evolution as an organic instrument of\nthe accomplishment of an Absolute Will and Law, the articulating and\nconsolidating efficacy of the reflection is immensely intensified.\nOutside of Germany, the career of the German idealistic philosophy has\nbeen mainly professional and literary. It has exercised considerable\ninfluence upon the teaching of philosophy in France, England and this\ncountry. Beyond professorial circles, its influence has been\nconsiderable in theological directions. Without doubt, it has modulated\nfor many persons the transition from a supernatural to a spiritual\nreligion; it has enabled them to give up historical and miraculous\nelements as indifferent accretions and to retain the moral substance and\nemotional values of Christianity. But the Germans are quite right in\nfeeling that only in Germany is this form of idealistic thinking both\nindigenous and widely applied.\n\nA crisis like the present forces upon thoughtful persons a consideration\nof the value for the general aims of civilization of a philosophy of the\n_a priori_, the Absolute, and of their immanent evolution through the\nmedium of an experience which as just experience is only a superficial\nand negligible vehicle of transcendent Laws and Ends. It forces a\nconsideration of what type of general ideas is available for the\narticulation and guidance of our own life in case we find ourselves\nlooking upon the present world scene as an _a priori_ and an\nabsolutistic philosophy gone into bankruptcy.\n\nIn Europe, speaking generally, \"Americanism\" is a synonym for crude\nempiricism and a materialistic utilitarianism. It is no part of my\npresent task to try to show how largely this accusation is due to\nmisunderstanding. It is simpler to inquire how far the charge points to\nthe problem which American life, and therefore philosophy in America,\nmust meet. It is difficult to see how any _a priori_ philosophy, or any\nsystematic absolutism, is to get a footing among us, at least beyond\nnarrow and professorial circles. Psychologists talk about learning by\nthe method of trial and error or success. Our social organization\ncommits us to this philosophy of life. Our working principle is to try:\nto find out by trying, and to measure the worth of the ideas and\ntheories tried by the success with which they meet the test of\napplication in practice. Concrete consequences rather than _a priori_\nrules supply our guiding principles. Hegel found it \"superficial and\nabsurd to regard as objects of choice\" social constitutions; to him\n\"they were necessary structures in the path of development.\" To us they\nare the cumulative result of a multitude of daily and ever-renewed\nchoices.\n\nThat such an experimental philosophy of life means a dangerous\nexperiment goes without saying. It permits, sooner or later it may\nrequire, every alleged sacrosanct principle to submit to ordeal by\nfire--to trial by service rendered. From the standpoint of _a priorism_,\nit is hopelessly anarchic; it is doomed, _a priori_, to failure. From\nits own standpoint, it is itself a theory to be tested by experience.\nNow experiments are of all kinds, varying from those generated by blind\nimpulse and appetite to those guided by intelligently formed ideas. They\nare as diverse as the attempt of a savage to get rain by sprinkling\nwater and scattering thistledown, and that control of electricity in the\nlaboratory from which issue wireless telegraphy and rapid traction. Is\nit not likely that in this distinction we have the key to the failure or\nsuccess of the experimental method generalized into a philosophy of\nlife, that is to say, of social matters--the only application which\nprocures complete generalization?\n\nAn experimental philosophy differs from empirical philosophy as\nempiricism has been previously formulated. Historical empiricisms have\nbeen stated in terms of precedents; their generalizations have been\nsummaries of what has previously happened. The truth and falsity of\nthese generalizations depended then upon the accuracy with which they\ncatalogued, under appropriate heads, a multiplicity of past occurrences.\nThey were perforce lacking in directive power except so far as the\nfuture might be a routine repetition of the past. In an experimental\nphilosophy of life, the question of the past, of precedents, of origins,\nis quite subordinate to prevision, to guidance and control amid future\npossibilities. Consequences rather than antecedents measure the worth of\ntheories. Any scheme or project may have a fair hearing provided it\npromise amelioration in the future; and no theory or standard is so\nsacred that it may be accepted simply on the basis of past performance.\n\nBut this difference between a radically experimental philosophy and an\nempiristic philosophy only emphasizes the demand for careful and\ncomprehensive reflection with respect to the ideas which are to be\ntested in practice. If an _a priori_ philosophy has worked at all in\nGermany it is because it has been based on an _a priori_ social\nconstitution--that is to say, on a state whose organization is such as\nto determine in advance the main activities of classes of individuals,\nand to utilize their particular activities by linking them up with one\nanother in definite ways. It is a commonplace to say that Germany is a\nmonument to what can be done by means of conscious method and\norganization. An experimental philosophy of life in order to succeed\nmust not set less store upon methodic and organized intelligence, but\nmore. We must learn from Germany what methodic and organized work means.\nBut instead of confining intelligence to the technical means of\nrealizing ends which are predetermined by the State (or by something\ncalled the historic Evolution of the Idea), intelligence must, with us,\ndevote itself as well to construction of the ends to be acted upon.\n\nThe method of trial and error or success is likely, if not directed by a\ntrained and informed imagination, to score an undue proportion of\nfailures. There is no possibility of disguising the fact that an\nexperimental philosophy of life means a hit-and-miss philosophy in the\nend. But it means missing rather than hitting, if the aiming is done in\na happy-go-lucky way instead of by bringing to bear all the resources of\ninquiry upon locating the target, constructing propulsive machinery and\nfiguring out the curve of trajectory. That this work is, after all, but\nhypothetical and tentative till it issue from thought into action does\nnot mean that it might as well be random guesswork; it means that we can\ndo still better next time if we are sufficiently attentive to the causes\nof success and failure this time.\n\nAmerica is too new to afford a foundation for an _a priori_ philosophy;\nwe have not the requisite background of law, institutions and achieved\nsocial organization. America is too new to render congenial to our\nimagination an evolutionary philosophy of the German type. For our\nhistory is too obviously future. Our country is too big and too\nunformed, however, to enable us to trust to an empirical philosophy of\nmuddling along, patching up here and there some old piece of machinery\nwhich has broken down by reason of its antiquity. We must have system,\nconstructive method, springing from a widely inventive imagination, a\nmethod checked up at each turn by results achieved. We have said long\nenough that America means opportunity; we must now begin to ask:\nOpportunity for what, and how shall the opportunity be achieved? I can\nbut think that the present European situation forces home upon us the\nneed for constructive planning. I can but think that while it gives no\nreason for supposing that creative power attaches _ex officio_ to\ngeneral ideas, it does encourage us to believe that a philosophy which\nshould articulate and consolidate the ideas to which our social practice\ncommits us would clarify and guide our future endeavor.\n\nTime permits of but one illustration. The present situation presents the\nspectacle of the breakdown of the whole philosophy of Nationalism,\npolitical, racial and cultural. It is by the accident of position rather\nthan any virtue of our own that we are not sharers in the present\ndemonstration of failure. We have borrowed the older philosophy of\nisolated national sovereignty and have lived upon it in a more or less\nhalf-hearted way. In our internal constitution we are actually\ninterracial and international. It remains to see whether we have the\ncourage to face this fact and the wisdom to think out the plan of action\nwhich it indicates. Arbitration treaties, international judicial\ncouncils, schemes of international disarmament, peace funds and peace\nmovements, are all well in their way. But the situation calls for more\nradical thinking than that which terminates in such proposals. We have\nto recognize that furtherance of the depth and width of human\nintercourse is the measure of civilization; and we have to apply this\nfact without as well as within our national life. We must make the\naccident of our internal composition into an idea, an idea upon which we\nmay conduct our foreign as well as our domestic policy. An international\njudicial tribunal will break in the end upon the principle of national\nsovereignty.\n\nWe have no right to cast stones at any warring nation till we have asked\nourselves whether we are willing to forego this principle and to submit\naffairs which limited imagination and sense have led us to consider\nstrictly national to an international legislature. In and of itself, the\nidea of peace is a negative idea; it is a police idea. There _are_\nthings more important than keeping one's body whole and one's property\nintact. Disturbing the peace is bad, not because peace is disturbed, but\nbecause the fruitful processes of cooperation in the great experiment of\nliving together are disturbed. It is futile to work for the negative end\nof peace unless we are committed to the positive ideal which it cloaks:\nPromoting the efficacy of human intercourse irrespective of class,\nracial, geographical and national limits. Any philosophy which should\npenetrate and particulate our present social practice would find at work\nthe forces which unify human intercourse. An intelligent and courageous\nphilosophy of practice would devise means by which the operation of\nthese forces would be extended and assured in the future. An American\nphilosophy of history must perforce be a philosophy for its future, a\nfuture in which freedom and fullness of human companionship is the aim,\nand intelligent cooperative experimentation the method.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n     Absolutism, 89, 112, 115, 124\n\n     America, philosophy in, 123-132\n\n     \"Americanism,\" 124\n\n     Anti-Semitism, 100-101.\n\n     _A priori_, 39-44, 126, 129\n\n     Authority, 52-54\n\n\n     Bentham, 56\n\n     Bergson, 4\n\n     Bernhardi, 34-35, 52, 118\n\n     Bourdon, 107-108\n\n     Burke, 93-94\n\n\n     Chamberlain, 101 n.\n\n     Cosmopolitanism, 67, 75, 85, 99\n\n     Culture, 91\n\n\n     Descartes, 92\n\n     Despotism enlightened, 53\n\n     Dialectic, 70, 118\n\n     Duty, 24, 50-57\n\n\n     Education, 14, 72, 73\n\n     Empiricism, 41, 43, 126-129\n\n     Enlightenment, the, 37-39, 59, 92, 103\n\n     Eucken, 36, 55\n\n     Evolution, 112\n\n\n     Fichte, 68-80, 85-87\n\n     Formalism, 51\n\n     Freedom, 18, 25, 30, 33-35, 47, 51, 71, 115.\n\n     French Revolution, 57, 94, 103\n\n     French thought, 52, 91-94, 95, 100\n\n\n     Germania, 104\n\n     Germany, 14-16, 28, 29-31, 32-33, 36, 71, 78-81, 84-85, 88, 91-93,\n         94-98, 106-107\n\n\n     Haym, 107\n\n     Hegel, 94-95, 107-120, 125\n\n     Heine, 17, 18, 76, 83, 84-85\n\n     Herder, 112\n\n     History, 5-6, 59-67, 98-102, 107-119, 121\n\n     Hoffman, 81\n\n\n     Idealism, 28, 39, 70, 82, 107, 123, 130\n\n     Ideas and action, 3-15, 123-132\n\n     Individualism, 49, 72\n\n     Intelligence, 54-56, 126-128\n\n\n     Jena, 68\n\n\n     Kant, 19-40, 47-58, 59-67, 119-121\n\n     Kultur, 62-64\n\n\n     Lange, 78\n\n     Lasalle, 77\n\n     Law, 20-25, 116\n\n     Leibniz, 59, 112\n\n     Luther, 16, 27, 71, 87\n\n\n     Marx, 6, 110 n.\n\n     Militarism, 52\n\n\n     Napoleon, 67, 78-79\n\n     Nationalism, 67, 81, 86, 87, 115\n\n     Nietzsche, 28, 34, 58\n\n\n     Pantheism, 77, 82\n\n     Parliaments, 117\n\n     Personality, 48\n\n     Pfleiderer, 105\n\n     Philosophy, 7-18, 123-132\n\n     Property, 74\n\n     Psychology, Social, 82\n\n\n     Race, 100-101\n\n     Religion, 20-21, 26-27, 95\n\n     Rights, 52, 57\n\n     Romanticism, 81, 104, 122\n\n     Rousseau, 61, 91\n\n\n     Schelling, 82 n.\n\n     Scholar, 72\n\n     Science, 21-23, 28\n\n     Socialism, 74-75\n\n     Social motives, 60-61\n\n     Society, 64-65\n\n     State, 64-65, 66-67, 73-77, 110-118\n\n     Subjectivism, 49, 81\n\n     Supersensible, 23-25\n\n     v. Sybel, 78-80\n\n\n     Tacitus, 104\n\n     Taine, 14\n\n\n     Universalism of Germany, 36, 106-107\n\n     _Urvolk_, 101-102\n\n     Utilitarianism, 57-58\n\n\n     _Volks-seele_, 82\n\n\n     War, 35-36, 89, 97, 118-120\n\n     World-heroes, 112\n\n\n\n\nDEWEY AND TUFTS'S ETHICS\n\n     By JOHN DEWEY, Professor in Columbia University, and JAMES H.\n     TUFTS, Professor in the University of Chicago. (_American\n     Science Series._) 618 pp. 8vo. $2.00.\n\n\nG. H. PALMER, _Professor in Harvard University_: It is a scholarly and\nstimulating production, the best, I think, for college use that has yet\nappeared. Indeed, from no other book would a general reader obtain in so\nbrief a compass so wide a view of the moral work of to-day, set forth in\nso positive, lucid and interesting a fashion. Twenty years ago the book\ncould not have been written, for into it have gone the spoils of all the\nethical battles of our time. While I often find myself in dissent from\nits opinions, I see that whoever wishes to comprehend the deeper social\ntendencies of recent years will do well to study this book, and that he\nwill carry away from his reading as much enjoyment as instruction.\n\nPROFESSOR NORMAN WILDE of the _University of Minnesota_ in _Journal of\nPhilosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods_: If this is not the ideal\ntext-book in ethics for which we have been waiting so many years, it is,\nat least, a very good substitute for it. Certainly no more valuable\nfruit of the recent ethical revival has been produced than this, nor one\nwhich will itself produce more future good, for it is bound to be but\nthe first of a new type of texts. It marks the end of the abstract,\nspeculative treatises and the beginning of the positive studies of\nestablished human values. The moral life is presented as a reality about\nwhich there can be no more question than about the reality of the\nphysical life, and, indeed, as that in which the latter finds its\ncompletion and explanation. Theories and systems are strictly\nsubordinated to the facts and are not presented until the facts are\nclearly given. No student can rise from the study of this book feeling\nthat he has been engaged with questions of purely academic interest. On\nthe contrary, he can not but realize that it is the origin and solution\nof the problems of his own life with which he is here concerned. Reality\nis the dominant note of the book.\n\nTHE OUTLOOK: In several respects this work, among the many of its kind\nappearing in recent years, is eminently valuable, especially for the\nample treatment given to ethics in the world of action in civil society,\nadmidst the relations of political, economic, and family life. To trace\nthe growth of morality, and to discover its laws and principles, with a\nview to their application to present social conditions and problems for\nprogressive moral development, is the proper aim of ethical science as\nhere unfolded. . . . The many ethical questions raised by present\neconomic conditions are treated with admirable fulness and perspicacity.\n\n\n     HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\n            NEW YORK\n\n\n\n\nBERGSON'S CREATIVE EVOLUTION\n\n_Translated from the French by Dr. Arthur Mitchell_\n\n$3.00 net, by mail $3.17\n\n\n\"Bergson's resources in the way of erudition are remarkable, and in the\nway of expression they are simply phenomenal. . . . If anything can make\nhard things easy to follow it is a style like Bergson's. It is a miracle\nand he a real magician. Open Bergson and new horizons open on every page\nyou read. It tells of reality itself instead of reiterating what\ndusty-minded professors have written about what other previous\nprofessors have thought. Nothing in Bergson is shopworn or at\nsecond-hand.\"--_William James._\n\n\"A distinctive and trenchant piece of dialectic. . . . Than its entrance\nupon the field as a well-armed and militant philosophy there have been\nnot many more memorable occurences in the history of ideas.\"--_Nation._\n\n\"To bring out in an adequate manner the effect which Bergson's philsophy\nhas on those who are attracted by it let us try to imagine what it would\nhave been like to have lived when Kant produced his 'Critique of Pure\nReason.'\"--_Hibbert Journal._\n\n\"_Creative Evolution_ is destined, I believe, to mark an epoch in the\nhistory of modern thought. The work has its root in modern physical\nscience, but it blooms and bears fruit in the spirit to a degree quite\nunprecedented. . . . Bergson is a new star in the intellectual firmament\nof our day. He is a philosopher upon whom the spirits of both literature\nand science have descended. In his great work he touches the materialism\nof science to finer issues. Probably no other writer of our time has\npossessed in the same measure the three gifts, the literary, the\nscientific, and the philosophical. Bergson is a kind of chastened and\nspiritualized Herbert Spencer.\"--_John Burroughs in the Atlantic\nMonthly._\n\n\n      HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\n     PUBLISHERS      NEW YORK\n\n\n\n\nBY WALTER LIPPMANN\n\n\nDRIFT AND MASTERY\n\n_2nd Printing, $1.50 Net_\n\nTHEODORE ROOSEVELT _in The Outlook_:\n\n\"No man who wishes seriously to study our present social, industrial and\npolitical life can afford not to read it through and through and to\nponder and digest it.\"\n\nWILLIAM MARION REEDY _in The St. Louis Mirror_:\n\n\"When 'A Preface to Politics' was published, I ventured the opinion that\nit was the best book on politics since Walter Bagehot's 'Physics and\nPolitics.' Now he has followed it with 'Drift and Mastery,' an even more\nbrilliant performance.\"\n\n\nA PREFACE TO POLITICS\n\n_3rd Printing, $1.50 Net_\n\n_The Boston Transcript_:\n\n\"'A Preface to Politics' is its own complete and sufficient\njustification. In many respects it is the ablest brief book of its kind\npublished during the last ten years. It has the supreme virtue of\nclearness aided by a style that is incisive and compelling.\"\n\n\nTHE STAKES OF DIPLOMACY\n\n_4th Printing, cloth, $1.35 Net; paper, 60 cts. Net_\n\nJ. B. KERFOOT _in Life_:\n\n\"It is a real joy to find it of the same order as 'A Preface to\nPolitics.' It deals with human nature involved in international human\nrelations impersonally, yet brings significances personally home to us.\nA book that widens horizons and quickens consciousness.\"\n\n\n      HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\n     PUBLISHERS      NEW YORK\n\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTES\n\n\nEllipses match the original. A row of asterisks represents a thought break.\nWords in italics in the original are surrounded with _underscores_.\n\nThe following corrections have been made to the text:\n\n     Page 53: duty must get[original has gets] its subject-matter\n     somewhere\n\n     Page 110: wisdom is like \"[quotation mark missing in the\n     original]the bird of Minerva\n\n     Page 134: _Volks-seele_[original has _Volk-seele_], 82\n\nTypographical errors in the book reviews have been retained as printed.","title":"German philosophy and politics","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":26509}