PAUL RAMSEY 
 
 DD199 .F413 1922 
 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 
 1762-1814. 
 
 Addresses to the German 
 nation / 
 
SI* 
 
Digitized by 
 
 the Internet Archive 
 
 
 
 in 2015 
 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/addressestogermaOOfich_0 
 
ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN 
 NATION 
 
[Frontispiece. 
 
 JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE 
 
 AT THE TIME OF THE DELIVERY OF THESE ADDRESSES 
 
ADDRESSES 
 
 TO THE 
 
 GERMAN NATION 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 R. F. JONES, M.A. 
 
 G. H. TURNBULL, M.A., Ph.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD 
 
 JAN 25 2007 
 
 CHICAGO AND LONDON 
 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 1922 
 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by 
 Neill & Co., Ltd., Edinburgh. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction . . . . . . • . xi 
 
 Translation 
 
 First Address : Introduction and General Survey . I 
 
 Second Address : The General Nature of the New 
 
 Education . . . . . . . 19 
 
 Third Address : Description of the New Education 
 
 (continued) * . . . . . .36 
 
 Fourth Address : The Chief Difference between the 
 
 Germans and the other Peoples of Teutonic descent 52 
 
 Fifth Address : The Consequences of the Difference 
 
 that has been indicated ..... 72 
 
 Sixth Address : German Characteristics as Ex- 
 hibited in History ...... 91 
 
 Seventh Address: A Closer Study of the Originality 
 
 and Characteristics of a People .... 108 
 
 Eighth Address : What is a People in the Higher 
 Meaning of the Word, and what is Love of Father- 
 land ? . . . . . . . .130 
 
 Ninth Address : The Starting-point that Actually 
 Exists for the New National Education of the 
 Germans ....... 152 
 
 Tenth Address : Further Definition of the German 
 
 National Education ..... 169 
 
 vii 
 
ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Eleventh Address : On whom will the Carrying-out 
 
 of this Scheme of Education devolve ? . .187 
 
 Twelfth Address : Concerning the Means for our 
 
 Preservation until we attain our Main Object . 205 
 
 Thirteenth Address : The same subject further 
 
 considered ....... 223 
 
 Fourteenth Address : Conclusion . . . 248 
 
TRANSLATORS' NOTE 
 
 This translation is based on Vogt's edition of Fichte's 
 Reden an die deutsche Nation in the Bibliothek pada- 
 gogischer Klassiker, Langensalza, 1896. 
 
 Mr Jones is responsible for the translation of Addresses 
 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, and 14, Dr Turnbull for the remainder 
 and for the introduction, which is intended primarily 
 for the general reader. Each of us, however, has had 
 the benefit of the other's suggestions and criticisms. 
 We have endeavoured to make the rendering of the prin- 
 cipal technical terms uniform throughout, and have 
 aimed at making the translation intelligible, while 
 keeping close to the original German. 
 
 We desire to express our deep gratitude to Prof. E. T. 
 Campagnac for originally suggesting the translation, for 
 showing the deepest interest in the work throughout, and 
 for reading part of the MS. Dr Turnbull wishes also to 
 thank Miss E. Purdie for a number of valuable comments 
 on the rendering of the first address. 
 
 R. F. J. 
 G. H. T. 
 
 ix 
 
 b 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born on May 19, 1762, 
 at Rammenau, a little village in Upper Lusatia between 
 Dresden and Bautzen. His father, Christian Fichte, 
 married the daughter of Johann Schurich, a ribbon 
 manufacturer of the neighbouring town of Pulsnitz, to 
 whom he was apprenticed, and returned to settle with 
 his bride in Rammenau, where he managed to make a 
 living by following his trade as a ribbon-weaver. Johann 
 was the eldest of a family of six sons and one daughter, 
 and at an early age showed signs of precocious intelligence, 
 conscientiousness, and stubbornness. 
 
 By a fortunate accident the young Johann came under 
 the notice of Baron von Miltitz, a neighbouring land- 
 owner, who took him under his protection and sent him 
 to be educated, first at Niederau by a Pastor Krebel, 
 with whom he remained for nearly five years, and then 
 in 1774 to the well-known school at Pforta near Naum- 
 burg. His patron's death early in the same year made 
 no difference to Fichte's education, for he received finan- 
 cial support from the relatives and friends of the baron 
 until 1784, when his allowance was stopped by the latter's 
 widow. He remained at Pforta until 1780, when he 
 became a theological student first at Jena and then at 
 Leipzig. He did not complete his course, but spent 
 the years from 1784 to 1788 as a private tutor in various 
 
 xi 
 
xii ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 families, being unable to keep any post for long owing, 
 it is said, to his proud temper and his original ideas on 
 education. In 1788 he was a tutor at Zurich, where 
 he met distinguished men like Lavater, and had the good 
 fortune to fall in love with Johanna Rahn, the daughter 
 of the Inspector of weights and measures. 
 
 In March 1790, on the termination of his teaching 
 engagement at Zurich, Fichte went to Leipzig and, while 
 waiting for a suitable post, began to study Kant's philo- 
 sophy for the first time, in order to give some lessons on 
 it to a pupil who had asked for them. This study revolu- 
 tionized his ideas and converted him from determinism 
 to a belief in moral freedom and the inherent moral 
 worth of man. As a result of this he took the opportunity 
 of visiting Kant at Konigsberg in 1791, after an abortive 
 journey to Warsaw where he had been engaged to act 
 as private tutor to a Polish family. He was warmly 
 received by the old philosopher, who approved of an 
 essay entitled Critique of all Revelation, which Fichte had 
 written and sent to him. This essay was published in 
 1792, after Fichte had gone, on Kant's recommendation, 
 to Danzig to act as tutor to the family of the Count of 
 Krockow. Owing to the publisher accidentally omitting 
 the author's name, the essay was taken for a work of Kant, 
 and Fichte's reputation was made. As a direct result of 
 this he was able to marry Johanna Rahn on October 22, 
 1793- 
 
 The tracts which the French Revolution inspired 
 Fichte to write at this time, and which established the 
 rights of the people on the basis of the inherent moral 
 freedom of man, increased his fame ; but at the same time 
 they caused moderate and conservative men to regard 
 him as a radical and dangerous teacher. In spite of 
 this, however, he was called to succeed Reinhold as 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 xiii 
 
 Professor of Philosophy at Jena in 1794. Here he won 
 immediate success as. a lecturer, owing undoubtedly in 
 great measure to the vigour of his thought and to his 
 moral intensity and practical earnestness. His enemies, 
 however, especially the bigoted supporters of the tradi- 
 tional constitution and of the established form of religion, 
 never ceased trying to undermine his position and to 
 secure his removal. They first complained that the 
 course of general moral lectures which he gave on Sunday 
 mornings was an attempt to overthrow Christianity and 
 to introduce the worship of reason in its stead ; but, 
 meeting with no success, they then attempted to turn 
 to his disadvantage the efforts which Fichte was making 
 to suppress the students' associations. Throughout these 
 negotiations Fichte, who saw that these associations were 
 productive of much harm, was animated solely by the 
 desire to develop and cultivate the moral and intellectual 
 powers of his pupils. Though again unsuccessful, his 
 enemies did not cease their attacks, and were at last 
 victorious. In an article which appeared in the Philo- 
 sophical Journal, of which he had been joint editor 
 since 1795, Fichte identified God with the moral order 
 of the universe. Immediately his enemies raised the 
 cry of atheism against him ; the Saxon government 
 condemned the Journal and demanded Fichte's expulsion 
 from Jena. The Grand Duke of Weimar would probably 
 have imposed merely a formal censure, but Fichte would 
 not submit to anything that he thought encroached 
 upon his liberty of teaching. He unwisely threatened to 
 resign in case of reprimand, and his resignation was 
 accepted in 1799, much to his own discomfiture and the 
 delight of his enemies. 
 
 From Jena Fichte went to Berlin, where he was 
 welcomed by Schelling, the Schlegels, Schleiermacher, 
 
xiv ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 and other adherents of what is called the romantic 
 school. The sentimental atmosphere and moral laxity 
 of this school, however, did not suit his austere character 
 and strict principles, and friendship gradually changed 
 to coldness and ultimately to antagonism. In 1805 he 
 was appointed Professor at Erlangen, but the French 
 victories over the Prussians at Jena and Auerstadt drove 
 him to East Prussia, where he lived at Konigsberg from 
 1806 to 1807. During his stay there he studied, amongst 
 other things, the writings of Pestalozzi, whose Leonard 
 and Gertrude he had read and approved of as early as 
 1788, and whose personality and teaching methods had 
 much impressed him at their first meeting in 1793. The 
 Peace of Tilsit in July 1807 enabled him to return to 
 Berlin, and during the winter of 1 807-1 808 he disclosed 
 his views on the only true foundation of national pro- 
 sperity in the Addresses to the German Nation which he 
 delivered in the Academy building there. He also 
 drew up an elaborate and minute plan for the proposed 
 new university at Berlin, and helped in its organization, 
 being appointed Professor in 18 10 and Rector in 181 1. 
 The latter office, however, he resigned after holding it 
 for only four months, his domineering manner preventing 
 any close co-operation with his colleagues. In 18 14 his 
 wife caught a fever while attending sick and wounded in 
 Berlin. Thanks to Fichte's devoted care she recovered, 
 but he was himself stricken with the same fever and died 
 on January 27, 1814. 
 
 Though short and thickset in build, Fichte had never- 
 theless an imposing presence ; this he undoubtedly 
 owed to his sharp commanding features, his keen piercing 
 eyes, and his high forehead surmounted by thick black 
 hair. In speech and movement alike he was quick, 
 impetuous, decisive, and energetic. Though inclined 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 XV 
 
 to be too abstract and very terse, he was a splendid 
 orator. He tried in every way to win his audience and 
 to make himself perfectly clear and intelligible to them ; 
 his voice was always attuned to the sentiments he ex- 
 pressed, and his delivery never lacked clearness and 
 precision. His discourse swept on like the course of a 
 tempest, rousing rather than moving the souls of his 
 hearers and stirring them to their very depths. His 
 flights of imagination were great and mighty, and the 
 pictures he conjured up for his listeners, though seldom 
 charming, were always bold and massive ; his writings, 
 though they contained little that was particularly beauti- 
 ful, were always characterized by force and weight. 
 Appearance, speech, action — all bore witness to the 
 authority of the man and to the boldness and originality 
 of his spirit. 
 
 The most striking features of Fichte's character were 
 the intensity and resoluteness with which he maintained 
 his moral convictions, and his burning passion for activity. 
 He loved the truth. In 1792, at the very outset of his 
 career, he solemnly declared that he was devoting himself 
 to truth, and throughout his life he maintained that 
 truth was the sole object of his inquiries, and that he 
 troubled himself very little about what was likely to 
 please his hearers or be disagreeable to them. As a 
 thinker, he sought first principles which were indubitably 
 certain ; as a man, he loathed lies, hated compliments 
 and flattery, and told everyone the truth to his face. 
 Equally he loved liberty ; his whole life was spent in 
 its pursuit and in its defence. His honesty was trans- 
 parent, his disinterestedness patent, and his kindness 
 proverbial. As early as 1775 he declared that " a theft 
 is a theft and remains a theft." He treated the students 
 at Jena as honourable men, and understood how to 
 
xvi ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 appeal to what was best in them. He refused to canvass 
 for the chair at Jena, or to use the good offices of his 
 friends to clear away possible obstacles. He would not 
 take fees from poor students, yet he always found room for 
 them in his classes. He befriended the distressed in 
 spite of the uncertainty of his own financial position, 
 and imposed no condition on them save that of absolute 
 secrecy. It is not surprising that his influence over the 
 students was so powerful, and that his friendship was 
 regarded as an inestimable gift. Nor is it surprising 
 that, strengthened by the consciousness of the loftiest 
 moral convictions, such a man in early life should have 
 taken as his motto the words which Horace used in praise 
 of Caesar Augustus : — 
 
 Si fractus illabatur orbis, 
 Impavidum ferient ruinae. 1 
 
 He was convinced that this world was a land not of 
 enjoyment, but of labour and toil, and that every joy 
 in life should be only a refreshment and an incentive to 
 greater effort. He felt that he must, therefore, not only 
 think but act, and he confessed to one all-engrossing 
 passion, the desire to influence and ennoble his fellow- 
 men, declaring that the more he acted the happier he 
 seemed to be. His spirit thirsted for opportunity to 
 do great things in the world, to enable him to purchase 
 by deeds his place in the human race. 
 
 Unfortunately Fichte showed most of the character- 
 istic defects of these good qualities. He inherited from 
 his mother a violent and impetuous nature which con- 
 verted his principles into passions and, coupled with his 
 absorbing desire for activity, caused him to be rash and 
 tactless. His passion for the truth made him suspicious 
 1 Odes, iii, 3, 7-8. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 xvii 
 
 of the sincerity of others, impatient with those who did 
 not understand his teaching, and intolerant towards 
 those who did not admit its truth. Owing to the 
 fierceness with which he maintained his convictions he 
 always seemed despotic, uncompromising, and obstinate ; 
 he himself admitted that one of the many qualities he 
 lacked was that of accommodating himself to those 
 around him and to people who were opposed to him in 
 character. The rigour of his principles was tempered 
 by few humane considerations and led men to regard 
 him as harsh and difficult. It was undoubtedly these 
 characteristics which set him at variance so often with 
 the authorities of the Church and of the State, and with 
 his colleagues at Jena and Berlin, and which allowed 
 it to be said of him, when he was Rector at the latter 
 place, that he had no measure in anything, and treated 
 the students for the smallest fault as though they were 
 imps of hell. The independence of his spirit caused him 
 to appear cold and proud ; and the cavalier manner in 
 which he dealt with illustrious predecessors and contem- 
 poraries, besides inducing Goethe and Schiller to nickname 
 him the " Absolute Ego " and the " Great Ego," earned 
 for him the reputation of being conceited, and sometimes 
 shocked the feelings of the most friendly-disposed 
 persons. Thus it was no rare thing to hear him say : 
 " Here Kant, here Reinhold is wrong, and in this I have 
 surpassed them " ; or, " No one has understood Kant ; 
 there is only one way to understand him, that which I 
 have explained." 
 
 He had little finesse, tact, or prudence, and could, 
 therefore, seldom brook contradiction or interference. 
 When attacks were made upon him he was very rash 
 and retaliated in the most provoking way, sometimes even 
 letting himself go into violent fits of passion. This 
 
xviii ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 inevitably aroused opposition and resentment against 
 him, and led him to commit many blunders, which even 
 his best friends could not deny, and which caused Schiller 
 to allude to him as " the richest source of absurdities." 
 Thus, when the cry of atheism was raised against him at 
 Jena, the violent threatening letter which he wrote to 
 the minister, Voigt, irritated the Weimar government 
 intensely, alienated the sympathies of many influential 
 men, and effectively put an end to all possibility of 
 retaining him at the University. 
 
 The fourteen Addresses to the German Nation were 
 delivered by Fichte during the winter of 1 807-1 808 in 
 the great hall of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin before 
 crowded audiences, and were published in April 1808. 
 Before attempting to estimate their significance and 
 importance, it is necessary t o con sider the circumsta nces 
 under which they were delivered. In 1806 Napoleon 
 began his campaign against Prussia which, almost alone 
 among the German States, still maintained its independ- 
 ence. War was declared on October 9, and on the 14th 
 the Prussians were severely defeated at Jena and Auer- 
 stadt. So overwhelming were these defeats that further 
 opposition was impossible ; on October 25 Napoleon 
 entered Berlin and, one after another, the Prussian 
 fortresses fell into his hands. Fichte left Berlin hurriedly 
 on October 18 and fled to East Prussia, remaining at 
 Konigsberg during the winter. The Russians, who had 
 come to the aid of the overwhelmed Prussians, fought a 
 drawn battle with the French at Eylau on February 8, 
 1807, but were beaten at Friedland on June 14, and 
 made peace with France at Tilsit on July 8, 1807. 
 The net results of the treaty for Prussia were that she 
 was deprived of much of her territory and was forced 
 to maintain French garrisons in her fortresses, pay 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 xix 
 
 large sums of money to France, and reduce her army 
 to 42,000 men. 
 
 Fichte returned to Berlin at the end of August, 1807, 
 to find Prussia completely humiliated and the French 
 troops still in occupation of the city. Like many other 
 heroic souls, however, he could not belie ve t h at all wa s 
 over with Germany ; and just as Stein set himself to 
 reform the land laws, and Scharnhorst the military 
 organization, so Fichte took upon himself the task of 
 arousing the German people to new life by his Addresses 
 to the German Nation. Such a course demanded con- 
 siderable courage and determination, for the Addresses 
 maintained the ideals of liberty and justice against the 
 despotism of Napoleon in the very face of the French 
 army of occupation. Yet the attitude of the French 
 authorities to the Addresses was one of complete indiffer- 
 ence ; probably, as Fichte said, they considered education 
 too insignificant and harmless a matter for them to worry 
 about. Even among Fichte's fellow-countrymen there 
 were no doubt many who, like the French authorities, 
 were completely indifferent ; others perhaps did not 
 really understand a good deal of what the Addresses 
 contained, and it was probably the lecturer's presence, 
 delivery, and force of character, as much as what he said, 
 which influenced public opinion at the time so profoundly 
 as to draw from Stein the comment that the Addresses 
 " had a great effect upon the feelings of the cultivated 
 class." Whatever the real cause, however, it is certain 
 that the Addresses were a powerful factor in the creation 
 of that national spirit which appeared for the first time 
 in the War of Liberation of 1813-1815. 
 
 Some of the ideas and opinions expressed in the Ad- 
 dresses are obviously false and cannot be accepted, while 
 others are gross exaggerations and require considerable 
 
xx ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 modification. Little comment need be made on Fichte's 
 conception of the German language as the sole living 
 language, or on his notion of the part that Germany 
 has played and must still play in the process of the sal- 
 vation of the world. His whole-hearted enthusiasm for 
 things German inclines him at times to regard everything 
 genuinely German as necessarily good, and everything 
 foreign as necessarily bad. It is obvious what evil results 
 would accrue from the logical development of such a 
 conception. He greatly exaggerates the part played by 
 Luther and by Germany in the reformation of the 
 Church ; and it may be that his forecast of some of the 
 good results that would follow upon the adoption of his 
 educational reforms is fantastic and overdrawn. The 
 fact, however, remains that these false and exaggerated 
 ideas are but small blemishes in the work ; they 
 are easily explained, if not justified, when we consider 
 the desperate state of the times, the exalted aim of the 
 lecturer, the peculiar difficulty of his task, and his enthu- 
 siastic personality. In any case they do not affect to any 
 considerable extent the tremendous influence of the 
 Addresses at the time, and their great importance for 
 the understanding of subsequent periods. 
 
 It is impossible within the limits of this introduction 
 to do anything like justice to the historical and political 
 importance of the Addresses both for Germany and for 
 the world. It would be a most interesting and profitable 
 study to trace, for instance, the development and practical 
 consequences of Fichte's idea of the closed commercial 
 State, or to consider the influence of the principle of 
 nationality, which he so emphatically champions, upon 
 the course of political development in Germany and in 
 the rest of Europe during the nineteenth century. In 
 these and other directions it would be found that the 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 xxi 
 
 Addresses are of the utmost importance, and fully 
 justify Seeley's reference 1 to them as " the prophetical 
 or canonical book which announces and explains a great 
 transition in modern Europe and the prophecies of which 
 began to be fulfilled immediately after its publication." 
 They certainly mark a definite stage in the political 
 evolution of modern Germany, for in them Fichte appears 
 as one of the founders of a united Germany, and from 
 them date the regeneration of Prussia and the awakening 
 of a national spirit in Germany. They mark, too, an 
 epoch in the history of the world, for they show Fichte 
 as an apostle of the gospel of liberty, and proclaim that 
 principle of nationality which had far-reaching effects on 
 the political development of Europe in the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 Nor is it possible here to do justice to their tremendous 
 effect on the development of education in Germany. 
 Stein was certainly influenced, especially by those Ad- 
 dresses which deal mainly with education ; he became an 
 ardent advocate of the reforms urged by Fichte, as the 
 educational schemes of his ministry testify. That part 
 of his political testament which concerns itself with 
 education seems also to have been inspired by Fichte's 
 influence. 2 More important still, however, is the fact 
 that the Addresses influenced Wilhelm von Humboldt, 
 whose ideas and plans for German education were carried 
 into effect in 1809 and 1810, and who selected Fichte 
 to be Professor of Philosophy in the new University of 
 Berlin in 1 8 1 o. Humboldt's work laid the real foundations 
 of modern German education, and it would be interesting 
 to show how Fichte's ideas helped to mould that educa- 
 tion in its origins and subsequent development. 
 
 It is not just because of their great significance in 
 
 1 Life of Stein, ii, 41. 2 Ibid., p. 28 ; cf. p. 292. 
 
xxii ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 the political and educational evolution of Germany and 
 of the rest of Europe, however, that the Addresses are 
 important and demand attention. The ideas they con- 
 tain are of value to-day as they were in 1808, and are 
 applicable not to one country alone but to every nation. 1 
 The Addresses are essentially modern both in outlook and 
 in content. This is particularly true in regard to the 
 educational principles they embody, many of which are 
 only now being gradually accepted and put into practice. 
 On these grounds too, therefore, the views which Fichte 
 puts forward in his Addresses deserve close scrutiny and 
 careful consideration. 
 
 1 It is interesting in this connection to note the conclusion of Ebert's 
 speech at the opening of the National Assembly at Weimar, reported in 
 the Times, February 8, 1919 : " In this way we will set to work, our great 
 aim before us : to maintain the right of the German nation, to lay the 
 foundation in Germany for a strong democracy, and to bring it to achieve- 
 ment with the true social spirit and in the socialistic way. Thus shall we 
 realize that which Fichte has given to the German nation as its task. We 
 want to establish a State of justice and truthfulness, founded on the 
 equality of all humanity." 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The following books may be recommended to the general 
 reader who desires to know more of Fichte's life and ideas. 
 
 The Popular Works of J. G. Fichte. Translated, with a 
 
 memoir, by William Smith. 2 vols. Chapman, London, 
 
 1848-9. 2nd edition, Triibner, 1873. 
 The Vocation of Man. Translated by William Smith. 2nd 
 
 edition. Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago, 1910. 
 Fichte. By R. Adamson. Blackwood's Philosophical Classics. 
 
 London, 1881. 
 
 Fichte. Article, by R. Adamson, in Ency. Brit., nth edition. 
 
 Life and Times of Stein. By J. R. Seeley. 3 vols. Cam- 
 bridge University Press, 1878. 
 
 Fichte et son Temps. By X. Leon. vol. 1. Armand Colin, 
 Paris, 1922. 
 
 xxiii 
 
ADDRESSES TO THE 
 GERMAN NATION 
 
 FIRST ADDRESS 
 
 INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 
 
 I. The addresses which I now commence I have an- 
 nounced as a continuation of the lectures which I gave 
 three winters ago in this place, and which were published 
 under the title : " Characteristics of the Present Age." 
 In those lectures I showed that our own age was set in 
 the third great epoch of time, 1 an epoch which had as the 
 motive of all its vital activities and impulses mere material 
 self-seeking ; that this age could comprehend and under- 
 
 1 [In accordance with his fundamental conception that the aim of 
 human life on earth is that mankind may consciously and voluntarily 
 order all its relations according to reason, Fichte distinguishes five epochs 
 in the life of the human race : (i) that in which those relations are ordered 
 by reason acting in the human race as blind instinct, i.e., without man 
 having any insight into the grounds of its activity ; (2) that in which those 
 relations are ordered by reason acting as an external ruling authority 
 upon the human race through its more powerful individual members, 
 in whom reason appears as the desire to raise the whole race to their level 
 by compelling blind faith and unconditional obedience ; (3) that in which 
 mankind frees itself, directly from the rule of reason as an external ruling 
 authority, indirectly from the dominion of reason as instinct, and generally 
 from reason in any form, and gives itself over to absolute indifference 
 towards all truth and to unrestrained licentiousness ; (4) that in which 
 mankind becomes conscious of reason and understands its laws with clear 
 scientific knowledge ; (5) that in which mankind, with clear conscious- 
 ness and by its own free act, orders all its relations in accordance with the 
 laws of reason. See Lectures I. and II. on the Characteristics of the 
 Present Age in Smith's translation of Fichte's Popular Works.] 
 
 I 
 
2 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 stand itself completely only by recognising that as the 
 sole possible motive ; and, finally, that by this clear per- 
 ception of its own nature it was becoming deeply rooted 
 and immovably fixed in this its natural state of existence. 
 
 Time is taking giant strides with us more than with 
 any other age since the history of the world began. At 
 some point within the three years that have gone by since 
 my interpretation of the present age that epoch has 
 come to an end. At some point self-seeking has destroyed 
 itself, because by its own complete development it has 
 lost its self and the independence of that self ; and since 
 it would not voluntarily set itself any other aim but self, 
 an external power has forced upon it another and a foreign 
 purpose. He who has once undertaken to interpret his 
 own age must make his interpretation keep pace with the 
 progress of that age, if progress there be. It is, there- 
 fore, my duty to acknowledge as past what has ceased to 
 be the present, before the same audience to whom I 
 characterized it as the present. 
 
 2. Whatever has lost its independence has at the same 
 time lost its power to influence the course of events and 
 to determine these events by its own will. If it remain 
 in this state its age, and itself with the age, are conditioned 
 in their development by that alien power which governs 
 its fate. From now onwards it has no longer any time of 
 its own, but counts its years by the events and epochs of 
 alien nations and kingdoms. From this state, in which 
 all its past world is removed from its independent in- 
 fluence and in its present world only the merit of obed- 
 ience remains to it, it could raise itself only on condition 
 that a new world should arise for it, the creation of which 
 would begin, and its development fill, a new epoch of 
 , its own in history. But, since it has once fallen under 
 alien power, this new world must be so c onstituted t hat 
 
INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 3 
 
 it r emains un perceived by t hat power, that it_ does not 
 in any way_ a rous e it s jealousy ; nay more, t hat the alien 
 powej_ itseli is induced by its o wn i n teres t to put no 
 obstacle in t he way__of_the f ormation of such a world , 
 j 1 Now if, for a race which has lost its former self, its former 
 age and world, such a world should be created as the means 
 of producing a new self and a new age, a thorough inter- 
 pretation of such a possible age would have to give an 
 account of the world thus created. 
 
 Now for my part I maintain that there is such a world, 
 and it is the aim of these addresses to show you its exist- 
 ence and its true owner, to bring before your eyes a living 
 picture of it, and to indicate the means of creating it. 
 In this sense, therefore, these addresses will be a con- 
 tinuation of the lectures previously given on the then 
 existing age, because they will reveal the new era which 
 can and must directly follow the destruction of the 
 kingdom o f self-seekin g by an alien power. 
 
 3. But, before I begin this task, I must ask you to assume 
 the following points so that they never escape your 
 memory, and to agree with me upon them wherever and 
 in so far as this is necessary. 
 
 (a) I speak for Germans simply, of Germans simply,! 
 not recognizing, but setting aside completely and rejecting,!)" 
 all the dissociating distinctions which for centuries un-| 
 happy events have caused in this single nation. You, 
 gentlemen, are indeed to my outward eye the first and 
 immediate representatives who bring before my mind 
 the beloved national characteristics, and are the visible 
 spark at which the flame of my address is kindled. But 
 my spirit gathers round it the educated part of the whole 
 German nation, from all the lands in which they are 
 scattered. It thinks of and considers our common 
 position and relations ; it longs that part of the living 
 
4 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 force, with which these addresses may chance to grip 
 you, may also remain in and breathe from the dumb 
 printed page which alone will come to the eyes of the 
 absent, and may in all places kindle German hearts to 
 decision and action. Only of Germans and simply for 
 Germans, I said. In due course we shall show that any 
 other mark of unity or any other national bond either 
 never had truth and meaning or, if it had, that owing to 
 our present position these bonds of union have been 
 destroyed and torn from us and can never recur ; it is 
 only by means of the common characteristic of being 
 German that we can avert the downfall of our nation 
 which is threatened by its fusion with foreign peoples, 
 and win back again an individuality that is self-supporting 
 and quite incapable of any dependence upon others. 
 With our perception of the truth of this statement its 
 apparent conflict (feared now, perhaps, by many) with 
 other duties and with matters that are considered sacred 
 will completely vanish. 
 
 Therefore, as I speak only of Germans in general, I 
 shall proclaim that many things concern us which do not 
 apply in the first instance to those assembled here, just 
 as I shall pronounce as the concern of all Germans other 
 things which apply in the first place only to us. In the 
 spirit, of which these addresses are the expression, I 
 perceive that organic unity in which no member regards 
 the fate of another as the fate of a stranger. I behold 
 that unity (which shall and must arise if we are not to 
 perish altogether) already achieved, completed, and 
 existing. 
 
 | (b) I assume as hearers not such Germans as are in 
 their whole nature completely given over to a feeling of 
 pain at the loss they have suffered, who take comfort in 
 this pain, luxuriate in their disconsolate grief, and think 
 
INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 5 
 
 thereby to compromise with the call that summons them 
 to action ; but I assume such Germans as have already 
 risen, or at least are capable of rising, above this justifiable 
 pain to clear thonght and meditation. I know that 
 pain ; I have felt it as much as anyone ; I respect it. 
 Apathy, which is satisfied if it find meat and drink and be 
 not subjected to bodily pain, and for which honour, free- 
 dom, and independence are empty names, is incapable of 
 it. Pain, however, exists merely to spur us on to reflec- 
 tion, decision, and action. If it fails in this ultimate 
 purpose, it robs us of reflection and of all our remaining 
 powers, and so completes our misery ; while, moreover, 
 as witness to our sloth and cowardice, it affords the 
 visible proof that we deserve our misery. But I do not 
 in the least intend to lift you above this pain by holding 
 out hopes of any help which will come to you from out- 
 side, and by indicating all kinds of possible events and 
 changes which time may perchance bring about. For 
 even if this attitude of mind, which prefers to roam in 
 the shifting world of possibilities rather than to stick 
 to what must be done, and would rather owe its salva- 
 tion to blind chance than to itself, did not already in 
 itself afford evidence, as it really does, of the most criminal 
 levity and of the deepest self-contempt, yet all hopes 
 and indications of this kind have absolutely no applica- 
 tion to our position. Strict proof can, and in due course 
 will, be given that no man and no god and not one of all 
 the events that are within the bounds of possibility can 
 help us, but that we alone must help ourselves if help is 
 to come to us. Rather shall I try to lift you above that 
 pain by clear perception of our position, of our yet remain- 
 ing strength, and of the means of our salvation. For 
 that purpose I shall, it is true, demand of you a certain 
 amount of reflection, some spontaneous activity, and some 
 
6 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 sacrifice, and reckon therefore on hearers of whom so much 
 may be expected. The demands I make, however, are on 
 the whole easy, and presuppose no greater amount of 
 strength than one may, I think, expect of our age ; as 
 for danger, there is absolutely none. 
 
 (c) Since I intend to give the Germans, as such, a clear 
 view of their present position, I shall assume as hearers 
 such as are disposed to see things of this sort with their 
 own eyes, and by no means such as find it easier in their 
 consideration of these matters to have foisted upon them 
 a strange and foreign eyeglass, which is either deliber- 
 ately intended to deceive, or never properly suits a Ger- 
 man eye, because it has a different angle of vision and is 
 not fine enough. Moreover, I presuppose that such 
 hearers, when looking at these things with their own 
 eyes, will have the courage to look honestly at what does 
 exist and to admit candidly to themselves what they see, 
 and that they either have conquered already, or at least 
 are capable of conquering, the tendency (frequently 
 manifested) to deceive oneself concerning one's own 
 affairs, and to present to the mind a less displeasing 
 picture of them than is consistent with the truth. This 
 tendency is a cowardly flight from one's own thoughts ; 
 and it is a childish attitude of mind which seems to 
 believe that, if only it does not see its misery, or at least 
 does not admit that it sees it, this misery will thereby 
 be removed in reality, even as it is removed in thought. 
 On the other hand, it is manly courage to look evil full in 
 the face, to compel it to make a stand, to scrutinize it 
 calmly, coolly, and freely, and to resolve it into its com- 
 ponent parts. Moreover, by this clear perception alone 
 is it possible to master evil and to proceed with sure step 
 in the fight against it. For the man who sees the whole 
 in each part always knows where he stands, and is sure 
 
INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 7 
 
 of his ground by reason of the insight he has once gained ; 
 whereas another man, lacking sure clue or definite cer- 
 tainty, gropes blindly in a dream. 
 
 Why, then, should we be afraid of this clear perception ? 
 Evil does not become less through ignorance, nor increase 
 through knowledge ; indeed it is only by the latter that 
 it can be cured. But the question of blame shall not be 
 raised here. Let sloth and self-seeking be censured with 
 bitter reprimand, with biting sarcasm and cutting scorn, 
 and let them be provoked, if to nothing better, at least 
 to bitter hatred of him who gives the reminder — such 
 hatred is at any rate a powerful impulse ; let this be done, 
 so long as the inevitable result, the evil, is not fully accom- 
 plished, and so long as salvation or mitigation may still 
 be expected from any improvement. But, when this 
 evil is so complete that we are deprived of even the pos- 
 sibility of sinning again in the same way, it is useless and 
 looks like malicious joy to continue to rail against a sin 
 that can no longer be committed. The consideration 
 immediately drops out of the sphere of ethics into that 
 of history, for which freedom is ended, and which regards 
 an event as the inevitable consequence of what has gone 
 before. For our addresses there remains no other view 
 of the present than this last, and we shall therefore never 
 adopt any other. 
 
 This a ttitud e of mind, th erefore , tha t we consid er 
 ourselves simply German s, that we _be not held c aptive 
 evjmjby_pahijtself, t hat we wish to see_the_ truth and have 
 the c ourage to look_it_in the f ace, I p resupposej tncl reckon 
 upon in e very word t hat I shall say. If, therefore, any- 
 one should bring another attitude of mind to this meeting, 
 he would have to attribute solely to himself the unpleasant 
 feelings which might be caused him here. Let this then 
 be said once for all, and finished with. I proceed now 
 
8 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 to my other task, namely, to put before you in a 
 general survey the contents of all the addresses that are 
 to follow. 
 
 4. At some point, I said at the beginning of my address, 
 self-seeking has destroyed itself by its own complete 
 development, because thereby it has lost its self and the 
 power of fixing its aims independently. This destruction 
 of self-seeking, now accomplished, constitutes both that 
 progress of the age which I have mentioned and the com- 
 pletely new event which, in my opinion, has made a 
 continuation of my previous description of that age both 
 possible and necessary. This destruction would, therefore, 
 be our real present, to which our new life in a new world 
 (the existence of which I likewise maintained) would have 
 to be directly linked. It would, therefore, be also the 
 proper starting-point for my addresses, and I should have 
 to show above all how and why such a destruction of 
 self-seeking must result inevitably from its highest develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Self-seeking is most highly developed when, after it has 
 I first affected, with insignificant exceptions, the whole body 
 
 Iof subjects, it thereupon masters the rulers and becomes 
 their sole motive in life. In such a government there 
 arises first of all, outwardly, the neglect of all the ties by 
 which its own safety is bound up with the safety of other 
 I States, the abandoning of the whole, of which it is a part, 
 solely in order that it may not be roused from its slothful 
 sleep, and the sad illusion of self-seeking that it has peace, 
 if only its own frontiers are not attacked ; then, inwardly, 
 that feeble handling of the reins of State which calls 
 itself in alien words humanity, liberality, and popularity, 
 but which in German is more truly called slackness and 
 ' unworthy conduct. 
 
 When it masters the rulers too, I said. A people can 
 
INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 9 
 
 be completely corrupted, i.e., self-seeking — for self- 
 seeking is the root of all other corruption — and yet at 
 the same time not only endure, but even outwardly 
 accomplish splendid deeds, provided only that its govern- 
 ment be not also corrupt. Indeed, the latter may even 
 outwardly act treacherously, disloyally, and dishonourably, 
 if only it have inwardly the courage to hold on to the 
 reins of government with a strong hand and to win for 
 itself the greater fear. But where all the circumstances 
 I have mentioned are combined, the commonwealth 
 collapses at the first serious attack which is made upon 
 it, and just as it first disloyally severed itself from the em- 
 body of which it was a member, so now its own members, 
 who are restrained by no fear of it and are spurred on by the 
 greater fear of a foreign power, cut themselves off from 
 it with the same disloyalty and go each his own way. 
 At this, the greater fear once more seizes those who now 
 remain isolated ; and where they gave sparingly and most 
 unwillingly to the defender of their country, to the enemy 
 they give abundantly and with a forced look of cheer- 
 fulness. Later on, the rulers, abandoned and betrayed 
 on all sides, are compelled to purchase their further exis- 
 tence by submission and obedience to foreign schemes ; 
 and so those, who in battle for their country threw away 
 their arms, now learn to wield those same arms bravely 
 under foreign colours against their mother - country. 
 Thus it comes about that self-seeking is destroyed by its 
 own complete development ; and upon those who would 
 not voluntarily set themselves any other aim but self, 
 another aim is imposed by alien power. 
 
 5. No nation which has sunk into this state of depend- 
 ence can raise itself out of it by the means which have 
 usually been adopted hitherto. Since resistance was use- 
 less to it when it was still in possession of all its powers, 
 
io ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 what can such resistance avail now that it has been 
 deprived of the greater part of them ? What might 
 previously have availed, namely, if its government had 
 held the reins strongly and firmly, is now no longer appli- 
 cable, because these reins now only appear to rest in 
 its hand, for this very hand is steered and guided by an 
 alien hand. Such a nation can no longer depend upon 
 itself ; and it can rely as little on the conqueror, who would 
 be just as thoughtless, just as cowardly and weak as that 
 nation itself once was, if he did not hold fast to the advan- 
 tages he had won, and exploit them in every way. Or if in 
 course of time he were ever to become so thoughtless and 
 cowardly, he also would perish, like ourselves ; but not 
 to our advantage, for he would be the prey of another 
 conqueror, and we, as a matter of course, the insignificant 
 addition to that prey. If, however, a nation so fallen 
 were to be able to save herself, it would have to be by 
 means of something completely new and never previously 
 employed, namely, by the creation of a totally new order 
 of things. Let us see, therefore, what in the previously 
 existing order of things was the reason why such an 
 ^ order had inevitably to come to an end at some time or 
 other, so that in the opposite of this reason for its down- 
 fall we may find the new element which must be intro- 
 duced into the age, in order that by its means the fallen 
 nation may rise to a new life. 
 
 6. On investigating this reason we find that in every 
 previous system of government the interest of the indi- 
 vidual in the community was linked to his interest in 
 himself by ties, which at some point were so completely 
 severed that his interest in the community absolutely 
 ceased. These ties were those of fear and hope concern- 
 ing the interests of the individual in relation to the fate 
 of the community — both in the present and in some 
 
INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY u 
 
 future life. The enlightenment of the understanding, ^ 
 with its purely material calculations, was the force which 
 destroyed the connection established by religion between 
 some future life and the present, and which at the same 
 time conceived that such substitutes and supplements 
 of the moral sense as love of fame and national honour 
 were but illusory phantoms. It was the weakness of 
 governments which removed the individual's fear for his 
 own interests even in this life (in so far as they depended 
 upon his behaviour towards the community) by frequently 
 allowing neglect of duty to go unpunished. Similarly, 
 it rendered the motive of hope ineffective by satisfying 
 it frequently on quite different grounds and principles, 
 without heed to services rendered to the community. 
 Such were the ties which at some point were completely 
 severed ; and it was this severance that caused the breaking- J 
 up of the commonwealth. 
 
 Henceforth it matters not how industriously the con- 
 queror may do that which he alone can do, namely, 
 linkup again and strengthen the latter part of the binding 
 tie — fear and hope for this present life. He alone will 
 profit thereby, and not we at all ; for so surely as he per- 
 ceives' his advantage will he link to this renewed bond first 
 and foremost only his own interests. Ours he will further 
 only in so far as their preservation can serve as a means 
 to his own ends. For a nation so ruined, fear and hope 
 are henceforth completely destroyed, because control 
 over them has now slipped from her hands, and because 
 she herself indeed has to fear and hope, but no one hence- 
 forth either fears her or hopes for aught from her. There 
 remains nothing for her but to find an entirely different 
 and new binding tie that is superior to fear and hope, in 
 order to link up the welfare of her whole being with the 
 self-interest of each of her members. 
 
12 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 7. Above the material motive of fear or hope , and 
 bordering immediately upon it, mere is the spiritual 
 motive of moral approval or disapproval, and the higher 
 feeling of pleasure or displeasure at the condition of our- 
 selves and of others. The physical eye, when accustomed 
 to cleanliness and order, is troubled and distressed, as 
 though actually hurt, by a spot which indeed causes the 
 body no actual injury, or by the sight of objects lying in 
 chaotic confusion ; while the eye accustomed to dirt and 
 disorder is quite comfortable under such circumstances. 
 So, too, the inner mental eye of man can be so accustomed 
 and trained that the very sight of a muddled and dis- 
 orderly, unworthy and dishonourable existence of its own 
 or of a kindred race causes it intense pain, apart from 
 anything there may be to fear or to hope from this for 
 its own material welfare. This pain, apart again from 
 material fear or hope, permits the possessor of such an 
 eye no rest until he has removed, in so far as he can, this 
 condition which displeases him, and has set in its place 
 that which alone can please him. For the possessor of 
 such an eye, because of this stimulating feeling of approval 
 or disapproval, the welfare of his whole environment is 
 bound up inextricably with the welfare of his own wider 
 self, which is conscious of itself only as part of the whole 
 and can endure itself only when the whole is pleasing. 
 To educate itself to possess such an eye will, therefore, 
 be a sure means, and indeed the only means left to a 
 nation which has lost her independence and with it all 
 influence over public fear and hope, of rising again into 
 life from the destruction she has suffered, and of entrusting 
 her national welfare, which since her downfall neither 
 God nor man has heeded, with confidence to this new 
 and higher feeling that has arisen. It follows, then, that 
 the means of salvation which I promised to indicate con- 
 
INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 
 
 sists in the fashioning of an entirely new self, which may -S<S ^ 
 have existed before perhaps in individuals as an exception, 
 but never as a universal and national self, and in the 
 education of the nation, whose former life has died out 
 and become the supplement of an alien life, to a com- 
 pletely new life, which shall either remain her exclusive 
 possession or, if it must go forth from her to others, 
 shall at least continue whole and undiminished in spite 
 of infinite division. In a word, it is a total change of 
 the existing system of education that I propose as the 
 sole means of preserving the existence of the German 
 nation. 
 
 8. That children must be given a good education has 
 been said often enough, and has been repeated too often 
 even in our age ; and it would be a paltry thing if we, too, 
 for our part wished to do nothing but say it once again. 
 Rather will it be our duty, in so far as we think we can 
 accomplish something new, to investigate carefully and 
 definitely what education hitherto has really lacked, and 
 to suggest what completely new element a reformed 
 system must add to the training that has hitherto existed. 
 After such an investigation we must admit that the 
 existing education does not fail to bring before the eyes 
 of the pupils some sort of picture of a religious, moral, and 
 law-abiding disposition and of order in all things and good 
 habits, and also that here and there it has faithfully ex- 
 horted them to copy such pictures in their lives. With 
 very rare exceptions, however — and these were, moreover, 
 not the outcome of this education (because otherwise they 
 must have appeared, and that too as the rule, amongst 
 all who received such instruction), but were occasioned 
 by other causes — with these very rare exceptions, I say, 
 the pupils of this education have in general followed, 
 not those moral ideas and exhortations, but the impulses 
 
i4 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 of self-seeking which developed in them spontaneously 
 and without any assistance from education. This proves 
 beyond dispute that the system may, indeed, have been 
 able to fill the memory with some words and phrases 
 and the cold and indifferent imagination with some faint 
 and feeble pictures ; but that it has never succeeded in 
 making its picture of a moral world-order so vivid that the 
 pupil was filled with passionate love and yearning for that 
 order, and with such glowing emotion as to incite him 
 to realize it in his life — emotion before which self-seeking 
 falls to the ground like withered leaves. It also proves 
 this education to have been far from reaching right down 
 to the roots of real impulse and action in life, and from 
 training them ; for these roots, neglected by this blind 
 and impotent system, have everywhere developed wild, 
 as best they could, yielding good fruit in a few^who 
 were inspired by God, but evil fruit in the majority. 
 It is for the present, then, quite sufficient to describe this 
 education by these its results, and for our purpose we 
 can spare ourselves the wearisome task of analysing the 
 inner sap and fibre of a tree whose fruit is now fully ripe 
 and lies fallen before the eyes of all, proclaiming most 
 clearly and distinctly the inner nature of its creator. 
 Strictly speaking, according to this view, the present 
 system has been by no means the art of educating men. 
 This, indeed, it has not boasted of doing, but has very 
 often frankly acknowledged its impotence by demanding 
 to be given natural talent or genius as the condition of 
 its success. Rather does such an art remain to be dis- 
 covered, and this discovery should be the real task of 
 the new education. What was lacking in the old system — 
 namely, an influence penetrating to the roots of vital 
 impulse and action — the new education must supply. 
 Accordingly, as the old system was able at best to train 
 
INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 15 
 
 some part of man, so the new must train man himself, 
 and must make the training given, not, as hitherto, the 
 pupil's possession, but an integral part of himself. 
 
 9. Moreover, education, restricted in this way, has 
 been brought to bear hitherto only on the very small 
 minority of classes which are for this reason called educated, 
 whereas the great majority on whom in very truth the 
 commonwealth rests, the people, have been almost 
 entirely neglected by this system and abandoned to blind 
 chance. By means of the new education we want toi 
 mould the Germans into a corporate body, which shall 
 be stimulated and animated in all its individual members] 
 by the same interest. If by this means we wanted, indeed, 
 to mark off" an educated class, which might perhaps be 
 animated by the newly developed motive of moral appro- 
 val, from an uneducated one, then the latter would desert 
 us and be lost to us ; because the motives of hope and fear, 
 by which alone influence might be exercised over it, would 
 work no longer with us but against us. Sojthere is nothing 
 left for us but just to apply the new system to every 
 German without exception, so that it is not the education 
 of a single class, but the education of the nation, simply 
 as such and without excepting any of its individual mem- 
 bers. In this, that is to say in the training of man to 
 take real pleasure in what is right, all distinction of classes, 
 which may in the future find a place in other branches 
 of development, will be completely removed and vanish. 
 In this way there will grow up among us, not popular 
 education, but real German national education. 
 
 10. I shall prove to you that a system of education 
 such as we desire has actually been discovered and is 
 already being practised, so that we have nothing to do 
 but to accept what is offered us. As I promised you con- 
 cerning the means of salvation that I should propose, 
 
1 6 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 this demands undoubtedly no greater amount of energy 
 than can reasonably be expected of our generation. To 
 that promise I added another, namely, that so far as 
 danger is concerned there is none at all in our proposal, 
 because the self-interest of the power that rules over us 
 demands that the carrying-out of such a proposal should 
 be assisted rather than hindered. I consider it appro- 
 priate to speak my mind clearly on this point at once in 
 this first address. 
 
 It is true that in ancient as in modern times the arts 
 of corrupting and of morally degrading the conquered 
 have very frequently been used with success as a means 
 of ruling. By lying fictions, and by skilful confusion of 
 ideas and of language, princes have been libelled to the 
 people, and peoples to princes, in order that the two 
 parties, because of their dissension, might the more surely 
 be controlled. All the impulses of vanity and of self- 
 interest have been cunningly aroused and fostered, so 
 as to make the conquered contemptible, and thus to crush 
 them with something like a good conscience. But it 
 would be a fatal error to propose this method with us 
 Germans. Apart from the tie of fear and hope, the 
 coherence of that part of the outside world with which we 
 have now come into contact is founded on the motives of 
 honour and of national glory. The clear vision of the 
 German, however, has long since come to the unshakable 
 conviction that these are empty illusions, and that no 
 injury or mutilation of the individual is healed by the 
 glory of the whole nation, and we shall indeed, if a wider 
 view of life be not brought before us, probably become 
 dangerous preachers of this very natural and attractive 
 doctrine. Without, therefore, taking to ourselves any 
 new corruption, we are already in our natural condition 
 a harmful prey ; only by carrying out the proposal 
 
INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SURVEY 17 
 
 that has been made can we become a wholesome one. 
 Then the outside world, as certainly as it knows its own 
 interests, will be guided by them, and prefer to have us 
 in the latter state rather than in the former. 
 
 11. Now in making this proposal my address is directed 
 especially towards the educated classes in Germany, for 
 I hope that it will be intelligible to them first. My pro- 
 posal is first and foremost that they become the authors 
 of this new creation, thereby, on the one hand, reconciling 
 the world to their former influence, and, on the other, 
 deserving its continuance in the future. We shall see 
 in the course of these addresses that up to the present 
 all human progress in the German nation has sprung from 
 the people, and that to it, in the first instance, great national 
 affairs have always been brought, and by it have been cared 
 for and furthered. Now, for the first time, therefore, it 
 happens that the fundamental reconstruction of the nation 
 is offered as a tas kto the educated classes, and if they 
 were really to accept This ofrervthat, too, would happen 
 for the first time. We shall find that these classes cannot 
 calculate how long it will still remain in their power to 
 place themselves at the head of this movement, since it is 
 now almost prepared and ripe for proposal to the people, 
 and is being practised on individuals from among the 
 people ; ' and the people will soon be able to help themselves 
 without any assistance from us. The result of this for us 
 will simply be that the present educated classes and their 
 descendants will become the people ; while from among 
 the present people another more highly educated class 
 will arise. 
 
 12. Finally, it is the general aim of these addresses to 
 bring courage and hope to the suffering, to proclaim joy 
 in the midst of deep sorrow, to lead us gently and softly 
 through the hour of deep affliction. This age is to me as a 
 
1 8 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 shade that stands weeping over its own corpse, from which 
 it has been driven forth by a host of diseases, unable to 
 tear its gaze from the form so beloved of old, and trying in 
 despair every means to enter again the home of pestilence. 
 Already, it is true, the quickening breezes of that other 
 world, which the departed soul has entered, have taken it 
 unto themselves and are surrounding it with the warm 
 breath of love ; the whispering voices of its sisters greet 
 it with joy and bid it welcome ; and already in its depths 
 it stirs and grows in all directions towards the more 
 glorious form into which it shall develop. But as yet the 
 soul has no feeling for these breezes, no ear for these 
 voices — or if it had them, they have disappeared in sorrow 
 for the loss of mortal form ; for with its form the soul 
 thinks it has lost itself too. What is to be done with it ? 
 The dawn of the new world is already past its breaking ; 
 already it gilds the mountain tops, and shadows forth 
 the coming day. I wish, so far as in me lies, to catch the 
 rays of this dawn and weave them into a mirror, in which 
 our grief-stricken age may see itself ; so that it may 
 believe in its own existence, may perceive its real self, and, 
 as in prophetic vision, may see pass by its own develop- 
 ment, its coming forms. In the contemplation of this, 
 the picture of its former life will doubtless sink and vanish ; 
 and the dead body may be borne to its resting-place 
 without undue lamenting. 
 
SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 THE GENERAL NATURE OF THE NEW EDUCATION 
 
 13. These addresses should lead you first of all, and with 
 you the whole nation, to a clear perception of the remedy 
 which I have proposed for the preservation of the German 
 nation. Such a remedy follows from the nature of the 
 age as well as of the German national characteristics, 
 and must in turn influence the age and the moulding of 
 those national characteristics. This remedy, therefore, 
 does not become perfectly clear and intelligible until it 
 is compared with the latter, and these with it, and both 
 are represented in complete connection with each other. 
 For these tasks time is needed ; perfect clearness, there- 
 fore, is to be expected only at the end of our addresses. 
 But, since we must begin at some point, it will be most 
 convenient first of all to consider the inner nature of 
 that remedy by itself, apart from its relations in time and 
 space. Our address to-day, therefore, will be devoted to 
 this task. 
 
 The remedy indicated was an absolutely new system 
 of German national education, such as has never existed 
 in any other nation. In the last address this new educa- 
 tion, as distinguished from the old, was described thus : 
 the existing education has at most only exhorted to good 
 order and morality, but these exhortations have been 
 unfruitful in real life, which has been moulded on prin- 
 
20 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 ciples that are quite different and completely beyond 
 the influence of that education ; in contrast to this, the 
 new education must be able surely and infallibly to 
 mould and determine according to rules the real vital 
 impulses and actions of its pupils. 
 
 14. Now perchance someone might say, as indeed 
 those who administer the present system of education 
 almost without exception actually do say : " What more 
 should one expect of any education than that it should 
 point out what is right to the pupil and exhort him 
 earnestly to it ; whether he wishes to follow such exhorta- 
 tions is his own affair and, if he does not, his own fault ; 
 he has free will, which no education can take from him." 
 Then, in order to define more clearly the new education 
 which I propose, I should reply that that very recognition 
 of, and reliance upon, free will in the pupil is the first 
 mistake of the old system and the clear confession of its 
 impotence and futility. For, by confessing that after 
 all its most powerful efforts the will still remains free, 
 that is, hesitating undecided between good and evil, it 
 confesses that it neither is able, nor wishes, nor longs to 
 fashion the will and (since the latter is the very root of 
 man) man himself, and that it considers this altogether 
 impossible. On the other hand, the new education must 
 consist essentially in this, that it completely destroys 
 freedom of will in t he soil which it undertakes to cultivate, 
 and produces on the contrary strict necessity in the 
 decisions of the will, the opposite being impossible. 
 Such a will can henceforth be relied on with confidence 
 and certainty. 
 
 All education aims at producing a stable, settled, and 
 steadfast character, which no longer is developing, but 
 is, and cannot be other than it is. If it did not aim at 
 such a character it would be, not education, but some 
 
GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 21 
 
 aimless game ; if it did not produce such a character it 
 would still be incomplete. He who must still exhort 
 himself, and be exhorted, to will the good, has as yet no 
 firm and ever-ready will, but wills a will anew every 
 time he needs it. But he who has such a stable will, 
 wills what he wills for ever, and cannot under any cir- 
 cumstances will otherwise than he always wills. For him 
 freedom of the will is destroyed and swallowed up in 
 necessity. The past age had neither a true conception 
 of education for manhood nor the power to realize that 
 conception. It showed this by wanting to improve man- 
 kind by warning sermons, and by being angry and scolding 
 when these sermons were of no avail. Yet how could 
 they avail aught ? Before the warning, and independent 
 of it, the will of man has already its definite bent. If 
 this agrees with your exhortation, the latter comes too 
 late ; without it he would have done what you exhort 
 him to. If this bent and your exhortation are in opposi- 
 tion, you may at most bewilder him for a few moments ; 
 when the time comes, he forgets himself and your exhorta- 
 tion, and follows his natural inclination. If you want 
 to influence him at all, you must do more than merely 
 talk to him ; you must fa shion hi m, and fashion him in 
 such a way that he simply cannot~wiTl otherwise than you 
 wish him to will. It is idle to say : Fly — for he has no 
 wings, and for all your exhortations will never rise two 
 steps above the ground. But develop, if you can, his 
 spiritual wings ; let him exercise them and make them 
 strong, and without any exhortation from you he will 
 want, and will be able, to do nothing but fly. 
 
 15. The new education must p roduce _ this s table and 
 ujihesjlating will accordin g to a_s ure and i nfallible rule. 
 It must itself inevitably create the necessity at which it 
 aims. Those who in the past became good did so thanks 
 
22 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 to their natural disposition, which outweighed the in- 
 fluence of their bad environment, and not because of 
 their education in any way, for otherwise all the pupils 
 would have become good. Those who went to the bad 
 did so just as little because of education, for otherwise 
 all the pupils would have been corrupted ; they went 
 to the bad of themselves, thanks to their natural disposi- 
 tion. In this respect education was simply futile, and 
 not pernicious at all ; the real formative agency was 
 spiritual nature. Henceforth education for manhood 
 must be taken from the influence of this mysterious and 
 incalculable force and put under the direction of a deliber- 
 ate art, which will surely and infallibly accomplish its 
 purpose with everyone entrusted to it ; or which, if 
 somehow it does not accomplish it, will at least know that 
 it has not done so, and that therefore the training is still 
 incomplete. The education proposed by me, therefore, 
 is to be a reliable and deliberate art for fashioning in 
 man a stable and infallible good will. That is its first 
 characteristic. 
 
 J 1 6. Moreover, man can will only what he loves ; his 
 love is the sole and at the same time the infallible motive 
 of his will and of all his vital impulses and actions. 
 Hitherto, in its education of the social man the art of 
 the State assumed, as a sure and infallible principle, that 
 everyone loves and wills his own material welfare. To 
 this natural love it artificially linked, by means of the 
 motives of fear and hope, that good will which it desired, 
 namely, interest in the common weal. Anyone who has 
 become outwardly a harmless or even useful citizen as a 
 result of such a system of education remains, nevertheless, 
 inwardly a bad man ; for badness consists essentially in 
 loving solely one's own material welfare and in being 
 influenced only by the motives*of fear or hope for that 
 
GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 23 
 
 welfare, whether in the present or in some future life. 
 Apart from this fact, we have already seen that this 
 method is no longer applicable to us, because the motives 
 of fear and hope serve no longer with us but against us, 
 and material love of self cannot be turned to our advantage 
 in any way. We are, therefore, compelled by necessity 
 to wish to mould men who are inwardly and fundamen- 
 tally good, since it is through such men alone that the 
 German nation can still continue to exist, whereas through 
 bad men it will inevitably be absorbed in the outside 
 world. Therefore, in place of that love of self, with 
 which nothing for our good can be connected any longer, 
 we must set up and establish in the hearts of all those 
 whom we wish to reckon among our nation that other 
 kind of love, which is concerned directly with the good, 
 simply as such and for its own sake. 
 
 We have already seen that love of the good, simply 
 as such and not for the sake of any advantage to our- 
 selves, takes the form of pleasure in it ; a pleasure so 
 intense that a man is thereby stimulated to realize the 
 good in his life. It is this intense pleasure, therefore, 
 which the new education should produce as its pupil's 
 stable and constant character. Then this pleasure 
 itself would inevitably be the foundation of the pupil's 
 constant good will. 
 
 17. A pleasure that stimulates us to bring about a 
 certain state of affairs which does not yet actually exist pre- 
 supposes an image of that state which, previous to its actual 
 existence, hovers before the mind and attracts that pleasure 
 which stimulates to realization. This pleasure, therefore, 
 presupposes in the individual who is to be affected by 
 it the power to create spontaneously such images, which 
 are independent of reality and not copies of it, but rather 
 its prototypes. I must now speak of this power, and I 
 
24 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 A 
 
 beg you during the consideration of it not to forget 
 that an image created by this power can please simply 
 as an image, and as one in which we feel our creative 
 energy, without being for that reason taken as a proto- 
 type of reality and without pleasing to such a degree that 
 it stimulates to realization. The latter is quite a different 
 and our own special goal, of which we shall not fail to 
 speak later ; but the former is simply the preliminary 
 condition for the attainment of the true ultimate aim of 
 ^/ jrZUzt education. 
 
 uL+e-JUtfov-c Thajt pow£r to ^reate s pontaneousl y image s, which 
 L ;' »ylu&ln{are_jiot s imply c qpjes of_ r eality , but _can becom e its pro- 
 to types,, s hould - be t he s tarting-point for the m oulding" 
 of the race by means of the new education. To c reate 
 imag es_spojQt£ neously, I said, and in such a way that the 
 pupil will produce them by his own power ; but not in- 
 deed that he will merely be capable of receiving passively 
 the image presented to him by education, of understanding 
 it sufficiently, and of reproducing it just as it is presented 
 to him, as if it were a question simply of the existence 
 of such an image. The reason for demanding self- 
 activity in regard to that image is this ; only on that 
 condition can the image created engage the active 
 pleasure of the pupil. For it is one thing merely to allow 
 oneself to be pleased at something and to have nothing 
 against it ; such passive pleasure can arise at best only 
 from passive submission. But it is quite another thing 
 to be so affected by pleasure at something that this 
 pleasure becomes productive and stirs up all our energy 
 to the act of creation. We speak not of the former, 
 which happened no doubt even in the old education, but 
 of the latter. Now, this pleasure will be kindled only 
 by the pupil's self-activity being stimulated at the same 
 time and becoming manifest to him in the given object, 
 
GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 25 
 
 so that this object pleases not only in itself, but also as 
 an object of the manifestation of mental power. This 
 pleases directly, inevitably, and invariably^ 
 
 19. This creative mental activity which is to be 
 developed in the pupil is undoubtedly an activit y_ accord- 
 ing to rule s, which become known to the active pup il 
 until he sees from his own direct experience that they 
 alone are possible — that is, this a ctivity p roduces know- 
 ledge, and that, too, of g eneral and i nfallible laws. More- 
 over, in the free development that begins at this point 
 it is impossible to undertake anything contrary to the 
 law, and no act results until the law is obeyed. Even if, 
 therefore, this free development should begin at first 
 with blind efforts, it must still end in more extensive 
 knowledge of the law. This training, therefore, in its 
 final result, is the training of the pupil's faculty of know- 
 ledge , and, of course, not historical training in the actual 
 condition of things, but the higher and philosophical 
 training in the laws which make that actual condition of 
 things inevitable. The pupil learns. 
 
 I add : the pupil learns willingly and with pleasure, 
 and there is nothing he would rather do than learn, so 
 long as the effort lasts ; for while he is learning his activity 
 is spontaneous, and in this he has directly the greatest 
 possible . pleasure. Here we have found an outward \ 
 sign of true education, at once obvious and infallible ; 
 namely, that every pupil on whom this education is 
 brought to bear, without exception and irrespective of 
 differences in natural talent, learns with pleasure and love, 
 purely .iorJ:he_sake_ of learning and for no other reason. 
 We have discovered the means of kindling this pure love 
 of learning ; it is to stimulate directly the spontaneous 
 activity of the pupil and to make this the basis of all 
 knowledge, so that whatever is learnt is learnt through it. 
 
26 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 The first important point in the art of education is 
 just to stimulate this personal activity of the pupil in 
 something known to us. If we succeed in this, it is 
 simply a question of starting from that and of maintaining 
 the stimulated activity in ever new life. Thi s is possible 
 only where p rogress is regular, and wh ere, every mistak e 
 in education is discovered i mmediately through __the 
 f ailure of what was int ended. We have, therefore, found 
 also the link whereby the intended result is inseparably 
 connected with the method planned, namely, the eternal, 
 universal, and fundamental law of man's mental nature, 
 that he must directly engage in mental activity. 
 
 20. Should anyone, misled by our usual daily experi- 
 ence, doubt the very existence of such a fundamental 
 law, we would remind him over and over again that man 
 is— mekeiiby nature merely .material ajid^j^lf-seejang, 
 so long as immediate necessity and present material need 
 spur him on, and th>t-he does not let any spiritual need 
 or feeling of consideration>prevent him from satisfying 
 that material need. But wnfen it_ i s s a tisfied, he has^ 
 little inclinatio n to let his fancy d well on_ t he painful 
 image of it ? or_to keep it in his mincL He is much more 
 inclined to free his thoughts and turn them without 
 restraint to the consideration of whatever attracts the 
 attention of his senses. Nor, indeed, does he scorn a 
 poetic flight to ideal worlds, for he has by nature but little 
 interest in the temporal, in order that his taste for the 
 eternal may have scope for development. This is proved 
 by the history of all ancient peoples, and by the various 
 observations and discoveries which have come down to us 
 from them. It is proved in our day by the observation 
 of races that are still savage, provided, of course, their 
 climate does not treat them far too unkindly, and by the 
 observation of our own children. It is proved even by 
 
GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 27 
 
 the candid confession of the opponents of ideals, who com- 
 plain that it is a far more disagreeable business to learn 
 names and dates than to rise into this empty (as it appears 
 to them) world of ideas ; but who would themselves, it 
 seems, if they might indulge, rather do the latter than the 
 former. In place of this natural freedom from care 
 there appears anxiety, in which tomorrow's hunger and 
 all possible future states of hunger in their whole long 
 series hang over even him who is satiated, as the one 
 thing that occupies his mind and evermore goads and 
 drives him on. In our age this is caused artificially, in 
 the boy by the repression of his natural freedom from care, 
 in the man by the endeavour to be considered prudent, 
 a reputation which falls to the lot only of him who does 
 not lose sight of that point of view for a moment. This, 
 then, is not the natural disposition with which we should 
 have to reckon, but a corruption imposed by force on 
 reluctant nature, which vanishes when that force is no 
 longer applied. 
 
 2 1 . This education, which stimulates directly the mental 
 activity of the pupil, produces knowledge, we said above. 
 This gives us the opportunity of distinguishing still more 
 clearly the new education from the old. The new educa- 
 tion, in fact, aims especially and directly only at stimulat 
 
 ing regular and progressive mental activity. Knowledge, 
 as we saw above, results only incidentally and as an 
 inevitable consequence. Now, if it is only in such 
 knowledge that our pupil can conceive the image of real 
 life which shall stimulate him to serious activity when he 
 becomes a man, knowledge is certainly an important 
 part of the training which is to be obtained. Yet it 
 cannot be said that the new education aims directly 
 at such knowledge ; knowledge is only incidental to it. 
 On the other hand, the old education aimed definitely 
 
28 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 at knowledge, and at a certain amount of some subject of 
 knowledge. Besides, there is a great difference between 
 that kind of knowledge which results incidentally from 
 the new education and that at which the old education 
 aimed. The former results in knowledge of the laws which 
 condition all possible mental activity. For instance, if 
 the pupil tries in free fancy to enclose a space with 
 straight lines, this is the first stimulation of his mental 
 activity. If in these attempts he discovers that he cannot 
 enclose a space with fewer than three straight lines, this 
 is the incidental knowledge resulting from another quite 
 different activity, that of the faculty of knowledge, 
 which restricts the free power first stimulated. This 
 education, therefore, results at the very outset in know- 
 ledge which transcends all experience, which is abstract, 
 absolute, and strictly universal, and which includes within 
 itself beforehand all subsequently possible experience. 
 On the other hand, the old education was concerned, as a 
 rule, only with the actual qualities of things as they are 
 and as they should be believed and noted, without anyone 
 being able to assign a reason for them. It aimed, therefore, 
 /V at purely passive reception by means of the power of 
 memory, which was completely at the service of things. 
 ^jTTt was, therefore, impossible to have any idea of the mind 
 ' gjas an independent original principle of things themselves. 
 Modern education must not think it can defend itself 
 against this reproach by appealing to its oft-declared 
 contempt for mechanical rote-learning and to its well- 
 known masterpieces in the Socratic manner. On this 
 point it was fully informed long ago from another source 
 that these Socratic reasonings are also learned by heart 
 purely mechanically, and that this is a much more dan- 
 gerous form of rote-learning, because it makes the pupil 
 who does not think appear capable of thinking. It was 
 
GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 29 
 
 informed, too, that no other result was possible with the 
 material it employed to develop spontaneous thought, 
 and that for this purpose one must commence with 
 entirely different material. This quality of the old 
 education shows clearly why the pupil generally learned 
 unwillingly, and therefore slowly and but little, and why, 
 because learning itself was not attractive, extraneous 
 motives had to be introduced ; it also shows the reason 
 for the exceptions to the rule hitherto. Memory, if ^ 
 employed alone and without serving any other purpose 
 in the mind, is a passive condition rather than an activity 
 of the mind, and it is easy to understand that the pupil 
 will be very unwilling to accept this passive state. Besides, 
 acquaintance with things and with the properties of 
 things which are quite strange, and which have not the 
 slightest interest for him, is a poor recompense for the 
 passivity inflicted on him. His aversion, therefore, had ^ 
 to be overcome by holding out hopes of the usefulness of 
 such knowledge in the future, by asserting that by it 
 alone could a living and a reputation be obtained, and 
 even by direct immediate punishment and reward. Thus 
 from the very outset, knowledge was set up as a servant >✓ 
 of material welfare ; and this education, which was 
 described above, from the point of view of its content, as 
 simply incapable of developing a moral sense, was in fact 
 obliged, in order to reach the pupil at all, to implant and 
 develop moral corruption in him and to unite its own 
 interest with that of this corruption. Further, it will 
 be found that the natural talent, which, as an exception 
 to the rule, learned willingly and therefore well in schools 
 under the old education, overcame the moral corruption 
 of the environment and kept its character pure, thanks 
 to this greater love that governed it. Owing to its 
 natural inclination it acquired a practical interest in 
 
30 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 these subjects, and, guided by its happy instinct, it aimed 
 at producing, far more than at merely receiving, such 
 knowledge. Then, in regard to the subjects taught, 
 this education usually succeeded best, in exception to the 
 rule, with those which it allowed to be practised actively. 
 For instance, the classical language 1 in which writing and 
 speaking were the aim was nearly always fairly well learned ; 
 whereas the other language, 2 in which practice in writing 
 and speaking was neglected, was usually learned very 
 badly and superficially, and was forgotten in later years. 
 It follows, therefore, from previous experience, that it is 
 the development of mental activity by means of instruc- 
 tion which alone produces pleasure in knowledge simply 
 as such, and so keeps the mind open for moral training ; 
 on the other hand, purely passive receptivity paralyses 
 and kills knowledge, just as it inevitably corrupts the moral 
 sense completely. 
 
 22. To return again to the pupil under the new 
 education. It is evident that, spurred on by his love, 
 he will learn much and, since he understands everything 
 in its relations and immediately puts into action what he 
 has understood, he will learn it correctly and will never 
 forget it. Yet that is but incidental. More important 
 is the fact that this love exalts his personality and intro- 
 duces him systematically and deliberately into a wholly 
 new order of things, into which hitherto only a few, 
 favoured by God, came by accident. The love which 
 spurs him on aims not at sensuous enjoyment, which quite 
 ceases to be a motive for him, but at mental activity and 
 the law of that activity for their own sakes. Now, it is 
 not this mental activity in general with which morality 
 is concerned ; for this purpose a special direction must 
 be given to that activity. Yet this love is the specific 
 
 1 [Latin], 2 [Greek]. 
 
GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 31 
 
 quality and form of the moral will. This method of 
 mental tr aining is, t herefore, the immediate preparation 
 for the moral ; it completely destroys the root of immor- 
 ality by never_ai lowing se nsuous en j oyment to become 
 the motive^ Formerly, that was the first motive to be 
 stimulated and developed, because it was believed that 
 otherwise the pupil could not be influenced or controlled 
 at all. If the moral motive had to be developed after- 
 wards, it came too late and found the heart already 
 occupied by, and filled with, another love. On the other 
 hand, in the new education the training of a pure will 
 is to be the first aim, so that if, later, selfishness should 
 awake within, or be stimulated from without, it may come 
 too late, and find no room for itself in a heart which is 
 already occupied by something else. 
 
 23. It is essential both for this first aim and also for 
 the second, which will be mentioned soon, that from the 
 very beginning the pupil should be continuously and 
 completely under the influence of this education, and 
 should be separated altogether from the community, and 
 kept from all contact with it. He must not even hear 
 that our vital impulses and actions can be directed towards 
 our maintenance and welfare, nor that we may learn for 
 that reason, nor that learning may be of some use for that 
 purpose. It follows that mental development should be 
 produced in him only in the manner described above, that 
 he should be occupied with it unceasingly, and that this 
 method of instruction should on no account be exchanged 
 for that which requires the opposite material motive. 
 
 24. But, although this mental development does not 
 lei-self-seeking come to life and provides indeed the form 
 of a moral will, it is not yet, however, the moral will 
 itself. If the new education which we propose did not 
 go further, it would at best train excellent men of learn- 
 
32 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 ing, as in the past, of whom only a few are needed, and 
 who would be able to do no more for our true human 
 and national aim than such men have done hitherto — 
 exhort, and exhort again, get themselves wondered at, 
 and occasionally abused. But it is clear, as I have already 
 said, that this free activity of the mind is developed with 
 the intention that by it the pupil may voluntarily create 
 the image of a moral order of life that actually exists, 
 may lay hold of this image with the love that is also 
 already developed in him, and be spurred on by this love 
 to realize it actually in and by his life. The question is, 
 how can the new education prove to itself that it has 
 achieved this, its true and final purpose with the pupil. 
 
 25. Above all it is clear that the mental activity of 
 the pupil, which has been exercised already on other 
 objects, s hould be s timulated to c r eate an i mag e of the 
 social orde r of mankind as it_ ought _tp be, simply in a ccord - 
 ance with the law of reason. Whether the image created 
 by the pupil be true can be judged most easily by an 
 education which alone is in possession of this true image. 
 Whether it is created by the pupil's spontaneous activity, 
 and not simply passively accepted and credulously repeated 
 in school fashion, and, further, whether it is raised to the 
 proper clearness and vividness, education will be able 
 to judge, just as it has hitherto correctly judged other 
 things in this respect. Yet all this is a matter for mere 
 knowledge, and remains within the domain of knowledge, 
 which is very accessible in this system of education. 
 It is a very different and a higher question, whether the 
 pupil is so filled with ardent love for such an order of 
 things, that it will be utterly impossible for him not to 
 desire it and to work with all his strength to promote it, 
 when freed from the guidance of education and left inde- 
 pendent. This question, undoubtedly, not words and 
 
GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 33 
 
 tests which are arranged in words, but only the appear- 
 ance of deeds, can decide. 
 
 26. This is my solution of the problem raised by this last 
 consideration. Under the new system of education the 
 pupils, although separated from the adult community, - 
 will, nevertheless, undoubtedly live together among them- ✓ 
 selves, and so form a separate and self-contained com- 
 munity with its organization precisely defined, based on 
 the nature of things and demanded throughout by reason. 
 The very first image of a social order which the pupil's 
 mind should be stimulated to create will be that of the 
 community in which he himself lives. He will be inwardly 
 compelled, therefore, to fashion this order for himself 
 bit for bit, just as it is actually sketched out for him, and 
 to conceive it in all its parts as absolutely inevitable 
 because of its elements. This, again, is merely the work 
 of knowledge. Now, in real life under this social arrange- 
 ment every individual has continually to abstain, for the 
 sake of the community, from much that he could do 
 without hesitation if he were alone. It will be fitting, 
 therefore, that the legislation, and the instruction con- 
 cerning the constitution which is to be based thereon, 
 should represent to each individual all the others as 
 animated by a love of order exalted to the ideal, which 
 perhaps no one person really has, but which all ought 
 to have. It will be fitting, too, that the legislation should 
 consequently maintain a high standard of severity, 
 and should prohibit the doing of many things. Such 
 prohibitions, which simply must exist and on which the 
 existence of the community depends, are to be enforced 
 in case of necessity by fear of immediate punishment, 
 and this penal law must be administered absolutely 
 without indulgence or exception. This application of 
 fear as a motive does not impair in any way the morality 
 
 3 
 
34 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 of the pupil, for in this case he is incited, not to do good, 
 but only to abstain from what under this system of govern- 
 ment is evil. Moreover, the instruction concerning the 
 constitution must make it quite clear that anyone who 
 still needs the idea of punishment, or even indeed to 
 revive that idea by suffering punishment, is at a very low 
 stage of civilization. Yet, in spite of all this, it is clear 
 that in these circumstances the pupil will be unable to 
 show his good will outwardly, and education will be 
 unable to estimate it, since no one can ever know whether 
 obedience results from love of order or from fear of 
 
 k punishment. 
 
 On the other hand, in the following circumstances 
 such an estimate is possible. The system of government 
 must be arranged in such a way that the individual must 
 not only abstain, but will also work and act, for the sake 
 of the community. Physical exercises, the mecha nical, 
 
 ' but here idealized, work of farming , and trades of various 
 kinds, in addition to the development of the mind by 
 learning, are included in this commonwealth of pupils. 
 A fundamental principle of the system of government will 
 be that anyone who may excel in one of these depart- 
 ments will be expected to help to instruct the others in 
 it, and to undertake superintendence and responsibilities 
 of various kinds. Anyone who discovers an improvement, 
 or understands most clearly, and before the others, an im- 
 provement proposed by a teacher, is expected to work it 
 out by his own efforts, without being set free for this 
 purpose from his other personal tasks of learning and work- 
 ing which are understood. Everyone is supposed to fulfil 
 this expectation voluntarily, not compulsorily ; for anyone 
 who is unwilling is free to refuse. He is to expect neither 
 reward for it, for under this system of government all are 
 quite equal in regard to work and pleasure, nor even praise, 
 
GENERAL NATURE OF NEW EDUCATION 35 
 
 for the attitude of mind prevailing in the community is that 
 it is just everyone's duty to act thus ; but he alone enjoys 
 the pleasure of acting and working for the community, 
 and of succeeding, if that should fall to his lot. Under 
 this system of government, therefore, the acquirement 
 of greater skill and the effort spent therein will result 
 only in fresh effort and work, and it will be the very pupil 
 who is abler than the rest who must often watch while 
 others sleep, and reflect while others play. 
 
 27. To some pupils all this will be quite clear and 
 intelligible. Yet they will continue to undertake that 
 initial toil and the further labours that result from it 
 so joyfully that they may be relied on with certainty. 
 They will remain strong, and become even stronger, in 
 their feeling of power and activity. Such pupils education 
 can confidently send out into the world ; it has achieved 
 its purpose with them. Their love has been kindled and 
 burns down to the root of their vital impulse ; from now 
 onwards it will lay hold of everything, without excep- 
 tion, that comes in contact with this vital impulse. In 
 the larger community, which they now enter, they can 
 never be anything but the steady and constant beings 
 they have been in the little community they are now 
 leaving. 
 
 The pupil has in this way been fully prepared for the 
 demands which the world will immediately and certainly 
 make of him. What education, in the name of this 
 world, demands of him has been done. But he is still 
 not perfect in and for himself, and what he himself can 
 claim from education has not yet been done. When this 
 demand, too, has been met, he will be able to satisfy also 
 the, demands which, in special circumstances, a higher 
 world, in the name of the present world, may make of him. 
 
THIRD ADDRESS 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION (continued) 
 
 28. The essential feature of the proposed new education, 
 so far as it was described in the last address, consisted 
 in this, that it is the sure and deliberate art of training 
 the pupil to pure morality. To pure morality, I said ; 
 the morality to which it educates exists as an original, 
 independent, and separate thing, which develops spon- 
 taneously its own life, but is not, like the legality hitherto 
 often aimed at, linked with and implanted in some other 
 non-moral impulse, for the satisfaction of which it serves. 
 It is the sure and deliberate art of this moral education, 
 I said. It does not proceed aimlessly and at random, 
 but according to a fixed rule well known to it, and is 
 certain of its success. Its _pupil goes forth _at the proper 
 time as_ ajixed and unchan geab le machine p roduc ed _by_ 
 this artj which i ndeed could not goot herwis e than as_ 
 it has b^erire^ulated by the art, and needs no help at all, 
 but continue s of i tself ac c ordin g_to its o wn law. 
 
 This education certainly does train also the pupil's 
 mind, and this mental training is indeed the first thing 
 with which it commences its task. Yet this mental 
 development is not the chief and original aim, but only 
 the condition and means of applying moral training to 
 the pupil. This mental training, however, though 
 acquired but incidentally, remains an ineradicable pos- 
 36 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 37 
 
 session of the pupil's life and the ever-burning lamp of 
 his moral love. However great or small the total know- 
 ledge which he may have obtained from education, he 
 will certainly have brought away from it a mind which, 
 during the whole of his life, will be able to grasp every 
 truth, the knowledge of which is essential to him, and 
 which will remain continually susceptible to instruction 
 from others, as well as capable of reflecting for itself. 
 
 This was the point we reached in the last address in 
 the description of the new education. At the end of it 
 we remarked that thereby it was not yet completed, but 
 that it had still to solve another problem different from 
 those already set. We proceed now to the task of defining 
 this problem more clearly. 
 
 29. The pupil of this education is not merely a member 1 
 of human society here on this earth and for the short 
 span of life which is permitted him on it. HeJs also, and 
 is undoubtedly acknowledged by education to be, a link 
 in the eternal chain of spiritual life in a higher social 
 order. A training which has undertaken to include the 
 whole of his being should undoubtedly lead him to a 
 knowledge of this higher order also. Just as it led him to 
 sketch out for himself by his own activity an image of 
 that moral world-order which never is, but always is to yr 
 be, so must it lead him to create in thought by the same 
 self-activity an image of that supersensuous world-order n 
 in which nothing becomes, and which never has become, ijr\ 
 but which simply is for ever ; all this in such a way that I 
 he intimately understands and perceives that it could 
 not be otherwise. Under proper guidance he will 
 complete his attempts at such an image, and find at the 
 end thai nothing really exists but life, the spiritual 
 life which lives in thought, and that everything else 
 does not really exist, but only appears to exist. The 
 
38 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 reason for this appearance, a reason that results from 
 thought, he will likewise grasp, even if only in general. 
 Further, he will perceive that, amid the various forms 
 which it received, not by chance, but according to a law 
 founded in God Himself, th e sp ir itual life which alone 
 really exists is on e, the d ivine life itself, which exists and 
 mamfests itself only in living thought. He will thus 
 earn to know and keep holy his own and every other 
 spiritual life as an eternal link in the chain of the mani- 
 festation of the divine life. Only in immediate contact 
 with God and in the direct emanation of his life from 
 Him will he find life, light, and happiness, but in any 
 separation from that immediate contact, death, darkness, 
 and misery. In a word, this development will train him 
 to religion ; and this religion of the indwelling of our 
 life in God shall indeed prevail and be carefully fostered 
 in the new era. On the other hand, the religion of the 
 past separated the spiritual life from the divine, and only 
 by apostasy against the divine life could it procure for the 
 spiritual life the absolute existence which it had ascribed 
 to it. It used God as a means to introduce self-seeking 
 into other worlds a fter t he death of the mortal body, 
 and through fear and hope of these other worlds to rein- 
 force for the present world the self-seeking which would 
 otherwise have remained weak. Such a religion, which 
 was obviously a servant of selfishness, shall indeed be borne 
 to the grave along with the past age. In the new era 
 eternity does not dawn first on yon side of the grave, 
 but comes into the midst of the present life ; while self- 
 seeking is dismissed from serving and from ruling, and 
 departs, taking its servants with it. 
 
 Education to true religion is, therefore, the final task 
 of the new education. 
 
 Whether in the creation of the necessary image of the 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 39 
 
 supersensuous world-order the pupil has really acted 
 spontaneously, and whether the image created is abso- 
 lutely correct and thoroughly clear and intelligible, educa- 
 tion can easily judge in the same way as in the case of 
 other objects of knowledge, for that, too, is in the domain 
 of knowledge. 
 
 30. But here, too, the more important question is : 
 How can education estimate and guarantee that this 
 knowledge of religion will not remain dead and cold, 
 but will be expressed in the actual life of the pupil ? 
 The premise of this question is the answer to another : 
 How, and in what manner, is religion shown in life ? 
 
 In everyday life, and in a well-ordered community, 
 there is no need whatever of religion to regulate life. 
 True moral ity suffices wholly for that purpose. In this 
 respect, therefore, religion is not practical, and cannot 
 and shall not become practical. Religion _is simply 
 k nowledg e ; it makes man quite clear and intelligible 
 to himself, answers the highest question which he can 
 raise, solves for him the last contradiction, and so brings 
 into his understanding complete unity with itself and 
 perfect clearness. It is his complete salvation and deliver- 
 ance from every foreign bond. Education, therefore, owes 
 him this religion as his due absolutely, and without ulterior 
 purpose. Religion, as a motive, has its only sphere of 
 action in a very immoral and corrupt society, or where 
 man's field of activity lies not within the social order but 
 beyond it, and rather has continually to create it anew 
 and to maintain it ; as in the case of the ruler, who often 
 could not, without religion, perform the duties of his 
 office with a good conscience. Such a case is not the 
 concern of an education intended for everyone and for 
 the whole nation. When, as in the former case, work is 
 continued unceasingly, although man's understanding 
 
40 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 has a clear perception of the incorrigibility of the age ; 
 when the toil of sowing is courageously borne without 
 any prospect of harvest ; when good is done even to the 
 ungrateful, and those who curse are blessed with deeds 
 and gifts, although it is clearly foreseen that they will 
 curse again ; when after a hundred failures man persists 
 in faith and in love ; then, it is not mere morality which is 
 the motive, for that requires a purpose, but it is religion, 
 the submission to a higher and unknown law, the humble 
 silence before God, the sincere love of His life that is 
 manifested in us, which alone and for its own sake shall 
 Joe saved, where the eye sees nothing else to save. 
 ||3"i. Hence, the knowledge of religion, obtained by the 
 l|pupils of the new education in their little community 
 llin which they grow up, cannot and shall not become 
 l| practical. This community is well ordered, and in it 
 whatever is properly attempted always succeeds ; besides, 
 the yet tender age of man shall be maintained in simplicity 
 and in quiet faith in his race. Let the knowledge of 
 its knavery remain reserved for personal experience in 
 mature and stronger years. 
 
 It is, therefore, only in these more mature years and in 
 the life of earnest purpose, long after education has left 
 him to himself, that the pupil, if his social relations 
 should advance from simple to higher stages, could need 
 \ his knowledge of religion as a motive. Now, how shall 
 ^education, which cannot test the pupil in this while he 
 is in its hands, nevertheless be sure that this motive will 
 work infallibly, if only the need arise ? I reply : In this 
 way ; the pupil is so trained that none of the knowledge 
 he possesses remains dead and cold within him when 
 the possibility of its coming to life arises, but it all inevit- 
 ably influences life so soon as life requires it. I shall 
 give further reasons for this statement in a moment, and 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 41 
 
 so elevate the whole conception which has been treated 
 in this and in the last address, and fit it into a larger 
 system of knowledge. On this larger system itself I 
 shall shed new light and greater clearness by that con- 
 ception. But first let me describe exactly the true nature 
 of the new education, a general description of which I 
 have just ended. 
 
 32. This education, then, no longer appears, as it did 
 at the beginning of our address to-day, simply as the art 
 of training the pupil to pure morality, but is rather the 
 art of training the whole man completely and fully for 
 manhood. In this connection there are two essentials. 
 First, in regard to form, it is the real living human being, 
 not simply the shadow and phantom of a man, who is 
 to be trained to the very roots of his life. Then, in 
 regard to content, all the essential component parts of 
 man are to be developed equally and without exception. 
 These component parts are understanding and will ; and 
 education has to aim at clearness in the former and at 
 purity in the latter. Now, in regard to clearness in the 
 former, two main questions must be raised ; first, what 
 it is that the pure will really wishes, and by what means 
 this wish is to be attained ; under this head is included 
 all other knowledge which is to be taught to the pupil ; 
 secondly, what this pure will is in principle and essence ; 
 under this head is included knowledge of religion. The 
 essentials mentioned, and their development until they 
 influence life, education demands absolutely, and does not 
 intend to exempt anyone from them in the slightest 
 degree, for everyone must be a complete man. As to 
 what anyone may become in addition, and as to the par- 
 ticular form general human nature may take or receive 
 in him, this does not concern universal education, 
 and lies beyond its scope. 
 
42 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 33. I proceed now, by means of the following proposi- 
 tions, to give the further reasons I promised for the 
 statement that in the pupil of the new education no 
 knowledge can remain dead, and to fulfil my intention of 
 elevating into a connected system all that has been said. 
 
 From what has been said it follows that from the 
 point of view of their education there are two quite 
 different and entirely opposite classes of men. At 
 first every human being (and, therefore, also these two 
 classes) is alike in this, that underlying the various 
 manifestations of his life there is one impulse, which amid 
 all change persists unchanged and is always the same. 
 Incidentally, the self-comprehension of this impulse 
 and its translation into ideas creates the world, and there 
 is no other world but this world which is created thus 
 in thought, not freely but of necessity. Now this impulse, 
 which must always be translated into consciousness (and 
 in this respect, once again, the two classes are alike), can be 
 so translated in two ways, according to the two different 
 kinds of consciousness. It is in the method of translation 
 and of self-comprehension that the two classes differ. 
 
 The first kind of consciousness, that which is the first 
 in point of time to develop, is that of dim feeling. Where 
 this feeling exists, the fundamental impulse is most 
 usually and regularly comprehended as the individual's 
 love of self ; indeed, dim feeling shows this self at first 
 only as something that wills to live and to prosper. 
 Hence, material self-seeking arises as the real motive and 
 developing power of such a life engrossed in translating 
 its original impulse thus. So long as man continues to 
 understand himself in this way, so long must he act selfishly, 
 being unable to do otherwise ; and, amid the ceaseless 
 change in his life, it is this self-seeking alone that persists, 
 always the same and to be expected with certainty. This 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 43 
 
 dim feeling can also, as an unusual exception to the 
 rule, pass beyond the personal self, and comprehend the 
 fundamental impulse as a desire for a dimly-felt different 
 order of things. Thence arises the life, adequately 
 described by us elsewhere, which, exalted above self- 
 seeking, is motived by ideas, dim indeed but none the 
 less ideas, and in which reason rules as an instinct. Such 
 comprehension of the fundamental impulse merely by 
 dim feeling is the characteristic of the first class of men, 
 who are trained, not by education, but by their own 
 selves ; this class in turn consists of two species, which 
 are distinct for some reason that is incomprehensible 
 and quite beyond the art of man to discover. 
 
 Clear knowledge is the second kind of consciousness, ( 
 which does not, as a rule, develop of itself, but mus t be 
 c arefully fostered in_the community. If the fundamental 
 impulse of man were embraced in this principle, it would 
 produce a second class of men quite different from the 
 first. Such knowledge, which embraces fundamental love 
 itself, does not leave us cold and indifferent, as indeed 
 other knowledge can, but its object is loved above every- 
 thing, for that object is but the interpretation and 
 translation of our original love itself. Other knowledge 
 embraces something alien, which remains alien and 
 leaves us cold ; this knowledge embraces the knower 
 himself and his love, and he loves it. Now, although it 
 is the same original love appearing only in different 
 forms which spurs on both classes, yet disregarding this 1 
 circumstance we can say that man is governed in the one I / 
 case by dim feelings, in the other by clear knowledge. ' 
 
 Now, that such clear knowledge shall be a direct 
 incentive in life, and shall be capable of being relied on 
 with certainty depends, as has been said, on this, that 
 the real true love of man is to be interpreted by it, that 
 
44 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 this is to be immediately clear to him, and that along 
 with the interpretation the feeling of that love is to be 
 
 (stimulated in him and experienced by him. Knowledge, 
 therefore, is never to be developed in him without love 
 being developed at the same time, because otherwise he 
 would remain cold ; nor is love ever to be developed with- 
 out knowledge being developed at the same time, because 
 otherwise his motive would be a dim feeling. At every step 
 y in the training, then, it is the whole man as a unit that is 
 fashioned. The man who is always treated by education 
 as an indivisible whole will remain so in the future, and all 
 knowledge will inevitably become for him a motive in life. 
 | 34. Clear knowledge instead of dim feeling being 
 thus made the first and true foundation and starting- 
 point of life, self-seeking is avoided altogether and cheated 
 of its development. For it is dim feeling alone that 
 represents to man his ego as in need of pleasure and 
 afraid of pain. The clear idea does not represent it 
 thus to him, but shows it rather as a member of a moral 
 order ; and there is a love for that order which is kindled 
 and developed along with the development of the idea. 
 This e ducatio n has nothing at all^ to do with s^lfj^eddng, 
 thejr oot of w hich, dim feelin g, it ki lls through clearness. 
 It neither attacks it nor develops it ; it has nothing at 
 all to do with it. Even if, later, it were possible for this 
 self-seeking to stir, it would find the heart already filled 
 with a higher love which would deny it a place. 
 
 35. Now this fundamental impulse of man, when 
 translated into clear knowledge, does not concern itself 
 with a world which is already given and existent, which 
 can be accepted, indeed, merely passively just as it is, and 
 in which a love that stimulates to original creative activity 
 would find no sphere of action for itself. On the contrary, 
 exalted to knowledge, it is concerned with a world that 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 45 
 
 is to be, an a priori world that exists in the future and 
 ever remains in the future. The di vine life, th erefore , 
 that u nderlie jjdljtpp earance re veals i tself neve r as a fixed 
 and_ known e ntity,_ but as some_thing that is to be ; and~ 
 after it has bec ome what it^was to be, it w ill r eveal i tself 
 a gain to^ all^ etejnitv as som ething that Js to_ be. This 
 divine life, then, never appears in the death of the fixed 
 entity, but remains continually in the form of ever- 
 flowing life. The direct appearance and manifestation 
 of God is love. The interpretation of this love by 
 knowledge first fixes an existence, an existence that ever 
 is to be ; this is the only real world, in so far as a world 
 can be real. The other world, on the contrary, which 
 is given and found existing by us, is but the shadow and 
 phantom, out of which knowledge builds up for its inter- 
 pretation of love a fixed form and a visible body. This 
 other world is the means for, and the condition of, the 
 perception of the higher world that is in itself invisible. 
 Not even in that higher world does God reveal Himself 1 
 directly, but there too only through the medium of the 1 
 one, pure, unchangeable, and formless love ; it is in this 
 love alone that He appears directly. To this love there 
 is joined intuitive knowledge, which brings with it an 
 image drawn from itself, with which to clothe the object 
 of love that is in itself invisible. Yet each time it is 
 opposed by love, and thereby stimulated again to make a 
 new form, which is once again opposed in just the same 
 way. Only thus, by fusion with intuition, does love too, 
 which purely in itself is one and quite incapable of pro- 
 gress, of infinity, and of eternity, become like it eternal 
 and infinite. The image mentioned just now, which is 
 supplied from knowledge itself, considered by itself alone 
 and without application to the love that is clearly per- 
 ceived, is the fixed and given world, or nature. The 
 
46 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 delusion that God's presence reveals itself in this nature 
 in any way directly, or otherwise than through the 
 agencies above mentioned, arises from darkness of mind 
 and profanity of will. 
 
 36. The complete avoidance of dim feeling as a 
 solvent of love and the setting up in its stead of clear 
 knowledge as the usual solvent, as has already been men- 
 tioned, can happen only as the result of a deliberate art 
 of education, and hitherto has not happened in this way. 
 By this means too, as we have also seen, a type of man 
 quite different from men as they have usually been 
 hitherto will be introduced and become the rule. As the 
 result of this education, therefore, a totally new order of 
 things and a new creation would begin. Now, in this 
 new form, mankind would fashion itself by means of itself, 
 for mankind considered as the present generation educates 
 itself as the future generation ; and mankind can do this 
 only by means of knowledge, the one common true light 
 and air of this world which can be freely imparted and 
 which binds the spiritual world into a unity. Formerly 
 mankind became just what it did become and was able to 
 become ; the time for such chance development has gone 
 by ; for where mankind has developed most it has become 
 nothing. If it is not to remain in this nothingness, it 
 must henceforward make itself all that it is yet to become. 
 The real destiny of the human race on earth, I said in 
 the lectures of which these are the continuation, is in 
 freedom to make itself what it really is originally. Now, 
 this making of itself deliberately, and according to rule, 
 must have a beginning somewhere and at some moment 
 in space and time. Thereby a second great period, one 
 of free and deliberate development of the human race, 
 would appear in place of the first period, one of develop- 
 ment that is not free. We are of opinion that, in regard 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 47 
 
 to time, this is the very time, and that now the race is 
 exactly midway between the two great epochs of its 
 life on earth. But, in regard to space, we believe that it 
 is first of all the Germans who are called upon to begin 
 the new era as pioneers and models for the rest of mankind. 
 
 37. Yet even this wholly new creation will not result 
 as a sudden change from what has gone before ; it is 
 rather, especially with the Germans, the true natural 
 continuation and consequence of the past. It is apparent 
 and, I believe, generally granted that the impulse and 
 effort of the age has been seeking to dispel dim feelings 
 and to secure the sole mastery for clearness and knowledge. 
 This effort has been quite successful at least in this, 
 that it has completely revealed the nothingness of the 
 past. The impulse towards clearness should not be 
 rooted out, nor should dull acquiescence in dim feeling 
 again obtain the mastery. Rather must this impulse be 
 developed still further and introduced into higher spheres, 
 so that when the Nothing has been revealed, the Some- 
 thing, the positive truth that sets up something real, 
 may likewise become manifest. The world of given arid 
 self-forming existence, which arises from dim feeling, has 
 been submerged and shall remain below the surface. 
 The world, however, which arises from original clearness, 
 the world of existence that is ever to be evolved from the 
 mind, shall dawn and shine forth in its splendour. 
 
 38. Truly the prophecy of a new life in such forms 
 will probably seem strange to our age, which would 
 scarcely have the courage to take this promise to itself, 
 if it were to look solely at the tremendous difference 
 between its own prevailing opinions on these matters 
 and those which have been expressed as principles of 
 the new era. I will not speak of the education which 
 in the past, as a rule, only the higher classes received, as a 
 
48 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 .privilege not to be extended to everyone, and which was 
 'quite silent concerning any supersensuous world, and 
 strove merely to produce some skill in the affairs of the 
 sensuous world. It was obviously the worse kind of 
 education. But I will look only at what was popular 
 education and could also, in a certain very limited sense, 
 be called national education, which did not preserve com- 
 plete silence concerning a supersensuous world. What 
 were the doctrines of this education ? We put forward 
 as the fundamental assumption of the new education 
 that there i_s _at the root of_ man's nature a pure pleasur e 
 in the good, w hich can be^ de veloped to such an e xtent 
 that it b ecomes i mpossib le for him tojeave un done what 
 Kek nows to be good and to dojnstead what he knows to 
 be evil. The existing education, on the other hand, has 
 not only assumed, but has also taught its pupils from 
 early youth onwards, that man has a natural aversion from 
 God's commandments, and, further, that it is absolutely 
 impossible for him to keep them. What else can be ex- 
 pected of such instruction, if it is taken seriously and 
 believed, than that each individual should yield to his 
 absolutely unchangeable nature, should not try to achieve 
 what has once been represented to him as impossible, 
 and should not desire to be better than he and all 
 others can be ? Indeed, he accepts the baseness attri- 
 buted to him, the baseness of acknowledging his natural 
 sinfulness and wickedness, because such baseness in God's 
 sight is represented to him as the sole means of coming to 
 terms with Him. If perchance such a statement as ours 
 comes to his ears, he cannot but think that someone merely 
 wants to play a bad joke on him, because he has an ever- 
 present inward feeling, which to him is perfectly clear, 
 that this statement is not true, and that the opposite 
 alone is true. We presuppose a knowledge, not dependent 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 49 
 
 on any given existence, but on the contrary itself giving 
 laws for that existence, and propose to immerse every 
 child of man in this knowledge from the very beginning, 
 and to keep him from that time onwards continually 
 under its rule. On the other hand, we regard that 
 nature of things which can be learned only from history 
 as an insignificant accessory that follows of itself. When 
 we do all this, then the ripest products of the old educa- 
 tion oppose us, reminding us that it is well known there 
 is no a priori knowledge, and saying they would like to 
 know how there can be any knowledge except through 
 experience. In order that this supersenuous and a -priori 
 world should not reveal itself in the place where this 
 seemed unavoidable, namely, in the possibility of a 
 knowledge of God, and that even in God Himself there 
 should be no spiritual spontaneity, but that passive sub- 
 mission should remain all in all — to meet this danger the 
 old education has hit upon the daring expedient of making 
 the existence of God an historical fact, the truth of which 
 is established by the examination of evidence. 
 
 So in truth the matter stands ; yet our generation 
 should not therefore despair of itself, for these and all 
 other similar phenomena are themselves not independent, 
 but only flowers and fruits of the uncultivated root of 
 the past. If only this generation submits quietly to the 
 grafting of a new, nobler, and stronger root, the old will 
 be killed, and its flower and fruits, deprived of further 
 nourishment, will of themselves wither and fall. As yet 
 this generation cannot believe our words ; it is inevitable 
 that they seem to it like fairy tales. Nor do we want such 
 belief ; we want only room to work and to act. After- 
 wards it will see, and it will believe its own eyes. 
 
 39. Everyone who is acquainted with the productions 
 of recent years will have noticed long ago that here again 
 
 4 
 
5 o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 those principles and views are expressed which modern 
 German philosophy since its origin has preached again 
 and again, because it could do nothing else but preach. 
 It is now sufficiently clear that these sermons have 
 vanished without result into thin air, and the reason for 
 this is evident too. A living thing affects only something 
 living ; but in the actual life of the age there is no rela- 
 tionship at all with this philosophy, which goes its own 
 way in a sphere that is not yet revealed to this age, and 
 which calls for sense-organs that it has not yet developed. 
 This philosophy is not at home in our age, but is an 
 anticipation of time, and a principle of life ready in 
 advance for a generation which shall first awake to light 
 in it. It must give up all claim on the present genera- 
 tion ; but, in order not to be idle until then, let it now 
 undertake the task of fashioning for itself the generation 
 to which it does belong. As soon as this, its immediate 
 business, has become clear to it, it will be able to live in 
 peace and friendship with a generation which in other 
 respects does not please it. The education which we have 
 hitherto described is likewise the education for this 
 philosophy. Yet in a certain sense it alone can be the 
 educator in this education ; and so it had to be a fore- 
 runner neither understood nor acceptable. But the 
 time will come when it will be understood and received 
 with joy ; and that is why our generation should not 
 despair of itself. 
 
 40. Let this generation hearken to the vision of an 
 ancient prophet in a situation no less lamentable. Thus 
 says the prophet 1 by the river of Chebar, the comforter 
 of those in captivity, not in their own, but in a foreign 
 land. " The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried 
 me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the 
 
 1 [Ezekiel xxxvii. 1-10. I have used the Authorised Version here.] 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW EDUCATION 51 
 
 midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused 
 me to pass by them round about : and, behold, there 
 were very many in the open valley ; and, lo, they were 
 very dry. And He said unto me, Son of man, can these 
 bones live ? And I answered, 0 Lord God, thou knowest. 
 Again He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and 
 say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the 
 Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, 
 Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall 
 live : and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up 
 flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath 
 in you, and ye shall live ; and ye shall know that I am 
 the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded : and 
 as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, 
 and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And 
 when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon 
 them, and the skin covered them above ; but there was 
 no breath in them. Then said He unto me, Prophesy 
 unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the 
 wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four 
 winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they 
 may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and 
 the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood 
 up upon their feet, an exceeding great army." 
 
 Though the elements of our higher spiritual life may 
 be just as dried up, and though the bonds of our national 
 unity may lie just as torn asunder and as scattered in 
 wild disorder as the bones of the slain in the prophecy, 
 though they may have whitened and dried for centuries 
 in tempests, rainstorms, and burning sunshine, the 
 quickening breath of the spiritual world has not yet 
 ceased to blow. It will take hold, too, of the dead bones 
 of our national body, and join them together, that they 
 may stand glorious in new and radiant life. 
 
FOURTH ADDRESS 
 
 THE CHIEF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GERMANS AND 
 THE OTHER PEOPLES OF TEUTONIC DESCENT 
 
 41. We have said that the means of educating a new race 
 of men, which is being put forward in these addresses, 
 must first be applied by Germans to Germans, and that 
 it concerns our nation in a special and peculiar way. 
 This statement also requires proof ; and here, as before, 
 we shall begin with what is highest and most general, 
 showing what is the characteristic of the German as 
 such, apart from the fate that has now befallen him ; 
 showing, too, that this has been his characteristic ever 
 since he began to exist ; and pointing out how this 
 characteristic in itself gives him alone, above all other 
 European nations, the capacity of responding to such an 
 education. 
 
 42. In the first place, the German is a branch of the 
 Teutonic race. Of the latter it is sufficient to say here 
 that its mission was to combine the social order established 
 in ancient Europe with the true religion preserved in 
 ancient Asia, and in this way to develop in and by itself 
 a new and different age after the ancient world had 
 perished. Further,it is sufficient todistinguishtheGerman 
 particularly, in contrast only to the other Teutonic peoples 
 who came into existence with him. Other neo-European 
 nations, as, for instance, those of Slav descent, do not seem 
 as yet to have developed distinctly enough in comparison 
 52 
 
GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 53 
 
 with the rest of Europe to make it possible to give a 
 definite description of them ; whereas others of the same 
 Teutonic descent, as, for instance, the Scandinavians, 
 although the main reason for differentiation (which will 
 be stated immediately) does not apply to them, are yet 
 regarded here as indisputably Germans, and included in 
 all the general consequences of our observations. 
 
 43. But at the very outset the special observations 
 which we are now on the point of making must be pre- 
 faced by the following remark. As the cause of the 
 differentiation that has taken place in what was originally 
 one stock I shall cite an event which, considered merely 
 as an event, lies clear and incontestable before the eyes 
 of all. I shall then adduce some manifestations of the 
 differentiation that has taken place ; and these manifesta- 
 tions, considered merely as events, could perhaps be 
 made just as clear and obvious. But with regard to the 
 connection of the latter, as consequences, with the 
 former, as their cause, and with regard to the deduction 
 of the consequences from the cause, I cannot, speaking 
 generally, reckon upon being equally clear and con- 
 vincing to everyone. It is true that in this matter also 
 I am not making entirely new statements which no one 
 has heard of before ; on the contrary, there are among 
 us many individuals who are either well prepared for 
 such a view of the matter, or perhaps already familiar 
 with it. Among the majority, however, there are in 
 circulation ideas about the subject of our discussion 
 which differ greatly from our own. To correct such 
 ideas, and to refute all the objections to single points 
 that might be raised by those who are not practised in 
 taking a comprehensive view of a subject, would far 
 exceed the limits of our time and our intention. I must 
 content myself with placing before such people, merely 
 
54 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 as a subject for their further consideration, what I have 
 to say in this connection, remarking that in my system of 
 thought it does not stand so separate and detached as 
 it appears in this place, nor is it without a foundation 
 in the depths of knowledge. I could not omit it entirely, 
 partly on account of the thoroughness of treatment 
 demanded by my whole subject, and partly because of 
 its important consequences, which will appear later in 
 the course of our addresses, and which are intimately 
 connected with our present design. 
 
 44. The first and immediately obvious difference 
 between the fortunes of the Germans and the other 
 branches which grew from the same root is this : the 
 former remained in the original dwelling-places of the 
 ancestral stock, whereas the latter emigrated to other 
 places ; the former retained and developed the original 
 language of the ancestral stock, whereas the latter adopted 
 a foreign language and gradually reshaped it in a way of 
 their own. This earliest difference must be regarded as 
 the explanation of those which came later, e.g., that in 
 the original fatherland, in accordance with Teutonic 
 primitive custom, there continued to be a federation of 
 States under a head with limited powers, whereas in the 
 foreign countries the form of government was brought 
 more in accordance with the existing Roman method, 
 and monarchies were established, etc. It is not these 
 later differences that explain the one first mentioned. 
 
 45. Now, of the changes which have been indicated, 
 the first, the change of home, is quite unimportant. 
 Man easily makes himself at home under any sky, and the 
 national characteristic, far from being much changed 
 by the place of abode, dominates and changes the latter 
 after its own pattern. Moreover, the variety of natural 
 influences in the region inhabitated by the Teutons is 
 
GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 55 
 
 not very great. Just as little importance should be 
 attached to the fact that the Teutonic race has inter- 
 mingled with the former inhabitants of the countries it 
 conquered ; for, after all, the victors and masters and 
 makers of the new people that arose from this inter- 
 mingling were none but Teutons. Moreover, in the 
 mother-country there was an intermingling with Slavs 
 similar to that which took place abroad with Gauls, 
 Cantabrians, etc., and perhaps of no less extent ; so 
 that it would not be easy at the present day for any one^ 
 of the peoples descended from Teutons to demonstrate" 
 a greater purity of descent than the others. 
 
 46. More important, however, and in my opinion the 
 cause of a complete contrast between the Germans and 
 the other peoples of Teutonic descent, is the second 
 change, the change_of la nguage. Here, as I wish to point 
 out distinctly at the very beginning, it is not a question 
 of the special quality of the language retained by the one 
 branch or adopted by the other ; on the contrary, the 
 importance lies solely in the fact that in the one case 
 something native is retained, while in the other easel 
 something foreign is adopted. Nor is it a question of 
 the previous ancestry of those who continue to speak an 
 original language ; on the contrary, the importance 
 lies solely in the fact that this language continues to be 
 spoken, for men are formed by language far more than 
 language is formed by men. 
 
 47. In order to make clear, so far as explanation is 
 possible and necessary in this place, the consequences of 
 such a difference in the creation of peoples, and to make 
 clear the particular kind of contrast in national character- 
 istics that necessarily follows from this difference, I must 
 invite you to a consideration of the nature of language 
 in general. 
 
56 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 Language in general, and especially the designation 
 of objects in language by sounds from the organs of 
 speech, is in np_ way_ dependent on arbitrary decisions 
 and agreements. On the contrary there is, to begin with, 
 a fundamental law, in accordance with which every idea 
 becomes in the human organs of speech one particular 
 sound and no other. Just as objects are represented in 
 the sense-organs of an individual by a definite form, 
 colour, etc., so they are represented in language, which is 
 the organ of social man, by a definite sound. It is not 
 really man that speaks, but human nature speaks in him 
 and announces itself to others of his kind. Hence one 
 should say : TJiere is_and can_be but_one singlela nguage . 
 
 Now indeed, and this is the second point, language 
 in this unity for man, simply as man, may never and no- 
 where have arisen. Everywhere it may have been further 
 changed and formed by two groups of influences ; firstly, 
 those exerted on the organs of speech by the locality 
 and by more or less frequent use, and, secondly, those 
 exerted on the order of the designations by the order 
 in which objects were observed and designated. Never- 
 theless, in this also there is no chance or arbitrariness, 
 but strict law ; and in an organ of speech thus affected by 
 the conditions mentioned there necessarily arises, not 
 the one pure human language, but a deviation therefrom, 
 and, moreover, this particular deviation and no other. 
 ' If we give the name of People to men whose organs of 
 speech are influenced by the same external conditions, 
 who live together, and who develop their language in 
 continuous communication with each other, then we 
 must say : The language of this people is necessarily 
 just what it is, and in reality this people does not express 
 its knowledge, but its knowledge expresses itself out of 
 the mouth of the people. 
 
GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 57 
 
 48. Despite all the changes brought about, as the 
 language progresses, by the circumstances mentioned 
 above, this conformity with law remains uninterrupted ; 
 and indeed, for all who remain in uninterrupted com- 
 munication, and who all hear in due course whatever 
 any individual for the first time expresses, there is one 
 and the same conformity with law. After thousands of 
 years, and after all the changes undergone in that time 
 by the external manifestation of the language of this 
 people, it ever remains nature's one, same, living power 
 of speech, which in the beginning necessarily arose in the 
 way it did, which has flowed down through all conditions 
 without interruption, and in each necessarily became what 
 it did become, which in the end necessarily was what it 
 now is, and in time to come necessarily will be what it 
 then will be. The pure human language, in conjunction 
 first with the speech-organ of the people when its first 
 sound was uttered, and the product of these, in conjunc- 
 tion further with all the developments which this first 
 sound in the given circumstances necessarily acquired — 
 all this together gives as its final result the present language 
 of the people. For that reason, too, the language always 
 remains the same language. Even though, after some 
 centuries have passed, the descendants do not understand 
 the language of their ancestors, because for them the 
 transitions have been lost, nevertheless there is from the 
 beginning a continuous transition without a leap, a 
 transition always imperceptible at the time, and only 
 made perceptible when further transitions occur and the 
 whole process appears as a leap forward. There has never 
 been a time when contemporaries ceased to understand 
 each other, for their eternal go-between and interpreter 
 always was, and has continued to be, the common power 
 of nature speaking through them all. Such is the con- 
 
58 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 dition of language, considered as the designation of objects 
 directly perceived by the senses ; and in the beginning 
 all human language is this. When the people raises 
 itself from this stage of sensuous perception to a grasp 
 of the supersensuous, then, if this supersensuous is to 
 be repeated at will and kept from being confused with the 
 sensuous by the first individual, and if it is to be com- 
 municated to others for their convenience and guidance, 
 the only way at first to keep firm hold of it will be to 
 designate a Self as the instrument of a supersensuous 
 world and to distinguish it precisely from the same Self as 
 the instrument of the sensuous world — to contrast a soul, 
 a mind, etc., with a physical body. As all the various 
 objects of this supersensuous world appear only in and 
 exist for that supersensuous instrument, the only possible 
 way of designating them in language would be to say 
 that their special relation to their instrument is similar 
 to the relation of such-and-such particular sensuous 
 objects to the sensuous instrument, and in this relation 
 to compare a particular supersensuous thing with a 
 particular sensuous one, using this comparison to indicate 
 by language the place of the supersensuous thing in the 
 f supersensuous instrument. In this sphere language has 
 no further power ; it gives a sensuous image of the 
 supersensuous thing, merely with the remark that it is 
 an image of that kind ; he who wishes to attain to the 
 thing itself must set his own mental instrument in motion 
 according to the rule given him by the image. Speaking 
 generally, it is evident that this designation of the super- 
 sensuous by means of sensuous images must in every 
 case be conditioned by the stage of development which 
 the power of sensuous perception has reached in the 
 people under consideration. Hence, the origin and pro- 
 gress of this designation by sensuous images will be very 
 
GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 59 
 
 different in different languages and will depend on the 
 difference in the relation that has existed and continues 
 to exist between the sensuous and intellectual develop- 
 ment of the people speaking a language. 
 
 49. We shall next illustrate this observation, clear 
 though it is in itself, by an example. Anything that arises, 
 according to the conception of the fundamental impulse 
 explained in the preceding address, directly in clear 
 perception and not in the first place in dim feeling — 
 anything of this kind, and it is always a supersensuous 
 object, is denoted by a Greek word which is frequently 
 used in the German language also ; it is called an Idea 
 [German, Idee] ; and this word conveys exactly the same 
 sensuous image as the word Gesicht in German, which 
 occurs in the following expressions in Luther's translation 
 of the Bible : Ye shall see visions [Gesichte], ye shall 
 dream dreams. Idea or Vision, in its sensuous meaning, 
 would be something that could be perceived only by the 
 bodily eye and not by any other sense such as taste, 
 hearing, etc. ; it would be such a thing as a rainbow, or 
 the forms which pass before us in dreams. Idea or 
 Vision, in its supersensuous meaning, would denote, 
 first of all, in conformity with the sphere in which the 
 word is to be valid, something that cannot be perceived 
 by the body at all, but only by the mind ; and then, 
 something that cannot, as many other things can, be 
 perceived by the dim feeling of the mind, but only by the 
 eye of the mind, by clear perception. Further, even if 
 one were inclined to assume that for the Greeks the basis 
 of this sensuous designation was certainly the rainbow and 
 similar phenomena, one would have to admit that their 
 sensuous perception had already advanced to the stage 
 of noticing this difference between things, viz., that some 
 reveal themselves to all or several senses and others to 
 
6o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 the eye alone, and that, besides, if the developed conception 
 had become clear to them, they would have had to desig- 
 nate it not in this way but in some other. Also their 
 superior mental clearness would then be evident as 
 compared, say, with that of another people which was 
 not able to indicate the difference between the sensuous 
 and the supersensuous by an image taken from the 
 deliberate waking state, but had gone to dreams to find 
 an image for another world. It would at the same time 
 be plain that this difference was not based on the greater 
 or smaller strength of the sense for the supersensuous in 
 the two peoples, but solely on the difference between their 
 sensuous clearness at the time when they sought to desig- 
 nate supersensuous things. 
 
 50. Thus all designation of the supersensuous is con- 
 ditioned by the extent and clearness of sensuous percep- 
 tion in him who gives the designation. The image is 
 clear to him and expresses to him in an entirely com- 
 prehensible way the relation of the thing conceived to 
 the mental instrument, because this relation is explained 
 to him by another, direct, and living relation to his 
 sensuous instrument. The new designation which thus 
 arises, together with all the new clearness which sensuous 
 perception itself acquires by this extended use of the sign, 
 is now deposited in the language ; and the supersensuous 
 perception possible in the future is now designated in 
 accordance with its relation to the total supersensuous 
 and sensuous perception deposited in the whole language. 
 So it goes on without interruption, and so the immediate 
 clearness and comprehensibility of the images is never 
 broken off, but remains a continuous stream. More- 
 over, since language is not an arbitrary means of com- 
 munication, but breaks forth out of the life of under- 
 standing as an immediate force of nature, a language 
 
GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 61 
 
 continuously developed according to this law has also 
 the power of immediately affecting and stimulating life. 
 Just as things immediately present influence man, so 
 must the words of such a language influence him who 
 understands them ; for they, too, are things, and not an 
 arbitrary contrivance. Such is the case first in the 
 sensuous world. Nor is it otherwise in the supersensuous ; 
 for, although in the latter the continuous process of observ- 
 ing nature is interrupted by free contemplation and 
 reflection, and at this point God who is without image 
 appears, yet designation by language at once inserts the 
 Thing-without-image in the continuous connection of 
 things which have an image. So, in this respect also, 
 the continuous progress of language, which broke forth 
 in the beginning as a force of nature, remains uninter- 
 rupted, and into the stream of designation no arbitrari- 
 ness enters. For the same reason the supersensuous part 
 of a language thus continuously developed cannot lose 
 its power of stimulating life in him who but sets his 
 mental instrument in motion. The words of such a 
 language in all its parts are life and create life. Now if, 
 in respect of the development of the language for what 
 is supersensuous, we make the assumption that the people 
 of this language have continued in unbroken communica- 
 tion, and that what one has thought and expressed has 
 before long come to the knowledge of all, then what has 
 previously been said in general is valid for all who speak 
 this language. To all who will but think the image yLfs 
 deposited in the language is clear ; to all who really 
 think it is alive and stimulates their life. 
 
 51. Such is the case, I say, with a language which, 
 from the time the first sound broke forth among the same 
 people, has developed continuously out of the actual 
 common life of this people, and into which no element 
 
62 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 i 
 
 has ever entered that did not express an observation 
 actually experienced by this people, and, moreover, 
 an observation standing in a connection of wide-spread 
 reciprocal influence with all the other observations of 
 the same people. It does not matter if ever so many 
 individuals of other race and other language are incorpora- 
 ted with the people speaking this language ; provided 
 the former are not permitted to bring the sphere of their 
 observations up to the position from which the language 
 is thereafter to develop, they remain dumb in the com- 
 munity and without influence on the language, until 
 the time comes when they themselves have entered into 
 the sphere of observation of the original people. Hence 
 they do not form the language ; it is the language which 
 forms them. 
 
 52. But the exact opposite of all that has so far been 
 said takes place when a people gives up its own language 
 and adopts a foreign one which is already highly developed 
 as regards the designation of supersensuous things. I 
 do not mean when it yields itself quite freely to the 
 influence of this foreign language and is quite content 
 to remain without a language until it has entered into 
 the circle of observation of this foreign language, but when 
 it forces its own circle of observation on the adopted 
 language, which, when it develops from the position in 
 which they found it, must thenceforward proceed in this 
 circle of observation. In respect of the sensuous part 
 of the language, such an event, indeed, is without con- 
 sequences. For among every people the children must 
 in any case learn that part of the language just as if the 
 signs were arbitrary, and thus recapitulate in this matter 
 "the whole previous linguistic development of the nation. 
 But in this sphere of the senses every sign can be made 
 quite clear by directly looking at or touching the thing 
 
GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 63 
 
 designated. At most, the result of this would be that 
 the first generation of a people which thus changed its 
 language would be compelled when adults to go back 
 to the years of childhood ; with their descendants, 
 however, and with subsequent generations, everything 
 would doubtless be in the old order again. On the other 
 hand, this change has consequences of the greatest impor- 
 tance in respect of the supersensuous part of the language. 
 For the first possessors of the language this part was 
 formed in the way already described ; but, for those who 
 acquire the language later, the verbal image contains a 
 comparison with an observation of the senses, which 
 they have either passed over long ago without the accom- 
 panying mental development, or else have not yet had, 
 and perhaps never can have. The most that they 
 can do in such a case is to let the verbal image and its 
 mental significance explain each other ; in this way they 
 receive the flat and dead history of a foreign culture, 
 but not in any way a culture of their own. They get 
 symbols which for them are neither immediately clear 
 nor able to stimulate life, but which must seem to them 
 entirely as arbitrary as the sensuous part of the language. 
 For them this advent of history, and nothing but history, 
 as expositor, makes the language dead and closed in respect 
 of its whole sphere of imagery, and its continuous onward 
 flow is broken off. Although, beyond this sphere, they 
 may again develop the language as a living language in 
 their own way and so far as this is possible from such a 
 starting-point, nevertheless that element remains a 
 dividing wall at which, without exception, language in its 
 original emergence from life as a force of nature and the 
 actual language's renewal of contact with life are broken. 
 Although such a language may be stirred on the surface 
 by the wind of life and thus present the appearance of 
 
64 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 having a life of its own, nevertheless it has a dead element 
 deeper down, and by the entrance of the new circle of 
 observation and the breach with the old one it is cut off 
 from the living root. 
 
 53. We proceed to illustrate the foregoing by an 
 example, remarking incidentally that such a language, 
 at bottom dead and incomprehensible, very easily lends 
 itself to perversion and to misuse in glossing over every 
 kind of human corruption, and that this is not possible 
 in a language which has never died. I take as my example 
 the three notorious words, Humanity, Popularity, and 
 Liberality. When these words are used in speaking to 
 a German who has learnt no language but his own they 
 are to him nothing but a meaningless noise, which has 
 no relationship of sound to remind him of anything he 
 knows already and so takes him completely out of his 
 circle of observation and beyond any observation possible 
 to him. Now, if the unknown word nevertheless attracts 
 his attention by its foreign, distinguished, and euphonious 
 tone, and if he thinks that what sounds so lofty must 
 also have some lofty meaning, he must have this meaning 
 explained to him from the very beginning and as some- 
 thing entirely new to him, and he can only accept this 
 explanation blindly. So he becomes tacitly accus- 
 tomed to acknowledge as really existing and valuable 
 something which, if left to himself, he would perhaps 
 never have found worth mentioning. Let no one 
 believe that the case is much different with the neo-Latin 
 peoples, who utter those words as if they were words 
 of their mother-tongue. Without a scholarly study of 
 antiquity and of its actual language they understand 
 the roots of those words just as little as the German 
 does. Now if, instead of the word Humanity [Human- 
 itat], we had said to a German the word Menschlichkcit, 
 
GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 65 
 
 which is its literal translation, he would have understood 
 us without further historical explanation, but he would 
 have said : " Well, to be a man [Mensch] and not a wild 
 beast is not very much after all." Now it may be that 
 no Roman would ever have said that ; but the German 
 would say it, because in his language manhood [Mensch- 
 heit] has remained an idea of the senses only and has 
 never become a symbol of a supersensuous idea as it did 
 among the Romans. Our ancestors had taken note of 
 the separate human virtues and designated them symboli- 
 cally in language perhaps long before it occurred to them 
 to combine them in a single concept as contrasted with 
 animal nature ; and that is no discredit to our ancestors 
 as compared with the Romans. Now anyone who, in 
 spite of this, wished to introduce that foreign and Roman 
 symbol artificially and, as it were, by a trick into the 
 language of the Germans, would obviously be lowering 
 their ethical standard in passing on to them as distinguished 
 and commendable something which may perhaps be so 
 in the foreign language, but which the German, in accord- 
 ance with the ineradicable nature of his national power 
 of imagination, only regards as something already known 
 and indispensable. A closer examination might enable 
 us to demonstrate that those Teutonic races which 
 adopted the Latin language experienced, even in the 
 beginning, similar degradations of their former ethical 
 standard because of inappropriate foreign symbols ; 
 but on this circumstance we do not now wish to lay too 
 great a stress. 
 
 Further, if in speaking to the German, instead of the 
 words Popularity [Popularitat] and Liberality \Liber- 
 alitdt], I should use the expressions, " striving for favour 
 with the great mob," and " not having the mind of a 
 slave," which is how they must be literally translated, 
 
 5 
 
66 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 he would, to begin with, not even obtain a clear and vivid 
 sense-image such as was certainly obtained by a Roman of 
 old. The latter saw every day with his own eyes the 
 flexible politeness of an ambitious candidate to all and 
 sundry, and outbursts of the slave mind too ; and those 
 words vividly re-presented these things to him. Even 
 from the Roman of a later period these sights were 
 removed by the change in the form of government and 
 the introduction of Christianity ; and, besides, his own 
 language was beginning to a great extent to die away 
 in his own mouth. This was more especially due to 
 Christianity, which was alien to him, and which he 
 could neither ward off nor thoroughly assimilate. How 
 was it possible for this language, already half dead in its 
 own home, to be transmitted alive to a foreign people ? 
 How could it now be transmitted to us Germans ? More- 
 over, with regard to the symbolic mental content of 
 both those expressions, there is in the word Popularity, 
 even at the very beginning, something base, which was 
 perverted in their mouths and became a virtue, owing to 
 the corruption of the nation and of its constitution. 
 The German never falls into this perversion, so long as 
 it is put before him in his own language. But when 
 Liberality is translated by saying that a man has not 
 the soul of a slave, or, to give it a modern rendering, has 
 not a lackey's way of thinking, he once more replies that 
 to say this also means very little. 
 
 Moreover, into these verbal images, which even in their 
 pure form among the Romans arose at a low stage of 
 ethical culture or designated something positively base, 
 there were stealthily introduced during the development 
 of the neo-Latin languages the idea of lack of seriousness 
 about social relations, the idea of self-abandonment, and 
 the idea of heartless laxity. In order to bring these 
 
GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 67 
 
 things into esteem among us, use was made of the respect 
 we have for antiquity and foreign countries to introduce 
 the same words into the German language. It was done 
 so quietly that no one was fully aware of what was actually 
 intended. The purpose and the result of all admixture 
 has ever been this : first of all to remove the hearer from 
 the immediate comprehensibility and definiteness which 
 are the inherent qualities of every primitive language ; 
 then, when he has been prepared to accept such words 
 in blind faith, to supply him with the explanation that 
 he needs ; and, finally, in this explanation to mix vice 
 and virtue together in such a way that it is no easy matter 
 to separate them again. Now, if the true meaning of 
 those three foreign words, provided they have a meaning, 
 had been expressed to the German in his own words 
 and within his own circle of verbal images, in this way : 
 Menschenfrcundlichkeit (friendliness to man), Leutselig- 
 keit (condescension or affability), and E delimit (noble- 
 mindedness), he would have understood us ; but the base 
 associations we have mentioned could never have been 
 slipped into those designations. Within the range of 
 ■German speech such a wrapping-up in incomprehen- 
 sibility and darkness arises either from clumsiness or 
 evil design ; it is to be avoided, and the means always 
 ready to hand is to translate into right and true German. 
 But in the neo-Latin languages this incomprehensibility is 
 of their very nature and origin, and there is no means of 
 avoiding it, for they do not possess any living language 
 by which they might examine the dead one ; indeed, 
 when one looks at the matter closely, they are entirely 
 without a mother-tongue. 
 
 54. This single example will serve to demonstrate 
 what could with ease be followed up throughout the whole 
 range of the language and found present everywhere. 
 
68 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 It is intended to explain to you as clearly as is here 
 possible what has so far been said. We are speaking 
 of the supersensuous part of the language, and not 
 immediately or directly of the sensuous part. This super- 
 sensuous part, in a language that has always remained 
 alive, is expressed by symbols of sense, comprehending 
 at every step in complete unity the sum total of the 
 sensuous and mental life of the nation deposited in the 
 language, for the purpose of designating an idea that like- 
 wise is not arbitrary, but necessarily proceeds from the 
 whole previous life of the nation. From the idea and 
 its designation a keen eye, looking back, could not fail 
 to reconstruct the whole history of the nation's culture. 
 But in a dead language this supersensuous part, which, 
 while the language was still alive, was what we have 
 described, becomes with the death of the language a 
 tattered collection of arbitrary and totally inexplicable 
 symbols for ideas that are just as arbitrary ; and with 
 both idea and symbol there is nothing else to be done 
 but just to learn them. 
 
 55. With this our immediate task is performed, which 
 was to find the characteristic that differentiates the 
 German from the other peoples of Teutonic descent. 
 The difference arose at the moment of the separation 
 of the common stock and consists in this, that the 
 German speaks a language which has been alive ever 
 since it first issued from the force of nature, whereas 
 the other Teutonic races speak a language which has 
 movement on the surface only but is dead at the root. 
 To this circumstance alone, to life on the one hand and 
 death on the other, we assign the difference ; but we 
 are not in any way taking up the further question of 
 the intrinsic value of the German language. Between 
 life and death there is no comparison ; the former has 
 
GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 69 
 
 infinitely more value than the latter. All direct com- 
 parisons between German and neo-Latin languages are 
 therefore null and void, and are obliged to discuss things 
 which are not worth discussing. If the intrinsic value of 
 the German language is to be discussed, at the very least 
 a language of equal rank, a language equally primitive, 
 as, for example, Greek, must enter the lists ; but such a 
 comparison is far beyond our present purpose. 
 
 56. What an immeasurable influence on the whole 
 human development of a people the character of its lan- 
 guage may have — its language, which accompanies the in- 
 dividual into the most secret depths of his mind in thought 
 and will and either hinders him or gives him wings, which 
 unites within its domain the whole mass of men who speak 
 it into one single and common understanding, which is 
 the true point of meeting and mingling for the world 
 of the senses and the world of spirits, and fuses the ends 
 of both in each other in such a fashion that it is impossible 
 to tell to which of the two it belongs itself — how different 
 the results of this influence may prove to be where the 
 relation is as life to death, all this in general is easily 
 perceived. In the first place, the German has a means 
 of investigating his living language more thoroughly 
 by comparing it with the closed Latin language, which 
 differs very widely from his own in the development of 
 verbal images ; on the other hand, he has a means of 
 understanding Latin more clearly in the same way. This 
 is not possible to a member of the neo-Latin peoples, 
 who fundamentally remains a captive in the sphere of 
 one and the same language. Then the German, in learn- 
 ing the original Latin, at the same time acquires to a 
 certain extent the derived languages also ; and if he should 
 learn the former more thoroughly than a foreigner does, 
 which for the reason given the German will very likely 
 
70 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 be able to do, he at the same time learns to understand 
 this foreigner's own language far more thoroughly and 
 to possess it far more intimately than does the foreigner 
 himself who speaks it. Hence the German, if only he 
 makes use of all his advantages, can always be superior 
 to the foreigner and understand him fully, even better 
 than the foreigner understands himself, and can translate 
 the foreigner to the fullest extent. On the other hand, 
 the foreigner can never understand the true German 
 without a thorough and extremely laborious study of 
 the German language, and there is no doubt that he will 
 leave what is genuinely German untranslated. The things 
 in these languages which can only be learnt from the 
 foreigner himself are mostly new fashions of speech 
 due to boredom and caprice, and one is very modest when 
 one consents to receive instruction of this kind. In most 
 cases one would be able, instead, to show foreigners how 
 they ought to speak according to the primitive language 
 and its law of change, and that the new fashion is worth- 
 less and offends against ancient and traditional good usage. 
 
 57. In addition to the special consequence just men- 
 tioned, the whole wealth of consequences we spoke of 
 comes about of itself. 
 
 It is, however, our intention to treat these consequences 
 as a whole, fundamentally and comprehensively, from 
 the point of view of the bond that unites them, in order 
 to give in this way a thorough description of the German 
 in contrast to the other Teutonic races. For the present 
 I briefly indicate these consequences thus : — 
 
 (1) Where the people has a living language, mental 
 culture influences life ; where the contrary is the case, 
 mental culture and life go their way independently of 
 each other. 
 
 (2) For the same reason, a people of the former kind 
 
GERMANS & OTHER TEUTONS COMPARED 71 
 
 is really and truly in earnest about all mental culture 
 and wishes it to influence life ; whereas a people of the 
 latter kind looks upon mental culture rather as an ingeni- 
 ous game and has no wish to make it anything more. 
 
 (3) From No. 2 it follows that the former has honest 
 diligence and earnestness in all things, and takes pains ; 
 whereas the latter is easy-going and guided by its happy 
 nature. 
 
 (4) From all this together it follows that in a nation 
 of the former kind the mass of the people is capable of 
 education, and the educators of such a nation test their 
 discoveries on the people and wish to influence it ; 
 whereas in a nation of the latter kind the educated classes 
 separate themselves from the people and regard it as 
 nothing more than a blind instrument of their plans. 
 The further discussion of the characteristics indicated I 
 reserve for the next address. 
 
FIFTH ADDRESS 
 
 THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE THAT HAS 
 BEEN INDICATED 
 
 58. With the object of describing the characteristic 
 quality of the Germans we have pointed out the funda- 
 mental difference between them and the other peoples 
 of Teutonic descent, viz., that the former have remained 
 in the uninterrupted flow of a primitive language which 
 develops itself continuously out of real life, whereas the 
 latter adopted a language which was foreign to them and 
 which under their influence has been killed. At the end 
 of the previous address we indicated other manifestations 
 among these peoples, who differ from each other in the 
 way we have shown. To-day we shall deal more fully 
 with these manifestations, which are a necessary conse- 
 quence of that fundamental difference, and establish them 
 more firmly on their common foundation. 
 
 An investigation which endeavours to be thorough can 
 rise too high to be involved in many disputes or to arouse 
 much jealousy. Our method of investigation in the 
 present instance will be the same as it was in the one to 
 which this is a sequel. We shall take the fundamental ' 
 difference that has been indicated, and deduce its con- 
 sequences step by step ; our sole concern will be to see 
 that this deduction is correct. Whether the various 
 manifestations which, according to this deduction, ought 
 72 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 73 
 
 to exist, are actually met with in experience is a question 
 which I shall leave entirely to you and to any observer for 
 decision. As regards the German especially, I -shall 
 indeed prove at the proper time that he has in fact revealed 
 himself to be what our deduction shows he was bound 
 to be. But, as regards Teutons in other countries, I 
 shall have no objection if one of them, with a real under- 
 standing of the true nature of our present discussion, 
 is subsequently successful in proving that his compatriots 
 have been just what the Germans have been, and is able 
 to show that they are entirely free from the opposite 
 characteristics. In general, our description even of 
 these opposite characteristics will not dwell on what is 
 harsh and disadvantageous, for such a method makes 
 victory more easy than honourable, but will merely 
 point out what are the inevitable consequences, and will 
 do this with as much consideration as is consistent with 
 the truth. 
 
 59. The first consequence of that fundamental differ- 
 ence, I said, was this : among the people with a l iving 
 langua ge ment al^c ultur e i nfluences life, whereas among a 
 peopl e of_ the opposite kind mental c ultur e and life go 
 their s eparate ways. It will be useful first of all to explain 
 more fully the meaning of this statement. First of all, 
 when we speak here of life and of the influence exerted 
 upon it by mental culture, we must be understood to mean 
 primitive life in its flow from the source of all spiritual 
 life, from God, the development of human relationships 
 according to their archetype, and, therefore, the creation 
 of a new life such as has never hitherto existed. We are 
 by no means discussing the mere preservation from decay 
 of those relationships in their present stage. Still less 
 have we in mind the assistance of individual members 
 who have fallen behind in the general development. 
 
74 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 Next, when we speak of mental culture we are to under- 
 stand thereby, first of all, philosophy, for it is philosophy 
 which scientifically comprehends the eternal archetype 
 of all spiritual life. We must designate it by the foreign 
 name, as the Germans have shown themselves unwilling 
 to adopt the German name 1 that was recently suggested. 
 For this science, and for all science based upon it, the claim 
 is now made that it influences the life of a people who have 
 a living language. But, in apparent contrast to this 
 assertion, it has often been said, and by some among 
 ourselves, that philosophy, science, the fine arts, etc., 
 are ends in themselves and not handmaids of life, and that 
 it is degrading them to esteem them according to their 
 utility in the service of life. Here we must define these 
 expressions more closely and guard against any misinter- 
 pretation. They are true in the following double but 
 limited sense ; first, that it is not the duty of science or 
 art, as some have thought, to be useful at what may be 
 called a lower stage of life, e.g., temporal or sensuous life, 
 or for everyday edification ; then, that an individual, 
 in consequence of his personal seclusion from a spiritual 
 world regarded as a whole, may be entirely absorbed in 
 these special branches of the universal divine life without 
 needing a stimulus from outside them, and may find in 
 them complete satisfaction. But they are in no wise 
 true in the strict sense, for it is just as impossible that 
 there should be more than one end in itself as that there 
 should be more than one Absolute. The sole end in 
 itself, apart from which there can be no other, is spiritual 
 life. Now this expresses itself in part and appears as an 
 eternal stream, with itself as source — that is, as eternal 
 activity. This activity eternally receives its pattern 
 from science, and its ability to form itself according to 
 1 [Wissenschaftslehre, i.e. Theory of science.] 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 75 
 
 this pattern from art, and in so far it might appear that 
 science and art exist as means to an end, which is active 
 life. But in this form of activity life itself is never com- 
 pleted and made absolute as a unity, but goes on into the 
 infinite. Now, if life is to exist as such an absolute unity, 
 it must be in another form. This form is that of pure 
 thought, which produces the religious insight described 
 in the third address, a form which, as absolute unity, is 
 utterly incompatible with infinity of action and which 
 can never be completely expressed in action. Hence both 
 of them, thought as well as activity, are forms incompat- 
 ible only in the world of appearance, but in the world 
 beyond appearance they are both equally one and the 
 same absolute life. One cannot say that thought exists, 
 and exists as it does, for the sake of activity, or vice versa ; 
 one must say that both must simply exist, since life must * 
 be a completed whole in the phenomenal world, just as 
 it is in the noumenal. Within this sphere, therefore, 
 and according to this view, it is not nearly enough to say 
 that science exerts an influence on life ; science itself X 
 is life perpetual in itself. Or, to connect this with a 
 well-known expression, one sometimes hears the question 
 put : What is the use of all knowledge, if one does not I 
 act in accordance with it ? This remark implies that J 
 knowledge is regarded as a means to action, and the ( 
 latter as the real end. One could put the question ( 
 the other way round and ask : How can we possibly [ 
 act well without knowing what the Good is ? This ) 
 way of expressing it would regard knowledge as con- ) 
 ditioning action. But both expressions are one-sided, ) 
 and the truth is that both, knowledge as well as 
 action, are in the same way inseparable elements of 
 rational life. 
 
 60. But science is life perpetual in itself, as we have 
 
76 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 just expressed it, only when thought is the real mind and 
 disposition of the one who thinks, in such a way that, 
 without special effort and even without being clearly 
 conscious of it, he views and judges everything else that 
 he thinks, views, and judges according to that fundamental 
 thought, and, if the latter exerts an influence on action, 
 just as inevitably acts according to it. But thought is 
 in no wise life and disposition when it is thought only as 
 the thought of a life that is strange or foreign, however 
 clearly and completely it may be comprehended as a 
 thought that has a mere possibility of existence in this 
 way, and however clearly one might think, as perhaps 
 someone could think, in this fashion. In this latter case, 
 between our thinking at second-hand and our real think- 
 ing there lies a wide field of chance and freedom — a 
 freedom that we feel no desire to use ; and so this think- 
 ing at second-hand remains apart from us ; it is a merely 
 possible thinking, one made free from us and always freely 
 to be repeated. In the former case thought has by itself 
 directly taken hold of our self, and made it into itself ; 
 and through this reality of thought for us, arising in this 
 way, we obtain insight into its necessity. As we have just 
 said, no freedom can forcibly bring about the latter con- 
 sequence, which must be produced of itself, and thought 
 itself must take hold of us and form us according to itself. 
 
 61. Now this living effectiveness of thought is very 
 much furthered and, indeed, where the thinking is of the 
 proper depth and strength, even made inevitable, by think- 
 ing and designating in a living language. The symbol 
 in such a language is itself directly living and sensuous ; 
 it re-presents all real life and so takes hold of and exerts 
 an influence on life. To the possessor of such a language 
 spirit speaks directly and reveals itself as man does to man. 
 But the symbol of a dead language does not stimulate 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 77 
 
 anything directly ; in order to enter the living stream of 
 such a language one must first recapitulate knowledge 
 acquired by the study of history from a world that has 
 died, and transport one's self into an alien mode of 
 thought. How superabundant must be the impulse of 
 one's own thinking, if it does not grow weary in this long 
 and wide field of history and in the end modestly content 
 itself with the region of history. If the thinking of the 
 possessor of a living language does not become alive, he 
 may rightly be accused of not having thought at all and 
 of having merely indulged in reverie. The possessor of 
 a dead language, however, cannot in a similar case be 
 similarly accused without hesitation ; it may be that 
 he has " thought " after his own fashion, i.e., carefully 
 developed the conceptions deposited in his language. 
 Only he has not done that which, if he succeeded in 
 doing it, would be accounted a miracle. 
 
 Incidentally it is evident that the impulse to thinking, 
 in the case of a people with a dead language, will be most 
 powerful and produce the greatest apparent results in 
 the beginning, when the language has not yet become 
 clear enough to everyone. It is also evident that, as 
 soon as the language becomes clearer and more definite, 
 this impulse to thinking will tend more and more to die 
 away in the chains of the language. It is further evident 
 that in the end the philosophy of a people of this kind 
 will consciously resign itself to the fact that it is only an 
 explanation of the dictionary, or, as un-German spirits 
 among us have expressed it in a more high-sounding 
 fashion, a metacritic of language ; and, finally, that such 
 a people will acknowledge some mediocre didactic poem 
 in comedy form on the subject of hypocrisy to be its 
 greatest philosophical work. 1 
 
 1 [Fichte seems to refer here to Moliere's Tartujjft.] 
 
78 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 62. In this way, I say, spiritual culture — and here 
 especially thinking in a primitive language is meant — 
 does not exert an influence on life ; it is itself the life 
 of him who thinks in this fashion. Nevertheless it 
 necessarily strives, from the life that thinks in this way, 
 to influence other life outside it, and so to influence the 
 life of all about it and to form this life in accordance with 
 itself. For, just because that kind of thinking is life, it 
 is felt by its possessor with inward pleasure in its vitalizing, 
 transfiguring, and liberating power. But everyone to 
 whose inmost being happiness has been revealed is bound 
 to wish that everyone else may experience the same bliss ; 
 he is thus driven, and must work, to the end that the 
 stream from which he has drawn his own well-being may 
 spread itself over others too. It is different with him who 
 has merely apprehended the possibility of second-hand 
 thinking. Just as its substance yields him neither weal nor 
 woe, but merely occupies his leisure agreeably and enter- 
 tainingly, so it is impossible for him to believe that it can 
 bring weal or woe to anyone else. In the end it is to 
 him a matter of indifference on what subject anyone 
 exercises his ingenuity or with what he occupies his 
 hours of leisure. 
 
 63. Of the means of introducing into the lives of all 
 the thought that has begun in the life of the individual, 
 the highest and best is poetry ; hence this is the second 
 main branch of the spiritual culture of a people. The 
 thinker designates his thought in language, and this, as 
 we have said above, cannot be done except by images 
 of sense and, moreover, by an act of creation extending 
 beyond the previous range of sensuous imagery. In 
 doing this the thinker is himself a poet ; if he is not a 
 poet, language will fail him when his first thought comes, 
 and, when he attempts the second, thought itself will 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 79 
 
 depart from him. An extension and amplification of 
 the language's range of sensuous imagery having thus 
 been begun by the thinker, to send it in flood through 
 the whole field of sensuous images, so that every image 
 may receive its appropriate share of the new spiritual 
 ennoblement and so that the whole of life, down to its 
 deepest depths of sense, may appear steeped in the new 
 ray of light, may be well-pleasing, and may unwittingly 
 give the illusion of ennobling itself — to do this is the 
 work of true poetry. Only a living language can have 
 such poetry, for only in such a language can the range of 
 sensuous imagery be extended by creative thought, and 
 only in it does what has already been created remain 
 alive and open to the influence of kindred life. Such a 
 language has within itself the power of infinite poetry, 
 ever refreshing and renewing its youth, for every stirring 
 of living thought in it opens up a new vein of poetic 
 enthusiasm. To such a language, therefore, poetry is 
 the highest and best means of flooding the life of all with 
 the spiritual culture that has been attained. It is quite 
 impossible for a dead language to have poetry in this] 
 higher sense, for none of the conditions necessary to' 
 poetry exist in it. Such a language can have, how- 
 ever, though only for a limited period, a substitute 
 for poetry in the following way. The outpourings of 
 the art of poetry in the original language will attract 
 attention. The new people, indeed, cannot go on 
 making poetry in the path that has been begun, for this 
 is foreign to its life, but it can introduce its own life and 
 its new circumstances into the sphere of sensuous imagery 
 and poetry in which the preceding age expressed its own 
 life ; it can, for example, dress up its knights as heroes, 
 and vice versa, and make the ancient gods exchange 
 raiment with the new ones. It is precisely this placing 
 
8o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 of unfamiliar vesture upon the commonplace that gives 
 it a charm akin to that produced by idealization, and the 
 result will be quite pleasing figures. But the range of 
 sensuous and poetical imagery in the original language 
 on the one hand, and the new conditions of life on the 
 other, are finite and limited quantities. At some point 
 their mutual penetration is completed ; and when that 
 point is reached the people celebrates its golden age and 
 the source of its poetry runs dry. Somewhere or other 
 (there must be a highest point in the adaptation of fixed 
 Iwords to fixed ideas, and of fixed imagery to fixed con- 
 ditions of life. When this point has been reached this 
 people must do one of two things. It can either repeat 
 J its most successful masterpieces in a different form, so 
 that they look as if they were something new, although 
 they are in fact nothing but the old familiar things. 
 J Or else, if it is determined to achieve something entirely 
 new, it can seek refuge in the unbecoming and the 
 unseemly. In this case their poetic art will mix together 
 the ugly and the beautiful and have recourse to carica- 
 ture and humour, while their prose will be compelled to 
 confuse ideas and to jumble virtue and vice together. 
 This they must do if they seek new forms of expression. 
 
 64. When mental culture and life thus go their own 
 separate ways in a nation, the natural consequence is 
 that those classes who have no access to mental culture, 
 and who do not even receive the results of it as they 
 would in a living nation, are placed at a disadvantage 
 as compared with the educated classes and are regarded, 
 so to speak, as a different species of humanity, unequal 
 to them in mental power from the beginning and by 
 the mere fact of birth. Another consequence is that 
 the educated classes have no truly loving sympathy with 
 them and are not impelled to give them thorough aid, 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 81 
 
 for they believe that their original inequality makes 
 them quite incapable of being aided. It follows also that 
 the educated classes are tempted rather to make use of 
 them as they are and to let them be so used. Although 
 even this consequence of the death of the language can 
 be mitigated in the first years of the new nation by a 
 humanitarian religion and by the lack of special skill 
 among the higher classes, yet, as time goes on, this 
 despising of the people will become more and more 
 unconcealed and cruel. That is why the educated 
 classes assume superiority and give themselves airs ; and 
 there is in addition a special reason closely connected 
 with it which, as it has had a very extensive influence 
 even on the Germans, must be mentioned here. It 
 arises from the fact that in the beginning the Romans 
 called themselves barbarians and their own language 
 barbarous, as contrasted with the Greeks. In this they 
 very ingenuously repeated what the Greeks had said 
 about them. Afterwards the Romans handed on the 
 description they had taken upon themselves, and found 
 among the Teutons the same unquestioning simplicity 
 as they themselves had shown towards the Greeks. 
 The Teutons believed that the only possible way to get 
 rid of barbarism was to become Romans. The immi- 
 grants to what was formerly Roman soil became as Roman 
 as they possibly could. But in their imagination the 
 term " barbarous " soon acquired the secondary meaning 
 of " common, plebeian, and loutish," and in this way 
 " Roman," on the contrary, became synonymous with 
 " distinguished." This way of looking at it affected 
 the Teutonic languages in general and in particular ; 
 in general, since, when measures were taken deliberately 
 and consciously to mould the language, they were directed 
 towards throwing out the Teutonic roots and forming 
 
 6 
 
82 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 the words fromLatin roots, and thus creating the Romance 
 language as the language of the court and of the educated 
 classes. But the particular result is that, whenever two 
 words have the same meaning, the one from a Teutonic 
 root almost without exception denotes what is base and 
 ignoble, and the one from the Latin root what is nobler 
 and more distinguished. 
 
 65. This endemic disease of the whole Teutonic race, 
 as it might be called, attacks the German in the mother- 
 country too, if he is not armed against it by a high 
 earnestness. Even in our ears it is easy for Latin to sound 
 distinguished, even to our eyes Roman customs appear 
 nobler and everything German on the contrary vulgar ; 
 and as we were not so fortunate as to acquire all this 
 at first-hand, we take much pleasure in receiving it at 
 second-hand through the medium of the neo-Latin 
 nations. 1 So long as we are German we appear to our- 
 
 1 [Fichte adds this note here : In our opinion the decision as to the 
 greater or less euphony of a language should not be based upon the direct 
 impression, which depends on so many matters of chance. Even a judg- 
 ment of this kind should be founded on definite principles. The merit of a 
 language in this respect should undoubtedly be, first of all, that it exhausts 
 and comprehensively presents the possibilities of the human organs of 
 speech, and, secondly, that it combines the separate sounds in a natural and 
 convenient unity. Hence it follows that nations who only half develop 
 their organs of speech, and that in a one-sided fashion, who avoid certain 
 sounds or combinations under the pretext of difficulty or cacophony, and who 
 esteem euphonious only what they are accustomed to hear and can them- 
 selves pronounce — such nations have no say in an investigation of this kind. 
 
 This is not the place to deliver judgment according to those higher 
 principles on the German language in this respect. Latin itself, the 
 parent language, is pronounced by each neo-European nation in its own 
 way, and it would not be easy to restore its true pronunciation. There 
 remains, therefore, only this question, whether the German language 
 when compared with neo-Latin languages sounds so bad, hard, and harsh 
 as some are inclined to think. 
 
 Until this question is thoroughly decided, we may meanwhile at least 
 explain how it happens that it does seem so to foreigners, and to Germans 
 too, even when they are unprejudiced and free from preferences or hate. 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 83 
 
 selves men like any others ; when half or more than half 
 our vocabulary is non-German, and when we adopt 
 conspicuous customs and wear conspicuous clothes which 
 seem to come from foreign parts, then we fancy ourselves 
 distinguished. But the summit of our triumph is reached 
 when we are no longer taken for Germans, but actually for 
 Spaniards or Englishmen, whichever of the two happens to 
 be the more fashionable at the moment. We are right. 
 Naturalness on the German side, arbitrariness and 
 artificiality on the foreign side, are the fundamental 
 differences. If we keep to the former we are just like all 
 our fellow-Germans, who understand us and accept 
 us as their equals ; only when we seek refuge in the 
 latter do we become incomprehensible to our fellows, 
 who take us to be of a different nature. This unnatural- 
 ness comes of itself into the life of foreign countries, 
 because their life deviated from nature originally and 
 in a matter of the first importance. But we Germans 
 must first seek it out and accustom ourselves to the belief 
 that something is beautiful, proper, and convenient, 
 which does not naturally appear so to us. The main 
 reason for all this in the case of the German is his belief 
 in the greater distinction of romanized countries, together 
 with his craving to be just as distinguished and arti- 
 ficially to create in Germany too that gulf between the 
 
 A people as yet uncultivated, with a very lively power of imagination, and at 
 the same time childlike in mind and free from national vanity (the Teutons 
 seem to have had all these qualities) is attracted by what is far away, and 
 likes to make remote countries and distant islands the habitation for the 
 objects of its desires and the glories of which it dreams. Such a people 
 develops a sense of romance (the word explains itself and no more suitable 
 one could be invented). Sounds and tones from those regions touch this 
 sense and awaken its whole world of wonders ; hence they are pleasing. 
 
 This may be the reason why our countrymen who emigrated gave up their 
 own language for a foreign one so easily, and also why we, their kindred 
 so very far removed, find even now such wondrous pleasure in these tones.] 
 
84 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 upper classes and the people, which came about naturally 
 in foreign countries. I shall content myself with having 
 indicated the main source of this love of foreign ways 
 which is to be found among Germans ; on another occa- 
 sion I shall show how widespread its effects have been, 
 and how all the evils which have now brought us to ruin 
 are of foreign origin. Of course it was only when united 
 with German earnestness and influence on life that such 
 evils were bound to bring destruction in their train. 
 66. In addition to these two manifestations resulting 
 fl?. ~^from the fundamental difference — firstly , that mental 
 @>. v^" culture either does or does not influence life, and, s econdly, 
 that between the educated classes and the people a dividing 
 wall either does or does not exist — I cited the following 
 £p. S manifestation, that the people with a living language 
 will possess diligence and earnestness and take pains in 
 all things, whereas the people with a dead language will 
 rather look upon mental activity as an ingenious game, 
 and will be easy-going and guided by its happy nature. 
 This circumstance is a natural result of what has been 
 said above. Among the people with a living language 
 investigation proceeds from a vital need, which is thereby 
 to be satisfied ; hence, investigation receives all the com- 
 pelling impulses which life has in itself. But among the 
 people with a dead language investigation seeks nothing 
 more than to pass away the time in a manner that is 
 pleasant and in keeping with the sense of the beautiful, 
 and it has attained its object completely when it has done 
 this. With foreigners the latter course is almost inevitable, 
 but when a German boasts about his genius and his happy 
 nature he displays a love of foreign ways which is unworthy 
 of him and which, like every imitation of foreign ways, 
 arises from the craving to be distinguished. It is true 
 that nothing excellent will be produced in any nation 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 85 
 
 in the world without a primitive impulse in man which, 
 as something supersensuous, is rightly called Genius, to 
 give it the foreign name. But this impulse in itself only 
 stimulates the power of imagination, and brings forth in 
 it figures that hover above the ground but are never 
 completely defined. To bring these down completed 
 to the ground of actual life and to fix them firmly therein, 
 this requires thought, diligent, deliberate, and in accord- 
 ance with a definite principle. Genius delivers to 
 diligence the stuff to be worked upon, and the latter with- 
 out the former would have to work upon either what had 
 been worked upon already or else upon nothing at all. 
 But diligence brings this stuff, which without it would 
 remain an empty game, into life ; and so it is only when 
 united that the two can achieve anything ; divided they can 
 do nothing. Moreover, in a people with a dead language^ 
 no truly creative genius can express itself, because they 
 lack the primitive power of designation ; they can only 
 develop what has already been begun and convey it into 
 the whole existing and completed system of designation. 
 
 67. When we consider the question of taking greater 
 pains, it is natural that this can be done by the people 
 with the living language. A living language can stand 
 on a higher level of culture in comparison with another, 
 but it can never in itself attain that perfection of develop- 
 ment which _a dead language, quite easily attains. In \ 
 the latter the connotation of words is fixed, and the J 
 possibilities of suitable combinations will also gradually 
 become exhausted. Hence, he who wishes to speak this/ 
 language must speak it just as it is ; but, after he has oncej 
 learnt to do this, the language speaks itself in his mouth) 
 and thinks and imagines for him. But in a living lan- 
 guage, if only life in it is really lived, the words and their 
 meanings increase and change continually, and for that 
 
86 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 very reason new combinations become possible ; and the 
 language, which never is, but eternally is becoming, does 
 not speak itself, but he who wishes to use it must speak 
 it himself in his own fashion and creatively for his own 
 needs. The latter undoubtedly demands far more 
 diligence and practice than the former. Similarly, the 
 investigations of a people with a living language go down, 
 as we have already said, to the root where ideas stream 
 forth from spiritual nature itself ; whereas the investiga- 
 tions of a people with a dead language only seek to pene- 
 trate a foreign idea and to make themselves comprehen- 
 sible. Hence, the investigations of the latter are in fact 
 only historical and expository, but those of the former 
 are truly philosophical. It is quite plain, too, that 
 an investigation of the latter kind may be completed 
 sooner and more easily than one of the former. 
 
 So we may say that genius in foreign lands will strew 
 with flowers the well-trodden military roads of antiquity, 
 and weave a becoming robe for that wisdom of life which 
 it will easily take for philosophy. The German spirit, 
 on the other hand, will open up new shafts and bring 
 the light of day into their abysses, and hurl up rocky 
 masses of thoughts, out of which ages to come will build 
 .their dwellings. The foreign genius will be a delightful 
 sylph, which hovers in graceful flight above the flowers 
 that have sprung of themselves from its soil, settles on 
 them without causing them to bend, and drinks up their 
 refreshing dew. Or we may call it a bee, which with 
 busy art gathers the honey from the same flowers and 
 deposits it with charming tidiness in cells of regular 
 construction. But the German spirit is an eagle, whose 
 mighty body thrusts itself on high and soars on strong 
 and well-practised wing into the empyrean, that it may 
 rise nearer to the sun whereon it delights to gaze. 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 87 
 
 68. Now let us sum up in one main point of view all 
 that has hitherto been said. In general, when we con- 
 sider the history of civilization in a race of men which 
 is split up in history into an age of antiquity and a new 
 world, we shall find on the whole that the function of 
 these two main branches in the original development of 
 this new world is as follows. That part of the vigorous 
 nation which has gone abroad and adopted the language 
 of antiquity thereby acquires a much closer relation- 
 ship to antiquity. At the beginning it will be far easier 
 for this part of the nation to grasp the language of anti- 
 quity in its first and unchanged form, to penetrate the 
 memorials of its culture, and to bring into them enough 
 fresh life to enable them to be adapted to the new life 
 that has arisen. In short, it is from them that the study 
 of classical antiquity has taken its way over modern 
 Europe. In its enthusiasm for the unsolved problems of 1 
 antiquity it will continue to work at them, but, of course, 
 only as one works at a problem that has been set, not by 
 the needs of life, but by mere curiosity. It will take them 
 lightly and not whole-heartedly, grasping them merely 
 with the power of imagination, and solely in this medium 
 giving them, as it were, an airy body. The very wealth 
 of material bequeathed by antiquity, and the ease with 
 which the work can be carried on in this fashion, will 
 enable them to bring an abundance of such images into 
 the field of vision of the modern world. Now, when 
 these images of the ancient world in their new form 
 reach that part of the original stock which, by its reten- 
 tion of the language, has remained in the stream of original 
 culture, they will arouse the attention of the people and 
 stimulate them to activity on their own part ; though, 
 perhaps, these images, if they had remained in the old 
 form, would have passed before them unheeded and 
 
88 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 unperceived. But as soon as they have really grasped 
 them and not, as it were, merely passed them on from 
 hand to hand, they will grasp them as their nature 
 impels them to do, not merely as knowledge of a foreign 
 life, but as an element of their own life. So they will 
 not only derive them from the life of the new world, 
 but also bring them into it again, incarnating the hitherto 
 merely airy figures in solid bodies that will endure in 
 real life. 
 
 These figures, thus transformed in a way that would 
 never have been possible to foreign countries, the latter 
 now receive from them again. Through this channel 
 alone is a development of the human race possible on the 
 path of antiquity, a union of the two main portions, and 
 a regular progress of human evolution. In this new order 
 of things the mother-country will not actually invent 
 anything ; but, in the smallest as in the greatest matters, 
 it will always have to acknowledge that it has been 
 stimulated by some hint from abroad. The foreign 
 countries themselves were in their turn stimulated by 
 the ancients, but the mother-country will take earnestly, 
 and bring into life, what other countries have only super- 
 ficially and hastily sketched out. As we have already 
 said, this is not the place to illustrate this relationship by 
 striking and far-reaching examples. This we reserve for 
 our next address. 
 
 69. In this way both parts of the joint nation remained 
 one, and only in this simultaneous separation and unity do 
 they form a graft on the stem of the culture of antiquity, 
 which otherwise would have been broken off by the new 
 age, and so humanity would have begun again from the 
 beginning. The two parts have these vocations laid 
 upon them, different at the starting-point but coming 
 together at the goal ; each part must recognize its own 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF THE DIFFERENCE 89 
 
 vocation and that of the other, and in accordance there- 
 with each part must make use of the other. It is especi- 
 ally necessary for each part to consent to assist the other 
 and to leave its characteristic quality untouched, if good 
 progress is to be made in the general and complete culture 
 of the whole. The recognition of this ought to come 
 first from the mother-country, which has been endowed 
 in the first place with the sense of profundity. But if 
 ever foreign countries, in their blindness to this relation- 
 ship, should be so far carried away by what appears on 
 the surface as to attempt to deprive their mother-country 
 of its independence and so to destroy and absorb it, 
 they would thereby, if their attempt succeeded, sever for 
 themselves the last vein connecting them with nature 
 and with life, and fall defenceless into spiritual death, 
 which indeed, apart from this, has been revealing itself 
 to be their true nature more and more clearly as time 
 has gone on. Then the hitherto continuous stream of 
 the development of our race would be in fact at an end ; 
 barbarism would be bound to begin again and to go on 
 without hope of deliverance, until we were all living in 
 caves again like wild beasts and, like them, devouring 
 one another. That this is really so and must inevitably 
 follow, only the German can see, of course, and only he 
 shall see it. To the foreigner, who, since he knows no 
 foreign culture, has unlimited scope to admire himself 
 in his own, it must and it may always appear preposterous 
 blasphemy proceeding from ill-educated ignorance. 
 
 Non-German countries are the earth, from which 
 fruitful vapours detach themselves and arise to the clouds, 
 and by which even now the old gods condemned to 
 Tartarus keep in touch with the sphere of life. The 
 mother-country is the eternal sky enveloping the earth, 
 the sky in which the light vapours are condensed to clouds 
 
9 o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 which, impregnated by the lightning flash of the Thunderer 
 from the other world, descend in the form of fertilizing 
 rain, uniting sky and earth and causing the gifts whose 
 home is in the sky to germinate in the lap of earth. 
 Do new Titans once more want to take heaven by storm ? 
 It will not be heaven for them, for they are earth-born, 
 and the very sight and influence of heaven will be taken 
 from them. Only their earth will remain to them, a cold, 
 gloomy, and barren habitation. But, says a Roman poet, 
 what could a Typhceus do, or the mighty Mimas, or 
 Porphyrion with his threats, or Enceladus, the rash 
 hurler of uprooted tree-trunks, if they flung themselves 
 against the resounding shield of Pallas ? It is this very 
 shield that will undoubtedly cover us too, if we under- 
 stand how to betake ourselves to its protection. 
 
SIXTH ADDRESS 
 
 GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS AS EXHIBITED IN HISTORY 
 
 70. In our last address we stated what would be the 
 chief differences between a people that has developed in 
 its original language and a people that has adopted a 
 foreign one. We said at the time that, so far as foreign 
 countries were concerned, we would leave it to each 
 observer's own judgment to decide whether those mani- 
 festations had in fact occurred which, according to our 
 assertions, were bound to occur. But with regard to the 
 Germans we undertook to prove that they had in fact 
 turned out to be what, according to our assertions, a 
 people with a primitive language was bound to be. 
 To-day we proceed to the fulfilment of our promise ; 
 and we prove our assertions, first of all, by the latest, 
 great and, in a certain sense, completed achievement of 
 the German people, an achievement of world-wide 
 importance — the reformation of the Church. 
 
 71. Christianity, which originated in Asia, and in the 
 days of its corruption became more Asiatic than ever, 
 preaching only silent resignation and blind faith, was 
 something strange and foreign even to the Romans. 
 They never really laid hold of and assimilated it, and 
 their nature was divided by it into two halves that did 
 not fit each other ; nevertheless, the foreign part was 
 joined on by means of their inherited and melancholy 
 91 
 
92 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 superstition. In the immigrant Teutons this religion 
 found disciples who had no previous intellectual educa- 
 tion to hinder its acceptance, but also no hereditary 
 superstition favourable to it. Hence, it was presented to 
 them as one of the things that formed part of the equip- 
 ment of a Roman, which is what they wanted to become ; 
 but it had no special influence on their life. These 
 Christian educators would obviously not let their new 
 converts know any more than suited their purpose 
 about the ancient culture of Rome or its language, the 
 key to its culture ; and here, too, we have a reason for the 
 decay and death of the Latin language in their mouth. 
 When later the untouched and genuine works of the old 
 culture fell into the hands of these peoples, and when the 
 impulse to think and understand for themselves was 
 thereby stirred into action, then, partly because this 
 impulse was new and fresh to them, and partly because 
 they had no inherited terror of the gods to act as a 
 counterpoise, the contradiction between blind faith and 
 the strange things that in course of time had become its 
 objects was bound to strike them far more sharply than it 
 had struck the Romans themselves when Christianity first 
 came to them. The perception of an utter contradic- 
 tion in what one has hitherto faithfully believed excites 
 laughter. Those who had solved the riddle laughed and 
 mocked ; and even the priests, who had also solved it, 
 laughed with the rest ; they could do so in safety, because 
 only very few people had access to the classical culture 
 which broke the spell. Here I refer especially to Italy, 
 the chief seat of neo-Latin culture at that time, the other 
 neo-Latin races being still very far behind Italy in every 
 respect. 
 
 They laughed at the deception, because there was no 
 earnestness in them to turn bitter. Their exclusive 
 
GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 93 
 
 possession of rare knowledge strengthened them in their 
 position as a distinguished and educated class, and so they 
 were quite willing that the great multitude, for whom 
 they had no feeling, should remain under the sway of the 
 deception and thus be more subservient to their purposes. 
 This state of things— a people deceived, and their betters 
 making use of the deception and laughing at them — might 
 have continued ; and it would probably have continued 
 until the end of time, if there had been none but neo- 
 Latins in the modern world. 
 
 Here you have a clear proof of what I said about the 
 continuation of ancient culture by the new, and about 
 the share the neo-Latins are able to have in it. The 
 new light proceeded from the ancients and, falling 
 first upon the central point of neo-Latin culture, was 
 there developed into nothing more than an intellectual 
 view of things, without taking hold of life and shaping 
 it differently. 
 
 72. But it was impossible for the existing state of 
 things to continue once this light had fallen upon a soul 
 whose religion was truly earnest and concerned about 
 life, when this soul was surrounded by a people to whom 
 it could easily impart its more earnest view, and when this 
 people found leaders who cared about its urgent needs. 
 However low Christianity may fall, there always remains 
 in it an essential part which contains truth and which is 
 sure to stimulate life, if only it is real and independent 
 life. That part is the question : What shall we do to 
 be saved ? When this question fell on barren soil, 
 where either it remained undecided whether such a 
 thing as salvation was really possible, or else, even if that 
 was assumed, there was still no firm and decided will to 
 be saved — on such soil religion from the very beginning 
 did not affect life and will, but remained suspended in 
 
94 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 the memory and the imagination like a faint and quivering 
 shadow. So all further enlightenment concerning the 
 condition of the existing religious ideas was similarly 
 bound to remain without influence on life. But when, 
 on the other hand, that question fell upon soil that by 
 nature was living, where there was an earnest belief that 
 salvation existed and a firm will to be saved, where the 
 means of salvation prescribed by the existing religion 
 had been employed to that intent with inward faith, 
 honesty, and earnestness, and where, moreover, this 
 very earnestness long kept from the light the quality of 
 the prescribed means of salvation — when, I say, the new 
 light fell at last upon such a soil as this, the inevitable 
 result was horror and loathing of this deception in the 
 matter of the soul's salvation, and an unrest impelling 
 them to secure salvation in another way. What appeared 
 to be a rushing towards eternal ruin could not be treated 
 as if it were a joke. Moreover, the individual who was 
 first possessed by this view of the matter could not possibly 
 be content with saving only his own soul, and remain 
 indifferent to the welfare of all other immortal souls ; for, 
 if he had, he would thereby have saved not even his 
 own soul. Such was the teaching of his more profound 
 religion. He was bound, on the contrary, to wrestle for 
 all mankind with the same anxiety that he felt for his 
 own soul, so that the whole world might have its eyes 
 opened to the damnable delusion. 
 
 73. It was in this way that the light fell upon the soul 
 of the German man, Luther. Long before him very many 
 foreigners had seen the light and comprehended it more 
 clearly with the intellect. In refinement, in classical 
 culture, in learning, and in other things he was surpassed, 
 not only by foreigners, but even by many of his own nation. 
 He, however, was possessed by an all-powerful impulse, 
 
GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 95 
 
 the anxiety about eternal salvation, and this became the 
 life of his life, made him always throw his life into the 
 scale, and gave him the power and the gifts which are 
 the admiration of posterity. Others during the Reforma- 
 tion may have had earthly aims, but they would never 
 have been victorious had there not been at their head a 
 leader inspired by the eternal. That this man, who 
 always saw that the salvation of all immortal souls was at 
 stake, fearlessly and in all earnestness went to meet all 
 the devils in hell, is natural and in no way a wonder. 
 Here we have a proof of German earnestness of soul. 
 
 It was in the nature of things, as we have said, that 
 Luther should turn to all men with this question, which 
 concerns all men and which each man must deal with for 
 himself. First of all he turned to the whole of his own 
 nation. How, then, did his people respond to this pro- 
 posal ? Did they remain in their dull placidity, chained to 
 the ground by the cares of the world, and going on un- 
 disturbed in the accustomed path ? Or did this mighty 
 enthusiasm, such as is not manifested every day, merely 
 excite them to laughter ? By no means ! They were 
 seized by the same concern for the salvation of their souls ; 
 like fire it spread among them ; and so their eyes, too, 
 were quickly opened to the fullness of light, and they were 
 quick to accept what was offered to them. Was this 
 enthusiasm merely a momentary elevation of the imagina- 
 tion, unable to hold its ground in daily life with its stern 
 struggles and dangers ? By no means ! They renounced 
 all, endured all tortures, and fought in bloody and in- 
 decisive wars, solely that they might not again come under 
 the power of the accursed Papacy, but that the light of 
 the gospel, which alone can save, might shine upon them 
 and upon their children's children. There were renewed 
 among them, late in time, all the miracles that Chris- 
 
96 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 tianity showed forth among those who professed it when 
 it began. All the utterances of that period are filled with 
 this universal concern for salvation. Behold in this a 
 proof of the characteristic quality of the German people. 
 By enthusiasm it can easily be raised to enthusiasm and 
 clearness of any kind whatsoever, and its enthusiasm 
 endures for life and transforms life. 
 
 74. In earlier times and in other places reformers had 
 inspired masses of the people, and gathered and formed 
 them into communities. Yet these communities found 
 no firm abiding-place on the foundation of the existing 
 constitution, because the princes and rulers of the people 
 did not come over to their side. At first no more favour- 
 able destiny seemed to await Luther's Reformation. 
 The wise Elector, under whose eyes it began, seemed to 
 be wise rather in the foreign than in the German sense. 
 He did not appear to have any special grasp of the real 
 question at issue, nor to attach much importance to what 
 seemed to him a quarrel between two orders of monks ; 
 at the most he was concerned merely about the good 
 reputation of his newly-founded University. But he 
 had successors who, though far less wise than he, were 
 seized by the same earnest care for their salvation as 
 lived in their peoples, and by this likeness were fused 
 with them into one body for life or death, defeat or 
 victory. 
 
 Behold in this an illustration of the above-mentioned 
 characteristic of the Germans as a single body, and of 
 their constitution as established by nature. The great 
 events of national or world importance have hitherto 
 been brought before the people by speakers who came 
 forward voluntarily, and the people have taken up the 
 cause. Though their princes, from love of foreign ways 
 and the craving for brilliance and distinction, might at 
 
GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 97 
 
 first separate themselves, as those did, from the nation 
 and abandon or betray it, they were afterwards easily 
 swept into unanimity with the nation and took pity on 
 their peoples. That the former has always been the case 
 we shall prove more clearly hereafter by further illustra- 
 tions ; that the latter may always continue to be the 
 case we can only wish with fervent yearning. 
 
 75. One must confess that there was a darkness and 
 unclearness in the anxiety of that generation about the 
 salvation of souls, since it was a question, not merely of 
 changing the external mediator between God and man, 
 but of needing no external mediator at all and of finding 
 the bond of connection in one's self. Nevertheless, it 
 was perhaps necessary that the religious education of 
 mankind should go through this intermediate state. 
 Luther's own honest zeal gave him more than he sought, 
 and carried him far beyond his own dogmatic system. 
 Once he had successfully overcome the first inward con- 
 flicts, produced by his conscientious scruples when he 
 boldly broke away from the whole existing faith, all his 
 utterances are full of jubilation and triumph about the 
 freedom won for the children of God, who assuredly 
 no longer sought for salvation outside themselves and 
 beyond the grave, but were themselves a manifestation 
 of the immediate feeling of salvation. In this he became 
 the pattern for all generations to come, and died for us all. 
 Behold in this also a characteristic of the German spirit. 
 If it but seeks, it finds more than it sought, for it comes 
 into the stream of living life, which flows on of itself and 
 carries the seeker on with it. 
 
 76. To the Papacy, when taken and judged according 
 to its own view of the matter, wrong was undoubtedly 
 done by the way in which it was taken by the Reformation. 
 Its utterances were for the most part picked at random 
 
 7 
 
 1 
 
98 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 from the existing language ; they exaggerated in Asiatic 
 and rhetorical fashion and were intended to have what- 
 ever validity they could ; they reckoned on more than 
 due deduction being made in any case, but were never 
 seriously measured, weighed, or intended. The Reforma- 
 tion took them with German seriousness at their full 
 weight ; it was right in thinking that everything should 
 be taken thus, but wrong in thinking that the others had 
 actually so taken it, and in blaming them for anything 
 more than their natural superficiality and lack of thorough- 
 ness. In general, we may say that this is what always 
 happens in every conflict of German seriousness with the 
 foreign spirit, whether the latter is found in foreign or 
 in German lands ; the foreign spirit is quite unable to 
 comprehend how anyone can wish to raise such a great 
 to-do about unimportant things like words and phrases. 
 Foreigners, when they hear it again from German mouths, 
 deny that th^y said what they did in fact say, and what 
 they go on saying and always will say. So they complain 
 of calumny, or pushing consistency too far, as they call 
 it, when one takes their utterances in their literal sense 
 and as seriously intended, and treats them as part of a 
 logical sequence of thought, which one traces back to 
 its principles and forward to its conclusions ; although 
 one is perhaps very far from attributing to them in person 
 a clear consciousness of what they say or any logical 
 consistency. In the demand that one must take every- 
 thing as it is meant, but not go further and call in question 
 the right to have opinions and to express them — in that 
 demand the foreign spirit always betrays itself, however 
 deeply it may be concealed. 
 
 77. The seriousness with which the old system of 
 religious doctrine was now taken compelled this system 
 itself to be more serious than it had been hitherto, 
 
GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 and to undertake a new examination, interpretation, and 
 consolidation of the old doctrine and practice for the 
 future. Let this, and the example that is to follow, be 
 to you an illustration of the way in which Germany has 
 always reacted on the rest of Europe. The general 
 result was that the old doctrine thus obtained, at any rate, 
 such innocuous efficacy as was possible to it, once it had 
 been resolved not to abandon it altogether. But in 
 particular, to those who supported it, it became an oppor- 
 tunity for, and a challenge to, more thorough and consistent 
 reflection than had been given to it before. The doc- 
 trine, thus reformed in Germany, spread into the neo- 
 Latin countries and there produced the same result, viz., 
 a loftier enthusiasm ; but, as this phenomenon was tran- 
 sitory, we shall say no more about it here. It is, how- 
 ever, noteworthy that in none of the entirely neo-Latin 
 countries did the new doctrine obtain permanent recog- 
 nition by the State, for it seems that German thoroughness 
 among the rulers and German good-nature among the 
 people were needed, if this doctrine was to be found 
 compatible and made compatible with the supreme 
 power. 
 
 78. In another respect, however, Germany exercised a 
 general and permanent influence on other countries — 
 though, indeed, not on the common people, but on the 
 educated classes — by its reformation of the Church. 
 By means of this influence Germany once more made 
 other countries its forerunners and its instigators to 
 new creations. Free and spontaneous thinking, or philo- 
 sophy, had frequently been stimulated and practised in 
 the preceding centuries under the dominion of the old 
 doctrine ; not, however, to bring forth truth out of 
 itself, but solely to show that the doctrine of the Church 
 was true and in what way it was true. Among the 
 
ioo ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 German Protestants, philosophy was at first given the 
 same task in regard to their doctrine, and with them it 
 became the handmaid of the gospel, just as with the 
 Schoolmen it had been the handmaid of the Church. 
 In foreign countries, which either had no gospel or else 
 had not apprehended it with pure German devotion and 
 depth of soul, this free-thinking, fanned into flame by the 
 brilliant triumph it had achieved, rose higher and more 
 easily, unfettered by a belief in the supersensuous. It 
 remained fettered, however, by a belief of the senses in 
 the natural understanding [Ferstand] that develops 
 without mental or moral training. Far from discovering 
 in the reason [Vernunft] the source of truth which rests 
 upon itself, the utterances of this raw understanding 
 were to this way of thinking exactly what the Church 
 was for the Schoolmen and the gospel for the first Protes- 
 tant theologians. As to whether they were true, not the 
 slightest doubt was raised ; the only question was how 
 they could maintain this truth against hostile assertions. 
 
 But, as this way of thinking did not even enter the 
 domain of the reason, whose opposition would have been 
 more important, it found no opponent except the exist- 
 ing historical religion. This it easily disposed of by 
 applying to it the measure of understanding or common 
 sense, which was presupposed, and thereby proving to 
 its own satisfaction that this religion was in direct con- 
 tradiction to the latter. Hence it came about that, 
 as soon as all this was made quite plain, the word " philo- 
 sopher " became synonymous with " irreligious atheist " 
 in foreign countries, and both designations served as 
 equally honourable marks of distinction. 
 
 79. This attempt at complete emancipation from all 
 belief in external authority, which was the right thing 
 about these struggles in foreign countries, acted as a fresh 
 
GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 101 
 
 stimulus to the Germans, from whom it had first pro- 
 ceeded by means of the reformation of the Church. It 
 is true that second-rate and unoriginal minds among us 
 simply repeated this foreign doctrine — better the foreign 
 doctrine, it seems, than the doctrine of their fellow- 
 countrymen, though this was to be had just as easily ; 
 the reason being that they took the former to be more 
 distinguished — and these minds tried to convince them- 
 selves about it, so far as that was possible. But where 
 the independent German spirit was astir, the sensuous 
 was not enough, and there arose the problem of dis- 
 covering the supersensuous (which is, of course, not to be 
 believed in on external authority) in the reason itself, 
 and thus of creating for the first time true philosophy 
 by making free thought the source of independent truth, 
 as it should be. To that end Leibniz strove in his 
 conflict with that foreign philosophy ; and the end was 
 attained by the true founder of modern German philo- 
 sophy, 1 not without a confession of having been aroused 
 to it by the utterance of a foreigner, which had, however, 
 been taken more profoundly than it had been intended. 
 Since that time the problem has been completely solved 
 among us, and philosophy has been perfected. One must 
 be content for the present with stating this as a fact, 
 until an age comes which comprehends it. On this 
 condition, the result once more would be the creation 
 in the German mother-country, on the stimulus of 
 antiquity which has come to it through neo-Latin lands, 
 of a new age such as never existed before. 
 
 80. We, their contemporaries, have seen how the 
 inhabitants of a foreign country 2 took up lightly, and 
 
 1 [Kant, who confessed to having been roused from his " dogmatic 
 slumber " by Hume.] 
 
 2 [The reference is to the French Revolution.] 
 
io2 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 with fervent daring, another problem of reason and philo- 
 sophy for the modern world — the establishment of the 
 perfect State. But, shortly afterwards, they abandoned 
 this task so completely that they are compelled by their 
 present condition to condemn the very thought of the 
 problem as a crime, and they had to use every means to 
 delete, if possible, those efforts from the annals of their 
 I history. The reason for this result is as clear as day ; 
 | the State in accordance with reason cannot be built up 
 1 by artificial measures from whatever material may be 
 I at hand ; on the contrary, the nation must first be trained 
 : and educated up to it. Only the nation which has 
 first solved in actual practice the problem of educating 
 perfect men will then solve also the problem of the 
 perfect State. 
 
 Since our reformation of the Church, the last-men- 
 tioned problem of education has more than once been 
 attempted by foreign countries in a spirited fashion, 
 but in accordance with their own philosophy ; and among 
 us a first result of their efforts has been to stimulate 
 some to imitation and exaggeration. To what point the 
 German spirit once more has finally brought this matter 
 in our days we shall relate in more detail at the proper 
 time. 
 
 81. In what has been said you have a clear conspectus 
 of the whole history of culture in the modern world, 
 and of the never-varying relationship of the different 
 parts of the modern world to the world of antiquity. 
 True religion, in the form of Christianity, was the germ of 
 the modern world ; and the task of the latter may be 
 summed up as follows : to make this religion permeate 
 the previous culture of antiquity and thereby to spiritualize 
 and hallow it. The first step on this path was to rid 
 this religion of the external respect of form which robbed 
 
GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 it of freedom, and to introduce into it also the free- 
 thinking of antiquity. Foreign countries provided the 
 stimulus to this step ; the German took the step. The 
 second step, which is really the continuation and com- 
 pletion of the first, namely, to discover in our own selves 
 this religion, and with it all wisdom- — this, too, was pre- 
 pared by foreign countries and completed by the German. 
 The next step forward that we have to make in the plan 
 of eternity is to educate the nation to perfect manhood. 
 Without this, the philosophy that has been won will never 
 be widely comprehended, much less will it be generally 
 applicable in life. On the other hand, and in the same 
 way, the art of education will never attain complete 
 clearness in itself without philosophy. Hence, there is 
 an interaction between the two, and either without the 
 other is incomplete and unserviceable. If only because 
 the German has hitherto brought to completion all the 
 steps of culture and has been preserved in the modern 
 world for that special purpose, it will be his work, too, in 
 respect of education. But, when education has once been 
 set in order, the same will follow easily with the other 
 concerns of humanity. 
 
 82. This, then, is the actual relationship in which the 
 German nation has hitherto stood with regard to the 
 development of the human race in the modern age. We 
 have still to throw more light upon an observation, 
 which has already been made twice, as to the natural 
 course of development which events have taken with our 
 nation, viz., that in Germany all c ulture has proceeded I 
 from-the people. That the reformation of the Church 
 was first brought before the people, and that it succeeded ' 
 only because it became their affair, we have already seen. 
 But we have further to show that this single case was not 
 an exception ; it has, on the contrary, been the rule. 
 
io 4 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 83. The Germans who remained in the motherland 
 had retained all the virtues of which their country had 
 formerly been the home — loyalty, uprightness, honour, 
 and simplicity ; but of training to a higher and intellectual 
 life they had received no more than could be brought by 
 the Christianity of that period and its teachers to men 
 whose dwellings were scattered. This was but little : 
 hence, they were not so advanced as their racial kinsmen 
 who had emigrated. They were in fact good and honest, 
 it is true, but none the less semi-barbarians. There arose 
 among them, however, cities erected by members of 
 the people. In these cities every branch of culture 
 quickly developed into the fairest bloom. In them arose 
 civic constitutions and organizations which, though but 
 on a small scale, were none the less of high excellence ; 
 and, proceeding from them, a picture of order and a love 
 of it spread throughout the rest of the country. Their 
 extensive commerce helped to discover the world. 
 Their league was feared by kings. The monuments of 
 their architecture are standing at the present day and have 
 defied the ravages of centuries; before them posterity 
 stands in admiration and confesses its own impotence. 
 
 84. It is not my intention to compare these burghers 
 of the German imperial cities in the Middle Ages with the 
 other estates of the same period, nor to ask what was being 
 done at that time by the nobles and the princes. But, 
 in comparison with the other Teutonic nations — leaving 
 out of account some districts of Italy, and in the fine arts 
 the Germans did not lag behind even these, whereas in 
 the useful arts they surpassed them and became their 
 teachers — leaving these out of account, I say that the 
 German burghers were the civilized people, and the 
 others the barbarians. The history of Germany, of 
 German might, German enterprise and inventions, of 
 
GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 105 
 
 German monuments and the German spirit — the history 
 of all these things during that period is nothing but the 
 history of those cities ; and everything else, for example 
 the mortgaging of petty territories and their subsequent 
 redemption and so on, is unworthy of mention. More- 
 over, this period is the only one in German history in 
 which this nation is famous and brilliant, and holds the 
 rank to which, as the parent stock, it is entitled. As 
 soon as its bloom is destroyed by the avarice and tyranny 
 of princes, and as soon as its freedom is trodden under- 
 foot, the whole nation gradually sinks lower and lower, 
 until the condition is reached in which we are at present. 
 But, as Germany sinks, the rest of Europe is seen to sink 
 with it, if we regard, not the mere external appearance, 
 but the soul. 
 
 The decisive influence of this burgher class, which was 
 in fact the ruling power, upon the development of the 
 German imperial constitution, upon the reformation 
 of the Church, and upon everything that ever character- 
 ized the German nation and thence took its way abroad, 
 is everywhere unmistakable ; and it can be proved that 
 everything which is still worthy of honour among the 
 Germans has arisen in its midst. 
 
 85. In what spirit did this German burgher class 
 bring forth and enjoy this period of bloom ? In the 
 spirit of piety, of honour, of modesty, and of the sense 
 of community. For themselves they needed little ; 
 for public enterprises they set no limits to their expen- 
 diture. Seldom does the name of an individual stand 
 out or distinguish itself, for they were all of like mind 
 and alike in sacrifice for the common weal. Under 
 precisely the same external conditions as in Germany, 
 free cities had arisen in Italy also. Compare the his- 
 tories of both ; contrast the continual disorders, the 
 
io6 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 internal conflicts, nay, even wars, the constant change of 
 constitutions and rulers in the latter with the peaceful 
 unity and concord in the former. How could it be more 
 clearly demonstrated that there must have been an 
 inward difference in the dispositions of the two nations ? 
 The German nation is the only one among the neo- 
 European nations that has shown in practice, by the 
 example of its burgher class for centuries, that it is capable 
 of enduring a republican constitution. 
 
 86. Of the separate and special means of once more 
 raising the German spirit a very powerful one would be 
 in our hands if we had a soul-stirring history of the 
 Germans in that period — one that would become a book 
 for the nation and for the people, just as the Bible and 
 the hymn-book are now, until the time came when we 
 ourselves had again achieved something worthy of record. 
 But such a history should not set forth deeds and events 
 after the fashion of a chronicle ; it should transport us 
 by its fascinating power, without any effort or clear con- 
 sciousness on our part, into the very midst of the life of 
 that time, so that we ourselves should seem to be walking 
 and standing and deciding and acting with them. This 
 it should do, not by means of childish and trumpery 
 fabrications, as so many historical novels have done, but 
 by the truth ; and it should make those deeds and events 
 visible manifestations of the life of that time. Such a 
 work, indeed, could only be the fruit of extensive know- 
 ledge and of investigations that have, perhaps, never yet 
 been made ; but the author should spare us the exhibi- 
 tion of this knowledge and these investigations, and simply 
 lay the ripened fruit before us in the language of the 
 present day and in a manner that every German without 
 exception could understand. In addition to this historical 
 knowledge, such a work would demand a high degree of 
 
GERMAN CHARACTERISTICS 107 
 
 philosophical spirit, which should display itself just as 
 little, and above all things a faithful and loving disposition. 
 
 87. That age was the nation's youthful dream, within 
 a narrow sphere, of its future deeds and conflicts and 
 victories, and the prophecy of what it would be once 
 it had perfected its strength. Evil associations and the 
 seductive power of vanity have swept the growing nation 
 into spheres which are not its own ; and, because it there 
 sought glory too, it stands to-day covered with shame 
 and fighting for its very life. But has it indeed grown 
 old and feeble ? Has not the well of original life con- 
 tinued to flow for it, as for no other nation, since then 
 and until to-day ? Can those prophecies of its youthful 
 life, which are confirmed by the condition of other 
 nations and by the plan of civilization for all humanity — 
 can they remain unfulfilled ? Impossible ! O, that 
 someone would bring back this nation from its false path, 
 and in the mirror of its youthful dreams show it its true 
 disposition and its true vocation ! There let it stand 
 and ponder, until it develops the power to take up its 
 vocation with a mighty hand. May this challenge be 
 of some avail in bringing out right soon a German man 
 equipped to perform this preliminary task ! 
 
SEVENTH ADDRESS 
 
 A CLOSER STUDY OF THE ORIGINALITY AND 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF A PEOPLE 
 
 88. In the preceding addresses we have indicated and 
 proved from history the characteristics of the Germans 
 as an original people, and as _a_pe_ople that has t he r ight 
 to_ call itself s imp ly the people, in contrast to other 
 branches that have been torn away from it ; for, indeed, 
 the word " deutsch " in its real signification denotes 
 what we have just said. It will be in accordance with 
 our purpose if we devote another hour to this subject 
 and deal with a possible objection, viz., that if this is 
 something peculiarly German one must confess that at 
 the present time there is but little left that is German 
 among the Germans themselves. As we are quite 
 unable to deny that this appears to be so, but rather 
 intend to acknowledge it and to take a complete view of 
 it in its separate parts, we propose to give an explana- 
 tion of it at the outset. 
 
 89. We have seen that the relationship in which the 
 original people of the modern world stood to the progress 
 of modern culture was as follows : the former received 
 from the incomplete, and never more than superficial, 
 efforts of foreign countries the first stimulus to more 
 profound creative acts, which were to be developed from 
 its own midst. As it undoubtedly takes time for the 
 108 
 
CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 109 
 
 stimulus to result in a creative act, it is plain that such 
 a relationship will bring about periods of time in which 
 the original people must seem to be almost entirely 
 amalgamated with foreign peoples and similar to them, 
 because it is then being stimulated only, and the creative 
 act which is to be the result has not yet forced its way 
 through. It is in such a period of time that Germany 
 finds itself at the present moment in regard to the great 
 majority of its educated inhabitants ; and that is the 
 reason for those manifestations of a love of everything 
 foreign which are a part of the very inner soul and life 
 of this majority. In the preceding address we saw that 
 the means by which foreign countries stimulate their 
 motherland at the present time is philosophy, which we 
 defined as free-thinking released from all fetters of belief 
 in external authority. Now, when this stimulus has not 
 resulted in a new creative act — and it will result thus in 
 extremely few cases, for the great majority have no con- 
 ception of what creation means — the following effects are 
 observable. For one thing, that foreign philosophy 
 which we have already described changes its own form 
 again and again. Another thing is that its spirit usurps 
 the mastery over the other sciences whose borders are 
 contiguous with philosophy, and regards them from its 
 own point of view. Finally, since the German after all 
 can n ever e n tirely lay as ide hisser i ousness and its direct 
 i nfluence on life, this philosopKy^lnfluences the habits 
 of public life and the principles and rules that govern it. 
 We shall substantiate these assertions step by step. 
 
 90. First of all and before all things : man does not_ 
 form his sc ientific view in a_p articular way volunta rily 
 and a rbitrarily , but it^ is_ for med for him_by his life, and 
 is in reality the inner, and to him unknown, root of his 
 own life, which has become his way of looking at things. 
 
no ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 It is what you real ly are in you r i nmost s oul that stand s 
 forth to your_ou tward e ye, a nd y ou w ould never be a ble 
 to see an ything else. If you are to see differently, you 
 must first of all become different. Now, the inner essence 
 of non-German ways, or of non-originality, is the belief 
 in something that is final, fixed, and settled beyond the 
 possibility of change, the belief in a border-line, on the 
 hither side of which free life may disport itself, but which 
 it is never able to break through and dissolve by its own 
 power, and which it can never make part of itself. This 
 impenetrable border-line is, therefore, inevitably present 
 to the eyes of foreigners at some place or other, and it is 
 impossible for them to think or believe except with such 
 a border-line as a presupposition, unless their whole 
 nature is to be transformed and their heart torn out of 
 their body. They inevitably believe in death as Alpha and 
 Omega, the ultimate source of all things and, therefore, 
 of life itself. 
 
 91. Our first task here is to show how this fundamental 
 belief of foreigners expresses itself among Germans at 
 the present time. 
 
 It expresses itself first of all in their own philosophy. 
 German philosophy of the present day, in so far as it is 
 worthy of mention here, s trives for thoroughn ess— an d^ 
 scientific Jiorm, regardless of the fact that those things 
 are beyond its reach ; it s trives for unity , and that also 
 not without the example of foreign countries in former 
 times ; it strives for reality and essence- — not for mere 
 appearance, but to find for this appearance a foundation 
 appearing in appearance. In all these points it is right, 
 and far surpasses the philosophies prevailing in foreign 
 countries at the present day ; for German philosophy in"' 
 its love of everything foreign is far more thorough and 1 
 more consistent than the foreign countries themselves. , 
 
CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS in 
 
 Now this foundation, which is to be the basis of mere 
 appearance, is for tho se philosophi es, however much more 
 incorrectly they may further define it, always fixed Being, 
 which is just what it is and nothing more , chained in 
 itself and bound to its own essence. Death, therefore, 
 and alienation from originality, which are within them, 
 stand forth before their eyes as well. Because they them- 
 selves are unable by any effort to rise out of themselves 
 to life as such, but always need a prop and a support for 
 their free upward flight, they do not get beyond this 
 support in their thinking, which is the image of their life. 
 That which is not Something is' to them inevitably ^ 
 Nothing, for their eyes see nothing else between that 
 Being in which growth has ceased and the Nothing, 
 because their life has nothing else. Their feeling, 
 which is their sole possible authority, seems to them 
 infallible. If anyone does not acknowledge this support 
 of theirs, they are far from assuming that to him life 
 alone is enough ; on the contrary, they believe that he 
 merely lacks the cleverness to perceive the support, 
 which they have no doubt supports him too, and the 
 capacity to raise himself by his exertions to their high 
 point of view. It is, therefore, futile and impossible to 
 instruct them ; one would have to construct them, and 
 to construct them differently, if one could. Now, in 
 this matter German philosophy of the present day is 
 not German, but a product of the foreign spirit. 
 
 ^ij. True philosophy, on the other hand, which has "T, 
 been perfected in itself and has penetrated beyond 
 appearance to the very kernel of appearance, proceeds 
 from the one, pure, divine life — life simply as such, which 
 it remains for all eternity, and always one — but not from 
 this or that kind of life. It sees how it is only in appear- 
 ance that this life ceaselessly closes and opens again, 
 
ii2 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 and how it is only in accordance with this law that life 
 attains Being and becomes a Something. In the view of 
 this philosophy. Being arises, whereas the other pres ujj- 
 poses it. So, then, this philosophy is in a very special 
 sense German only — that is, original. Vice versa, if 
 anyone were but a true German, he could not philoso- 
 phize in any way but this. 
 
 93. That system of thought, although it dominates the 
 majority of those who philosophize in German, is never- 
 theless not really a German system. Yet, whether it is 
 consciously set up as a true system of philosophical doctrine, 
 or whether, unknown to us, it is merely the basis for the 
 rest of our thinking, it influences the other scientific 
 views of the age. Indeed, it is a main effort of our age, 
 stimulated by foreign countries as we are, not merely 
 to lay hold of the material of science with the memory, as 
 our forefathers may be said to have done, but to turn it 
 over in our own independent thought and to philosophize 
 upon it. So far as the effort is concerned, our age is in 
 the right ; but when, in the execution of this philosophiz- 
 ing, it proceeds, as is to be expected, from the death- 
 creed of foreign philosophy, it will be in the wrong. 
 In this place we propose to glance only at those sciences 
 which are most closely connected with our whole plan, 
 and to trace the foreign ideas and views which are so 
 widespread in them. # 
 
 94. In holding that the establishment and government of 
 States should be looked upon as an independent art having 
 its own fixed rules, non-German countries have undoubt- 
 edly served us as forerunners, and they themselves found 
 their pattern in antiquity. But what will be regarded 
 as the art of the State by such a non-German country, 
 which in its language, the very element of its thinking 
 ^nd willing, has a support that is fixed, closed, and dead ? 
 
CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 113 <^*J 
 
 What, too, will all who follow its example regard as the 
 art of the State ? Undoubtedly it will be the art of finding 
 a similarly fixed and dead order of things, from which 
 condition of death the living movement of society is to 
 proceed, and to proceed as this art intends. This inten- 
 tion is to make the whole of life in society into a large 
 and ingeniously constructed clockwork pressure-machine, 
 in which every single part will be continually compelled 
 by the whole to serve the whole. The intention is to 
 do a sum in arithmetic with finite and given quantities, 
 and produce from them an ascertainable result ; and thus, 
 on the assumption that everyone seeks his own well-being, 
 to compel everyone against his wish and will to promote 
 the general well-being. Non-German countries have re- 
 peatedly enunciated this principle and produced ingenious 
 specimens of this art of social machinery. The mother- 
 land has adopted the theory, and developed its application 
 in the construction of social machines ; and here, too, as 
 always, in a manner that is deeper, truer, more thorough- 
 going, and much superior to its models. If at any time 
 there is a stoppage in the accustomed process of society, 
 such artists of the State can give no other explanation 
 than that perhaps one of the wheels has become worn 
 out, and they know no other remedy than to remove 
 the defective wheels and insert new ones. The more 
 deeply rooted anyone is in this mechanical view of 
 society, and the better he understands how to simplify 
 the mechanism by making all the parts of the machine as 
 alike as possible and by treating them all as if they were 
 of the same material, the higher is his reputation as an 
 artist of the State in this age of ours : and rightly so, for 
 things are even worse when those in control hesitate and 
 come to no decision and are incapable of any definite 
 opinion. 
 
ii 4 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 95. This view of the art of the State enforces respect 
 by its iron consistency and by an appearance of sublimity 
 which falls upon it ; and up to a certain point, especially 
 when the whole tendency is towards a monarchical con- 
 stitution, and one that is always becoming more purely 
 monarchical, it renders good service. But, when it 
 reaches that point, its impotence is apparent to everyone. 
 I will suppose that you have made your machine as perfect 
 as you intended, and that each and every lower part of 
 it is unceasingly and irresistibly compelled by a higher 
 part, which is itself compelled to compel, and so on up to 
 the top. But how will your final part, from which 
 proceeds the whole compelling power present in the 
 machine, be itself compelled to compel ? Suppose you 
 have overcome absolutely all the resistance to the main- 
 spring that might arise from the friction of the various 
 parts, and suppose you have given that mainspring a 
 power against which all other power vanishes to nothing, 
 which is all you could do even by mechanism, and suppose 
 you have thus created a supremely powerful monarchical 
 constitution ; how are you going to set this mainspring 
 itself in motion and compel it without exception to see 
 "{4 the right and to will it ? Tell me how you are going 
 to bring perpetual motion into your clockwork, which, 
 though properly designed and constructed, does not go. 
 Is, perhaps, as you sometimes say in your embarrassment, 
 the whole machine itself to react and to set its own main- 
 spring in motion ? Either this happens by a power that 
 itself proceeds from the stimulus of the mainspring ; or 
 else it happens by a power that does not proceed thence, 
 but is to be found in the whole thing independent of 
 ^the mainspring. No third way is possible. If you 
 suppose the first, you find yourselves reasoning in a circle, 
 and your principles of mechanics are in a circle too ; the 
 
CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 115 
 
 whole machine can compel the mainspring only in so 
 far as the machine itself is compelled by the mainspring 
 to compel it — that is to say, in so far as the mainspring 
 only indirectly compels itself. But if it does not compel 
 itself, and this is the defect we set out to remedy, no 
 motion whatever results. If you suppose the second case, 
 you confess that the source of all motion in your machine 
 is a power that has not entered at all into your calcula- 
 tions and regulations, and is not in any way controlled by 
 your mechanism. This power undoubtedly works as it 
 can without your aid and according to its own laws, 
 which are unknown to you. In each of the two cases, 
 you must confess yourselves botchers and impotent 
 boasters. 
 
 96. Now, people have felt this, and so they have wished, 
 under this system which, in its reliance upon compulsion, 
 need not concern itself about the other citizens, to educate 
 at any rate the prince by every kind of good doctrine and 
 instruction; for from the prince the whole movement,, 
 of society proceeds. But how can one be sure of finding 
 someone who by nature is capable of receiving the educa- 
 tion that is to make a prince ? Even if by a stroke of 
 luck he were to be found, how can one be sure that he, 
 whom no man can compel, will be ready and willing to 
 submit to discipline ? Such a view of the art of the 
 State, whether it is found on foreign or German soil, is 
 always a product of the foreign spirit. Here we may 
 remark, to the honour of the German race and the German 
 spirit, that, however good artists we might be in the mere 
 theory of these calculations which are based on compul- 
 sion, none the less, when it came to putting them into 
 practice, we were very much hampered by the dim 
 feeling that things should not be done in this way ; and 
 so in this matter we remained behind foreign countries. 
 
n6 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 Therefore, even should we be compelled to accept the 
 boon of foreign forms and laws intended for us, at least 
 let us not be unduly ashamed, as if our intelligence had 
 been incapable of attaining these heights of legislation. 
 As we are not inferior to any nation even in legislating, 
 when we only have the pen in our hands, it may well be 
 that we felt with regard to life that even the making of 
 such laws was not the right thing ; and so we preferred 
 to let the old system stand until the perfect system 
 should come to us, instead of merely exchanging the old 
 fashion for a new one just as transitory. 
 
 97. Altogether different is the genuine German art 
 of the State. It, too, seeks fixity, surety, and independence 
 of blind and halting nature, and in this it is quite in agree- 
 ment with foreign countries. But, unlike these, it does 
 not seek a fixed and certain thing, as the first element , 
 
 which will make the spirit, as the second element 
 
 on the contrary, it seeks from the very beginning, and as 
 
 the very first and only element, a firm and certain 
 
 spirit^ This is for it the mainspring, whose life 
 proceeds from itself, and which has perpetual motion ; 
 the mainspring which will regulate, and continually 
 keep in motion, the life of society. The German art of 
 the State understands that it cannot create this spirit 
 by reprimanding adults who are already spoilt by neglect, 
 but only by educating the young, who are still unspoilt. 
 Moreover, with this education it will not turn, as foreign 
 countries do, to the solitary peak, the prince, but to the 
 broad plain which is the nation ; for indeed the prince, 
 jtoo, will without doubt be part of the nation. Just as 
 the State, in the persons of its adult citizens, is the con- 
 tinued education of the human race, so must the future 
 citizen himself, in the opinion of this art of the State, 
 first be educated up to the point of being susceptible to 
 
CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 117 
 
 that higher education. So this German and very modern 
 art of the State becomes once more the very ancient 
 art of the State, which among the Greeks founded 
 citizenship on education and trained such citizens as 
 succeeding ages have never seen. Henceforth the German 
 will do what is in form the same, though in content it 
 will be characterized by a spirit that is not narrow and 
 exclusive, but universal and cosmopolitan. 
 
 98. That foreign spirit to which we have referred 
 prevails among the great majority of our people in another 
 matter, viz., their view of the whole life of a human 
 race and of history as the picture of that life. A nation 
 whose language has a dead and completed foundation 
 can only advance, as we showed on a previous occasion, 
 to a certain stage of development in all the departments of 
 rhetoric. That stage depends on the foundation of the 
 language, and the nation will experience a golden age. 
 Unless such a nation is extremely modest and self-depreci- 
 ative, it cannot fittingly think more highly of the whole 
 race than it does of itself, from its own knowledge ; 
 hence, it must assume that there will be a final, highest, 
 and for ever unsurpassable goal for all human develop- 
 ment. Just as those animal species, the beavers and the 
 bees, still build in the way they built thousands of years 
 ago, and have made no progress in the art during that long 
 period of time, so it will be, according to that nation, 
 with the animal species called man in all branches of 
 his development. These branches, impulses, and capaci- 
 ties it will be possible to survey exhaustively, and indeed 
 to see on examining a few members ; and then it will be 
 possible to indicate the highest development of each one 
 of them. Perhaps the human species will be far worse 
 off than the bee or beaver species ; for, though the latter 
 learn nothing new, they nevertheless do not deteriorate 
 
n8 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 in their art, whereas man, when he has once reached the 
 summit, is hurled back again, and may struggle for 
 hundreds or thousands of years to regain the point at 
 which it would have been better to leave him undis- 
 turbed. The human species, so these people think, will 
 undoubtedly have attained such culminating points in 
 education in the past, and enjoyed more than one golden 
 age ; to discover these points in history, to judge all 
 the efforts of humanity by them, and to lead humanity 
 back to them, will be their most strenuous endeavour. 
 According to them, history was finished long ago and has 
 been finished several times already. According to them, 
 there is nothing new under the sun, for they have destroyed 
 the source of eternal life under and over the sun, and only 
 let eternally-recurring death repeat itself and subside 
 time after time. 
 
 99. It is well known that this philosophy of history has 
 come to us from foreign countries, although it is dying 
 away even there at the present day and has become 
 almost exclusively German property. From this closer 
 kinship it follows also that this philosophy of history, which 
 we call ours, is able to understand the efforts of foreign 
 countries through and through ; and, although this 
 view of history is no longer expressed very often in 
 those countries, they go beyond expression, for they are 
 acting in accordance with it and constructing once more 
 a golden age. This philosophy is even able to prophesy, 
 and to point out to them the path they have still to take ; 
 it can pay them the tribute of genuine admiration, 
 which one who thinks as a German cannot pretend to do. 
 Indeed, how could he ? Golden ages are to him in every 
 respect a limitation proceeding from a state of death. 
 Gold may indeed be the most precious metal in the lap 
 of dead earth, he thinks, but the stuff of the living spirit 
 
CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 119 
 
 is beyond the sun and beyond all suns, and is their source. 
 For him history, and with it the human race, does not 
 unfold itself according to some mysterious hidden law, 
 like a round dance ; on the contrary, in his opinion a 
 true and proper man himself makes history, not merely 
 repeating what has existed already, but throughout all 
 time creating what is entirely new. Hence, he never 
 expects mere repetition, and even if it should happen 
 word for word as the old book says, at any rate he does not 
 admire it. 
 
 100. Now, the deadly foreign spirit, without our being 
 clearly aware of it, spreads itself in a similar way over the 
 rest of our scientific views, of which it may suffice to 
 have adduced the examples quoted. This happens 
 because at the present day we are working in our own 
 fashion upon stimuli previously received from abroad, 
 and are passing through that intermediate state. Because 
 it was pertinent to the matter in hand, I adduced those 
 examples ; and partly, too, so that no one should think 
 himself able to refute the statements here made by de- 
 ductions from the principles which we have quoted. It 
 is not the case that those principles would have remained 
 unknown to us, or that we could not ourselves have risen 
 to their high level ; far from it. On the contrary, we 
 know them quite well, and might perhaps, if we had time 
 to spare, be capable of developing them backwards and 
 forwards in their complete logical sequence. Only we 
 reject them right from the very beginning and also all 
 their consequences, of which there are more in our tradi- 
 tional way of thinking than the superficial observer may 
 find it easy to believe. 
 
 This foreign spirit influences not only our scientific 
 view of things, but also, and in the same way, our ordinary 
 life and the rules that govern it. But, in order to make 
 
i2o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 this clear, and to make what has been said still clearer, it is 
 necessary first of all to scrutinize more keenly the essence 
 of original life, or freedom. 
 
 101. Freedom, t aken in the__sense_ of_in decisive h esita- 
 t ion be tween s everal c ourse s e qually p ossible, is not life, 
 but only the forecourt and portal to real life. At some 
 time or other there must be an end of this hesitation 
 and an advance to decision and action ; and only then 
 
 , does life begin. 
 
 Now, at first sight, and when viewed directly, every 
 decision of the will appears as something primary, and in 
 : jio wise as something secondary, or as the effect of a prim ary 
 .thing which is its cause . It appears to be something 
 \ existing simply by itself, and existing just as it is. This 
 ; meaning we wish to establish as the sole possible sensible 
 ''meaning of the word freedom. But, with regard to the 
 inner content of such a decision of the will, there are 
 two cases possible, viz., on the one hand, there appears 
 in it only appearance, separated from essence and without 
 essence entering into its appearance in any way ; on the 
 other hand, essence enters in appearance into this appear- 
 ance of a decision of the will. In this connection it 
 must be remarked at once that essence can become 
 apparent only in a decision of the will, and in nothing 
 else whatever, although, on the other hand, there may be 
 decisions of the will in which essence does not manifest 
 itself at all, but only mere appearance. We proceed to 
 discuss the latter case first. 
 
 102. By its separation from, and its opposition to, 
 ,essence, as well as by the fact that it is itself capable of 
 
 Jlappearing and presenting itself, mere appearance simply 
 j as such is unalterably determined, and it is, therefore, 
 /(inevitably just what it is and turns out to be. Hence, 
 
 ->if any given decision of the will is, as we assume, in its 
 
CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 121 
 
 content mere appearance, it is to that extent, not in fact 
 free, primary, and original, but it is a result of necessity, 
 and is a secondary element proceeding just as it is from 
 a higher primary element, viz., the general law of appear- 
 ance. Now, the thinking of man, as we have mentioned 
 several times already, represents man to himself just as 
 he actually is, and always remains the true copy and mirror 
 of his inner being. For this reason, although such a 
 decision of the will appears at first sight to be free, just 
 because it is called a decision of the will, yet it cannot 
 appear so at all to deeper and prolonged thinking ; on 
 the contrary, the latter must think that it is a result of 
 necessity, which, of course, it actually is in fact. For 
 those people, whose will has never yet raised itself to a 
 higher sphere than the one in which it is held that a 
 will merely appears in them, the belief in freedom is, of 
 course, a delusion and a deception, proceeding from a 
 view that is casual and does not go beneath the surface. 
 For them there is truth only in thought — thought that 
 shows them everywhere only the chain of strict necessity. 
 
 103. The first and fundamental law of appearance, 
 simply as such, (we are entitled to refrain from stating the 
 reason, all the more so because it has been sufficiently 
 given elsewhere) is this : that it falls into a manifoldness, 
 which, in a certain respect, is an endless whole and, in a 
 certain other respect, a whole complete in itself. In 
 this completed whole of manifoldness every single part 
 is determined by all the rest, and, again, all the rest are 
 determined by this single part. Hence, if in the decision 
 of the will of the individual there emerges into appearance 
 nothing but the possibility of appearance and of repre- 
 sentation, and visibility in general, which is in fact the 
 visibility of nothing, then the content of such a decision 
 of the will is determined by the completed whole of all 
 
122 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 the possible will-decisions of this will and of all the other 
 possible individual wills ; and it contains, and can con- 
 tain, nothing more than that which remains to be willed 
 after all those possible decisions of the will have been 
 abstracted. Hence, there is in fact nothing independent, 
 original, and individual in it ; on the contrary, it is merely 
 secondary, the consequence of the general connection of 
 the sum of appearance in its separate parts. Indeed, it 
 has always been recognized as such by all who, though 
 on this level of culture, were capable of profound thought, 
 and their recognition of it has been expressed in the same 
 words as those of which we have just made use. But all 
 this is the result of the fact that in them not essence, but 
 merely appearance, enters into appearance. 
 
 104. On the other hand, where essence itself enters 
 into the appearance of a decision of the will directly and . 
 
 So 
 
 to speak, in its own person an d not by any representa- 
 
 tive, then all that has been mentioned above is likewise 
 present, following as it does fromxappearance as a com- 
 pleted whole, for appearance appearV-here also . But an 
 appearance of this kind does not consist merely of this sum 
 of its component parts, nor is it exhausted by that sum ; 
 p. on the contrary, there is in it something more, another 
 ^component part which is not to be explained by that 
 1\ connection, but remains over after what is explicable has 
 ^ ify been abstracted. That first component part is present 
 c here too, I said ; that ' something more ' becomes visible, 
 f ' and, by means of this visibility, but not at all by means of 
 [p* Bj its inner .essence, it comes under the general law and the 
 jtj conditions of visibleness. But it is still more than this 
 * V ' something,' which proceeds from some law or other and 
 K\' which, therefore, is a secondary thing and the result of 
 1 necessity ; and, in respect of this ' more,' it is of itself what 
 *lit is, a truly primary, original, and free thing. Since it 
 
CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 123 
 
 is this, it also appears thus to that thought which is deepest 
 and which has found completion in itself. The highest 
 law of visibleness is, as we have said, this : that the thing 
 appearing splits itself into an infinite manifoldness. This 
 ' more ' becomes visible, on every occasion, as more than 
 what proceeds at any particular moment from the sum t otal_ aJL~ 
 of appearance, and so on into infinity ; hence, this ' more ' 
 itself appears infinite. But it is as clear as noonday that 
 it acquires this infinity only because it is on each occasion In- 
 visible and thinkable, and that it is to be discovered only by 
 its contrast to what follows eternally from the sum total, 
 and by its being more than this. But, apart from this 
 need of thinking it, it exists, this ' more than everything 
 infinite,' which has the power of presenting itself eternally ; 
 this ' more,' I say, exists in pure simplicity and invariability 
 from the very beginning, and in all infinity it does not 
 become more than this ' more,' nor does it become less. 
 Nothing but its visibleness as more than the infinite — 
 and in no other way can it become visible in its highest 
 purity — creates the infinite and all that appears to appear 
 in it. Now, where this ' more ' actually enters as such a 
 visible ' more ' — but it can only enter in an act of will — 
 there essence itself, which alone exists and alone can exist, 
 and which exists of itself and by itself, divine essence enters 
 into appearance and makes itself directly visible ; and in 
 that place there exists, for that very reason, true originality 
 and freedom, and so there is also a belief in them. 
 
 10^ So, to the general question whether man is free"! 
 or not, there is no general answer ; for, just because man \ 
 is free in the lower sense, because he begins in indecisive j 
 vacillation and hesitation, he may be free, or he may not if 
 be free, in the higher sense of the word. In reality, the 
 way in which anyone answers this question is the clear 
 mirror of his true inward being. He who is in fact no 
 
i2 4 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 more than a link in the chain of appearances may, perhaps, 
 for a moment be under the delusion that he is free ; but 
 this delusion cannot hold its ground when he thinks more 
 strictly. Of necessity he thinks that all his fellows are 
 in the condition in which he finds himself. On the other 
 hand, he, whose life is possessed by the truth and has 
 become life direct from God, is free and believes in 
 
 1 06. He who believes in a fixed, rigid, and dead state 
 of being believes in it only because he is dead in himself ; 
 and, once he is dead, he cannot do anything but believe 
 thus, so soon as ever he becomes clear in himself. He 
 himself, with all his kind from beginning to end, becomes 
 something secondary and a necessary consequence of 
 some presupposed primary element. This presupposition 
 is his actual thinking, and by no means a merely fancied 
 thinking ; it is his true mind, the point at which his 
 thinking is itself directly life. Thus it is the source of 
 all the rest of his thinking, and of his judgment of his 
 kind in its past, which is history, in its future, which is 
 his expectations for it, and in its present, which is actual 
 life in himself and others. 
 
 This b elief in death, as_contrasted with an o rigina l and 
 living people, we have called the^ f oreign spirit. When 
 once this foreign spirit is present among Germans it will, 
 therefore, reveal itself in their actual life also, as quiet 
 resignation to what they deem the unalterable necessity 
 of their existence, as the abandonment of all hope of 
 improvement of ourselves or others by means of freedom, 
 as a disposition to make use of themselves and everyone 
 else just as they are, and to derive from their existence 
 the greatest possible advantage for ourselves ; in short, it 
 will reveal itself as the confession, eternally reflecting itself 
 in every stirring of life, of a belief in the universal and 
 
 freedom in himself and others. 
 
CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 125 
 
 equal sinfulness of all. This belief I have sufficiently 
 described in another place ; 1 I leave you to read this 
 description for yourselves and to decide how far it fits 
 the present time. This way of thinking and acting 
 arises from the state of inward death, as has often been 
 mentioned, only when that state becomes clear about 
 itself. On the other hand, so long as that state remains 
 in darkness, it retains the belief in freedom, which belief 
 is in itself true, and is only a delusion when it is applied 
 to existence in such a state of mind. Here we see clearly 
 and distinctly the disadvantage of clearness when the 
 soul is base. So long as this baseness remains in darkness, 
 it is continually disquieted, goaded, and impelled by the 
 unceasing claim to freedom, and it presents a point of 
 attack to the attempts to improve it. But clearness com- 
 pletes it and rounds it off in itself ; clearness imparts to 
 this base state of mind a cheerful resignation, the calm 
 of a good conscience, and self-satisfaction. As their 
 belief is, so is the result ; from now onwards they are in 
 fact incapable of improvement ; at the most they serve 
 to keep alive among their betters a pitiless loathing of 
 evil or a resignation to the will of God ; but, apart from 
 that, they are not of the least use in the world. 
 
 107. So, let there appear before you at last in complete 
 clearness what we have meant by Germans, as we have 
 so far described them. The true criterion is this : do 
 you believe in something absolutely primary and original 
 in man himself, in freedom, in endless improvement, in 
 the eternal progress of our race, or do you not believe in 
 all this, but rather imagine that you clearly perceive and 
 comprehend that the opposite of all this takes place ? 
 All who either are themselves alive and creative and 
 
 1 [Fichte adds this note here : see the Guide to the Blessed Life, 
 Lecture II.] 
 
126 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 productive of new things, or who, should this not have 
 fallen to their lot, at any rate definitely abandon the things 
 of naught and stand on the watch for the stream of 
 original life to lay hold of them somewhere, or who, 
 should they not even be so far advanced as this, at least 
 have an inkling of freedom and do not hate it or take 
 fright at it, but on the contrary love it — all these are 
 original men ; they are, when considered as a people, 
 an original people, ^£^_p_ eople sim ply. Germans. All 
 who resign themselves to being something secondary 
 and derivative, and who distinctly know and comprehend 
 that they are such, are so in fact, and become ever more 
 so because of this belief of theirs ; they are an appendix to 
 the life which bestirred itself of its own accord before them 
 or beside them ; they are an echo resounding from the 
 rock, an echo of a voice already silent ; they are, con- 
 sidered as a people, outside the original people, and to the 
 latter they are strangers and foreigners. In the nation 
 which to this very day calls itself simply the people, or 
 Germans, originality has broken forth into the light of 
 day in modern times, at any rate up to now, and the 
 power of creating new things has shown itself. Now, at 
 last, by a philosophy that has become clear in itself, the 
 mirror is being held up to this nation, in which it may 
 recognize and form a clear conception of that which it 
 hitherto became by nature without being distinctly 
 conscious of it, and to which it is called by nature ; and 
 a proposal is being made to this nation to make itself 
 wholly and completely what it ought to be, to do this 
 according to that clear conception and with free and 
 deliberate art, to renew the alliance, and to close its circle. 
 The principle according to which it has to close its 
 
 [circle is laid before it : whoever believes in s pirituality 
 and in_t he f r eedom of this spir ituality , and who_wills 
 
CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 127 
 
 the- eternal development of this s pirituality by freedom, I 
 wherever he m a y ha ve been bor n and wh at ever language I 
 rnTspealcsV is of our blood ; he is one of us, and will come J 
 over to our side . Whoever believes in stagnation, 
 retrogression, and the round dance of which we spoke, 
 or who sets a dead nature at the helm of the world's 
 government, wherever he may have been born and what- 
 ever language he speaks, is non-German and a stranger 
 to us ; and it is to be wished that he would separate 
 himself from us completely, and the sooner the better. 
 
 108. So, too, at this point let there appear before you 
 at last, and unmistakably, what that philosophy, which 
 with good reason calls itself the German philosophy, 
 really wants, and wherein it is strictly, earnestly, and 1 
 inexorably opposed to any foreign philosophy that believes W 
 in death. The German philosophy has as its support lJ( 
 what we said above about freedom ; and he that still | 
 hath ears to hear, let him hear. Let it appear before you, 
 not in the least with the intention of making the dead 
 understand it, which is impossible, but so that it may be 
 harder for the dead to twist its words, and to make out 
 that they themselves want more or less the same thing 
 and at bottom are of the same mind. This German 
 philosophy does, indeed, raise itself by the act of thinking 
 — not merely boasting about it, in accordance with a dim 
 notion that it ought to be so, without being able to put 
 it into practice — it raises itself to the ' more than all 
 infinity ' that is unchangeable, and in this alone it finds true 
 being. It perceives time and eternity and infinity in their 
 rise from the appearing and becoming visible of that One 
 which is in itself invisible and which is only comprehended, 
 rightly comprehended, in this invisibility. Even infinity 
 is, according to this philosophy, nothing in itself, and there 
 is in it no true being whatever. It is solely the means 
 
128 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 by which the One thing that exists, and exists only in its 
 invisibility, becomes visible, and the means by which there 
 is built up for the One an image, a form, and a shadow 
 of itself in the sphere of imagery. Everything else that 
 may become visible within this infinity of the world of 
 images is a nothing proceeding from nothing, a shadow 
 of the shadow, and solely the means by which that first 
 nothing of infinity and time itself becomes visible and 
 opens up to thought the ascent to invisible being without 
 image. 
 
 Within this, the sole possible image of infinity, the 
 invisible directly manifests itself only as free and original 
 life of the sight, or as a decision of the will made by a 
 reasonable being ; in no other way whatever can it appear 
 and manifest itself. All continuous existence that appears 
 as non-spiritual life is only an empty shadow projected 
 from the world of sight and enlarged by the intermediary 
 of the nothing — a shadow, in contrast to which, and by 
 recognizing it as a nothing enlarged by transmission, 
 the world of sight itself ought to elevate itself to the 
 recognition of its own nothingness and to the acknow- 
 ledgment of the invisible as the only thing that is true. 
 
 109. Now, in these shadows of the shadows of shadows 
 that philosophy of being, which believes in death and 
 becomes a mere philosophy of nature, the deadest of all 
 philosophies, remains a captive, and dreads and worships 
 its own creature. 
 
 This constancy is the expression of its true life and of 
 its love ; and herein this philosophy is to be believed. 
 But, when it goes on to say that this being, which it 
 presupposes as actually existing, is one with, and precisely 
 the same as, the Absolute, it is not to be believed, no matter 
 how often it asserts this, nor even though it takes many an 
 oath in confirmation. It does not know this, but only 
 
CLOSER STUDY OF CHARACTERISTICS 129 
 
 utters it trusting to luck, and blindly echoing another 
 philosophy whose tenet in this matter it does not venture 
 to dispute. If it should want to make good its claim to 
 knowledge, it would have to proceed, not from duality as 
 an undisputed fact (which its dictum, against which there 
 is no appeal, does away with only to leave in full sway) 
 but, on the contrary, from unity. From this unity it 
 would have to be capable of deducing duality, and with it 
 all manifoldness, in a clear and intelligible fashion. 
 For this, however, thought is needed, and reflection 
 consummated and perfected in itself. The philosophy 
 we are r.eferring to has, for one thing, never learnt the 
 art of thinking in this way and is indeed incapable of it, 
 having only the power to indulge in reverie. Besides, it 
 is hostile to this way of thinking and has no inclination 
 whatever to attempt it ; for, if it did, it would be dis- 
 turbed in the illusion that it holds so dear. 
 
 This, then, is the essential thing in which our philo- 
 sophy deliberately opposes that philosophy ; and on this 
 occasion it has been our purpose, once for all, to enunciate 
 and establish this as definitely as possible. 
 
 9 
 
EIGHTH ADDRESS 
 
 WHAT IS A PEOPLE IN THE HIGHER MEANING OF THE 
 WORD, AND WHAT IS LOVE OF FATHERLAND ? 
 
 no. The last four addresses have answered the question : 
 What is the German as contrasted with other peoples 
 of Teutonic descent ? The proof to be adduced by all 
 this for our investigation as a whole is completed when we 
 examine the further question : What is a p eople _i_ This 
 latter question is similar to another, and when it- is- answered 
 the other is answered too. The other question, which is 
 often raised and the answers to which are very different, 
 is this : What is love of fatherland, or, to express it more 
 correctly, what is the lo_ve of_the indi vidual for his nation ? 
 
 If we have hitherto proceeded correctly in the course 
 ibi our investigation, it must here be obvious at once that 
 / only the German — the original man, who has not become 
 [dead in an arbitrary organization — really has a people and 
 is entitled to count on one, and that he alone is capable of 
 real and rational love for his nation. 
 
 The problem having been thus stated, we prepare the 
 way for its solution by the following observation, which 
 seems at first to have no connection with what has pre- 
 ceded it. 
 
 in. Religion, as we have already remarked in our 
 third address, is able to transcend all time and the whole 
 of this present sensuous life, without thereby causing the 
 130 
 
PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 131 
 
 slightest detriment to the righteousness, morality, and 
 holiness of the life that is permeated by this belief. 
 Even if one is firmly persuaded that all our effort on this 
 earth will not leave the slightest trace behind it nor 
 yield the slightest fruit, nay more, that the divine effort 
 will even be perverted and become an instrument of 
 evil and of still deeper moral corruption, one can none 
 the less continue the effort, solely in order to maintain 
 the divine life that has manifested itself in us, and with 
 a view to a higher order of things in a future world, in 
 which no deed that is of divine origin is lost. Thus the 
 apostles, for example, and the primitive Christians 
 in general, because of their belief in heaven had their 
 hearts entirely set on things above the earth even in 
 their lifetime ; and earthly affairs — the State, their 
 earthly fatherland, and nation — were abandoned by them 
 so entirely that they no longer deemed them worthy of 
 attention. Possible though this is, and to faith not 
 difficult, and joyfully though one must resign one's self, 
 once it is the unalterable will of God, to having an earthly 
 fatherland no longer and to being serfs and exiles here 
 below, nevertheless it is not the natural condition nor the 
 rule of the universe ; on the contrary, it is a rare exception. 
 It is a gross misuse of religion , a misuse of which Chris- 
 tianity among other religions has frequently been guilty, 
 to make a point of recommending, on pr inciple and 
 without regard to existing circumstances, such a with- 
 drawal from the affairs of the State and the nation as 
 the mark of a true religious disposition. In such a con- 
 dition of things, if it is true and real and not merely the 
 product of fitful religious zeal, temporal life loses all 
 independent existence and becomes merely a forecourt 
 of true life and a period of severe trial which is endured 
 only out of obedience and resignation to the will of God. 
 
132 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 Then it is true that immortal souls, as many have imagined, 
 are housed in earthly bodies, as in prisons, for their punish- 
 ment. But, on the other hand, in the regular order of 
 things this earthly life itself is intended to be truly life , 
 of which we may be glad and which we may enjoy in 
 gratitude, while, of course, looking forward to a higher 
 life. Although it is true that religion is, for one thing, 
 the consolation of the unjustly oppressed slave, yet this 
 above all is the mark of a religious disposition, viz., to 
 •fight against slavery and, as far as possible, to prevent 
 religion from sinking into a mere consolation for captives. 
 No doubt it suits the tyrant well to preach religious 
 resignation and to bid those look to heaven to whom he 
 allows not the smallest place on earth. But we for our 
 part must be in less haste to adopt this view of religion 
 that he recommends ; and we must, if we can, prevent 
 earth from being made into a hell in order to arouse a 
 greater longing for heaven. 
 
 112. The natural impulse of man, which should be 
 abandoned only in case of real necessity, is to find heaven 
 on this earth, and to endow his daily work on earth with 
 permanence and eternity ; to plant and to cultivate the 
 eternal in the temporal — not merely in an incomprehen- 
 sible fashion or in a connection with the eternal that seems 
 to mortal eye an impenetrable gulf, but in a fashion 
 visible to the mortal eye itself. 
 
 Let me begin with an example that everyone will under- 
 stand. What man of noble mind is there who does not 
 earnestly wish to relive his own life in a new and better 
 way in his children and his children's children, and to con- 
 tinue to live on this earth, ennobled and perfected in their 
 Jives, long after he is dead ? Does he not wish to snatch 
 from the jaws of death the spirit, the mind, and the moral 
 sense by virtue of which, perchance, he was in the days 
 
PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 133 
 
 of his life a terror to wrongdoing and corruption, and 
 by which he supported righteousness, aroused men from 
 indolence, and lifted them out of their depression ? Does 
 he not wish to deposit these qualities, as his best legacy 
 to posterity, in the souls of those he leaves behind, so 
 that they too, in their turn, may some day hand them on 
 again, increased and made more beautiful ? What man of 
 noble mind is there who does not want to scatter, by 
 action or thought, a grain of seed for the unending 
 progress in perfection of his race, to fling something new 
 and unprecedented into time, that it may remain there 
 and become the inexhaustible source of new creations ? 
 Does he not wish to pay for his place on this earth and 
 the short span of time allotted to him with something 
 that even here below will endure for ever, so that he, the 
 individual, although unnamed in history (for the thirst 
 for posthumous fame is contemptible vanity), may yet in 
 his own consciousness and his faith leave behind him 
 unmistakable memories that he, too, was a dweller on the 
 earth ? What man of noble mind is there, I said, who 
 does not want this ? But only according to the needs of 
 noble-minded men is the world to be regarded and 
 arranged ; as they are, so all men ought to be, and for 
 their sake alone does a world exist. They are its kernel, 
 and those of other mind exist only for their sake, being 
 themselves only a part of the transitory world so long 
 as they are of that mind. Such men must conform to 
 the wishes of the noble-minded until they have become 
 like them. 
 
 113. Now, what is it that could warrant this challenge 
 and this faith of the noble-minded man in the perman- 
 ence and eternity of his work ? Obviously nothing 
 but an order of things which he can acknowledge as in 
 itself eternal and capable of taking up into itself that which 
 
134 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 is eternal. Such an order of things, however, is the special 
 spiritual nature of human environment which, although 
 indeed it is not to be comprehended in any conception, 
 nevertheless truly exists, and from which he himself, with 
 all his thoughts and deeds and with his belief in their 
 eternity, has proceeded — the people, from which he is 
 descended and among which he was educated and grew 
 up to be what he now is. For, though it is true beyond 
 dispute that his work, if he rightly claims it to be eternal, 
 is in no wise the mere result of the spiritual law of nature 
 of his nation or absolutely the same thing as this result, 
 but on the contrary is something more than that and in 
 so far streams forth directly from original and divine life ; 
 it is, nevertheless, equally true that this ' something more,' 
 immediately on its first embodiment in a visible form, 
 submitted itself to that special spiritual law of nature and 
 found sensuous expression for itself only according to that 
 law. So long as this people exists, every further revelation 
 of the divine will appear and take shape in that people 
 in accordance with the same natural law. But this law 
 itself is further determined by the fact that this man 
 existed and worked as he did, and his influence has become 
 a permanent part of this law. Hence, everything that 
 follows will be bound to submit itself to, and connect 
 itself with, that law. So he is sure that the improvement 
 achieved by him remains in his people so long as the 
 people itself remains, and that it becomes a permanent 
 determining factor in the evolution of his people. 
 
 1 14. This, then, is a people in the higher meaning of_ 
 the jword , when viewed from the standpoint of a spiritual 
 world : the totality of men continuing to live in society 
 with each other and continually creating themselves 
 naturally and spiritually out of themselves, a totality 
 that arises together out of the divine under a certain 
 
PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 135 
 
 special l aw of divine development. It is the subjection 
 in common to this special law that unites this mass in 
 the eternal world, and therefore in the temporal also, 
 to a natural totality permeated by itself. The significance 
 of this law itself can indeed be comprehended as a whole, 
 as we have comprehended it by the instance of the 
 Germans as an original people ; it can even be better 
 understood in many of its further provisions by consider- 
 ing the manifestations of such a people ; but it can never 
 be completely grasped by the mind of anyone, for everyone 
 continually remains under its influence unknown to him- 
 self, although, in general, it can be clearly seen that such a 
 law exists. This law is a ' something more ' of the world of 
 images, that coalesces absolutely in the phenomenal world 
 with the ' something more ' of the world of originality 
 that cannot be imaged ; hence, in the phenomenal world 
 neither can be separated again from the other. That 
 law determines entirely and completes what has been 
 called the national character of a people — that law of the 
 development of the original and divine. From this it is 
 clear that men who, as is the case with what we have 
 described as the foreign spirit, do not believe at all in 
 something original nor in its continuous development, but 
 only in an eternal recurrence of apparent life, and who 
 by their belief become what they believe, are in the higher 
 sense not a people at all. As they in fact, properly 
 speaking, do not exist, they are just as little capable of 
 having a national character. 
 
 115. The noble-minded man's belief in the eternal 
 continuance of his influence even on this earth is thus 
 founded on the hope of the eternal continuance of the 
 people from which he has developed, and on the character- 
 istic of that people as indicated in the hidden law of 
 which we have spoken, without admixture of, or corruption' 
 
136 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 by, any alien element which does not belong to the totality 
 of the functions of that law. This characteristic is the 
 eternal thing to which he entrusts the eternity of himself 
 and of his continuing influence, the eternal order of 
 things in which he places his portion of eternity ; he 
 must will its continuance, for it alone is to him the means 
 by which the short span of his life here below is extended 
 into continuous life here below. His belief and his struggle 
 to plant what is permanent, his conception in which he 
 comprehends his own life as an eternal life, is the bond 
 which unites first his own nation, and then, through 
 his nation, the whole human race, in a most intimate 
 fashion with himself, and brings all their needs within 
 his widened sympathy until the end of time. This is 
 his love for his people, respecting, trusting, and rejoicing 
 in it, and feeling honoured by descent from it. The 
 divine has appeared in it, and that which is original has 
 deemed this people worthy to be made its vesture and 
 its means of directly influencing the world ; for this 
 reason there will be further manifestations of the divine 
 in it. Hence, the noble-minded man will be active and 
 effective, and will sacrifice himself for his people. Life 
 merely as such, the mere continuance of changing exis- 
 tence, has in any case never had any value for him ; he 
 has wished for it only as the source of what is permanent. 
 But this permanence is promised to him only by the 
 continuous and independent existence of his nation. 
 In order to save his nation he must be ready even to die 
 that it may live, and that he may live in it the only life 
 for which he has ever wished. 
 
 1 1 6. So it is. Love that is truly love, and not a mere 
 transitory lust, never clings to what is transient ; only 
 iin the eternal does it awaken and become kindled, and 
 there alone does it rest. Man is not able to love even 
 
PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 137 
 
 himself unless he conceives himself as eternal ; apart from / 
 that he cannot even respect, much less approve of, him- I 
 self. Still less can he love anything outside himself 
 without taking it up into the eternity of his faith and of 
 his soul and binding it thereto. He who does not first 
 regard himself as eternal has in him no love of any kind, 
 and, moreover, cannot love a fatherland, a thing which for 
 him does not exist. He who regards his invisible life as 
 eternal, but not his visible life as similarly eternal, may 
 perhaps have a heaven and therein a fatherland, but 
 here below he has no fatherland, for this, too, is regarded 
 only in the image of eternity — eternity visible and made 
 sensuous — and for this reason also he is unable to love his 
 fatherland. If none has been handed down to such a 
 man, he is to be pitied. But he to whom a fatherland 
 has been handed down, and in whose soul heaven and 
 earth, visible and invisible meet and mingle, and thus, 
 and only thus, create a true and enduring heaven — such 
 a man fights to the last drop of his blood to hand on 
 the precious possession unimpaired to his posterity. 
 
 So it always has been, although it has not always been 
 expressed in such general terms and so clearly as we 
 express it here. What inspired the men of noble mind ? ^ 
 among the Romans, whose frame of mind and way of 
 thinking still live and breathe among us in their works of 
 art, to struggles and sacrifices, to patience and endurance 
 for the fatherland ? They themselves express it often 
 and distinctly. It was their firm belief in the eternal 
 continuance of their Roma, and their confident expecta- 
 tion that they themselves would eternally continue to 
 live in this eternity in the stream of time. In so far as 
 this belief was well founded, and they themselves would 
 have comprehended it if they had been entirely clear 
 in their own minds, it did not deceive them. To this"^ 
 
138 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 [very day there still lives in our midst what was truly 
 eternal in their eternal Roma ; they themselves live with 
 it, and its consequences will continue to live to the very 
 end of time. 
 
 117. People and fatherland in this sense, as a support 
 and guarantee of eternity on earth and as that which 
 
 i can be eternal here below, far transcend the State in the 
 ordinary sense of the word, viz., the social order as compre- 
 hended by mere intellectual conception and as established 
 and maintained under the guidance of this conception. 
 The aim of the State is positive law, internal peace, and 
 a condition of affairs in which everyone may by diligence 
 earn his daily bread and satisfy the needs of his material 
 existence, so long as God permits him to live. All this 
 
 •J is only a means, a condition, and a framework for what 
 love of fatherland really wants, viz., that the eternal and 
 the divine may blossom in the world and never cease 
 to become more and more pure, perfect, and excellent. 
 That is why this love of fatherland must itself govern the 
 State and be the supreme, final, and absolute authority. 
 Its first exercise of this authority will be to limit the 
 State's choice of means to secure its immediate object 
 — internal peace. To attain this object, the natural 
 freedom of the individual must, of course, be limited in 
 many ways. If the only consideration and intention in 
 regard to individuals were to secure internal peace, it 
 would be well to limit that liberty as much as possible, 
 to bring all their activities under a uniform rule, and to 
 keep them under unceasing supervision. Even supposing 
 such strictness were unnecessary, it could at any rate do 
 no harm, if this were the sole object. It is only the higher 
 view of the human race and of peoples which extends this 
 narrow calculation. Freedom, including freedom in the 
 activities of external life, is the soil in which higher culture 
 
PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 139 
 
 germinates ; a legislation which keeps the higher culture 
 in view will allow to freedom as wide a field as possible, 
 even at the risk of securing a smaller degree of uniform 
 peace and quietness, and of making the work of govern- 
 ment a little harder and more troublesome. 
 
 118. To illustrate this by an example. It has happened 
 that nations have been told to their face that they do not 
 need so much freedom as many other nations do. It may 
 even be that the form in which the opinion is expressed 
 is considerate and mild, if what is really meant is that the 
 particular nation would be quite unable to stand so much 
 freedom, and that nothing but extreme severity could 
 prevent its members from destroying each other. But, 
 when the words are taken as meaning what they say, they 
 are true only on the supposition that such a nation is 
 thoroughly incapable of having original life or even the 
 impulse towards it. Such a nation — if a nation could 
 exist in which there were not even a few men of noble mind 
 to make an exception to the general rule — would in fact 
 need no freedom at all, for this is needed only for the 
 higher purposes that transcend the State. It needs only 
 to be tamed and trained, so that the individuals may live 
 peaceably with each other and that the whole may be 
 made into an efficient instrument for arbitrary purposes 
 in which the nation as such has no part. Whether 
 this can be said with truth of any nation at all we may 
 leave undecided ; this much is clear, that an original 
 people needs freedom, that this is the security for its 
 continuance as an original people, and that, as it goes on, 
 it is able to stand an ever-increasing degree of freedom 
 without the slightest danger. This is the first matter in 
 respect of which love of fatherland must govern the State 
 itself. 
 
 119. Then, too, it must be love of fatherland that 
 
i 4 o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 governs the State by placing before it a higher object 
 than the usual one of maintaining internal peace, property, 
 personal freedom, and the life and well-being of all. 
 For this higher object alone, and with no other intention, 
 does the State assemble an armed force. When the 
 question arises of making use of this, when the call comes 
 to stake everything that the State, in the narrow concep- 
 tion of the word, sets before itself as object, viz., property, 
 personal freedom, life, and well-being, nay, even the 
 continued existence of the State itself ; when the call 
 comes to make an original decision with responsibility 
 to God alone, and without a clear and reasonable idea 
 that what is intended will surely be attained — for this 
 is never possible in such matters — then, and then only, 
 does there live at the helm of the State a truly original 
 and primary life, and at this point, and not before, the true 
 sovereign rights of government enter, like God, to hazard 
 the lower life for the sake of the higher. In the main- 
 tenance of the traditional constitution, the laws, and civil 
 prosperity there is absolutely no real true life and no 
 original decision. Conditions and circumstances, and 
 legislators perhaps long since dead, have created these 
 things ; succeeding ages go on faithfully in the paths 
 marked out, and so in fact they have no public life of 
 their own ; they merely repeat a life that once existed. 
 In such times there is no need of any real government. 
 But, when this regular course is endangered, and it is a 
 question of making decisions in new and unprecedented 
 cases, then there is need of a life that lives of itself. What 
 spirit is it that in such cases may place itself at the helm, 
 that can make its own decisions with sureness and cer- 
 tainty, untroubled by any hesitation ? What spirit has an 
 undisputed right to summon and to order everyone con- 
 cerned, whether he himself be willing or not, and to 
 
PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 141 
 
 compel anyone who resists, to risk everything including 
 his life ? Not the spirit of the peaceful citizen's love 
 for the constitution and the laws, but the devouring 
 flame of higher patriotism, which embraces the nation 
 as the vesture of the eternal, for which the noble-minded 
 man joyfully sacrifices himself, and the ignoble man, who 
 only exists for the sake of the other, must likewise sacri- 
 fice himself. It is not that love of the citizen for the 
 constitution ; that love is quite unable to achieve this, 
 so long as it remains on the level of the understanding. 
 Whatever turn events may take, since it pays to govern 
 they will always have a ruler over them. Suppose the new 
 ruler even wants to introduce slavery (and what is slavery 
 if not the disregard for, and suppression of, the character- 
 istic of an original people ? — but to that way of thinking 
 such qualities do not exist), suppose he wants to introduce 
 slavery. Then, since it is profitable to preserve the life 
 of slaves, to maintain their numbers and even their well- 
 being, slavery under him will turn out to be bearable if 
 he is anything of a calculator. Their life and their 
 keep, at any rate, they will always find. Then what is 
 there left that they should fight for ? After those two 
 things it is peace which they value more than anything. 
 But peace will only be disturbed by the continuance of 
 the struggle. They will, therefore, do anything just to 
 put an end to the fighting, and the sooner the better ; 
 they will submit, they will yield ; and why should they 
 not ? All they have ever been concerned about, and all 
 they have ever hoped from life, has been the continuation 
 of the habit of existing under tolerable conditions. The 
 promise of a life here on earth extending beyond the period 
 of life here on earth — that alone it is which can inspire 
 men even unto death for the fatherland. 
 
 120. So it has been hitherto. Wherever there has 
 
i 4 2 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 been true government, wherever bitter struggles have 
 been endured, wherever victory has been won in the face 
 of mighty opposition, there it has been that promise of 
 eternal life which governed and struggled and won the 
 victory. Believing in that promise the German Pro- 
 testants, already mentioned in these addresses, entered 
 upon the struggle. Do you think they did not know that 
 peoples could be governed by that old belief too, and held 
 together in law and order, and that under the old belief 
 men could procure a comfortable existence ? Why, then, 
 did their princes decide upon armed resistance, and why 
 did the peoples enthusiastically make such resistance ? 
 It was for heaven and for eternal bliss that they willingly 
 poured out their blood. But what earthly power could 
 have penetrated to the Holy of holies in their souls and 
 rooted out their belief — a belief which had been revealed 
 to them once for all, and on which alone they based their 
 hope of bliss ? Thus it was not their own bliss for which 
 they fought ; this was already assured to them ; it was 
 the bliss of their children and of their grandchildren as 
 yet unborn and of all posterity as yet unborn. These, 
 too, should be brought up in that same doctrine, which 
 had appeared to them as the only means of salvation. 
 These, too, should partake of the salvation that had dawned 
 for them. This hope alone it was that was threatened 
 by the enemy. For it, for an order of things that long 
 after their death should blossom on their graves, they so 
 joyfully shed their blood. Let us admit that they were 
 not entirely clear in their own minds, that they made 
 mistakes in their choice of words to denote the noblest 
 that was in them, and with their lips did injustice to their 
 souls ; let us willingly confess that their confession of 
 faith was not the sole and exclusive means of becoming a 
 partaker of the heaven beyond the grave ; none the less 
 
PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 143 
 
 it is eternally true that more heaven on this side of the 
 grave, a braver and more joyful look from earth upwards, 
 and a freer stirring of the spirit have entered by their 
 sacrifice into the whole life of succeeding ages. To this 
 very day the descendants of their opponents, just as much 
 as we ourselves, their own descendants, enjoy the fruits 
 of their labours. 
 
 121. In this belief our earliest common forefathers, 
 the original stock of the new culture, the Germans, as 
 the Romans called them, bravely resisted the on-coming 
 world-dominion of the Romans. Did they not have 
 before their eyes the greater brilliance of the Roman 
 provinces next to them and the more refined enjoyments 
 in those provinces, to say nothing of laws and judges' 
 seats and lictors' axes and rods in superfluity ? Were 
 not the Romans willing enough to let them share in all 
 these blessings ? In the case of several of their own 
 princes, who did no more than intimate that war against 
 such benefactors of mankind was rebellion, did they not 
 experience proofs of the belauded Roman clemency ? 
 To those who submitted the Romans gave marks of 
 distinction in the form of kingly titles, high commands 
 in their armies, and Roman fillets ; and if they were 
 driven out by their countrymen, did not the Romans 
 provide for them a place of refuge and a means of sub- 
 sistence in their colonies ? Had they no appreciation 
 of the advantages of Roman civilization, e.g., of the 
 superior organization of their armies, in which even an 
 Arminius did not disdain to learn the trade of war ? 
 They cannot be charged with ignorance or lack of con- 
 sideration of any one of these things. Their descendants, 
 as soon as they could do so without losing their freedom, 
 even assimilated Roman culture, so far as this was possible 
 without losing their individuality. Why, then, did they 
 
144 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 fight for several generations in bloody wars, that broke 
 out again and again with ever renewed force ? A Roman 
 writer puts the following expression into the mouth of 
 i their leaders : " What was left for them to do, except to 
 maintain their freedom or else to die before they became 
 slaves." Freedom to them meant just this : remaining 
 Germans and continuing to settle their own affairs 
 independently and in accordance with the original spirit 
 of their race, going on with their development in accord- 
 ance with the same spirit, and propagating this indepen- 
 dence in their posterity. All those blessings which the 
 Romans offered them meant slavery to them, because then 
 they would have to become something that was not 
 German, they would have to become half Roman. They 
 assumed as a matter of course that every man would rather 
 die than become half a Roman, and that a true German 
 could only want to live in order to be, and to remain, just 
 a German and to bring up his children as Germans. 
 
 They did not all die ; they did not see slavery ; they 
 bequeathed freedom to their children. It is their 
 unyielding resistance which the whole modern world has 
 to thank for being what it now is. Had the Romans 
 succeeded in bringing them also under the yoke and in 
 destroying them as a nation, which the Roman did in 
 every case, the whole development of the human race 
 would have taken a different course, a course that one 
 cannot think would have been more satisfactory. It is 
 they whom we must thank — we, the immediate heirs of 
 their soil, their language, and their way of thinking — 
 for being Germans still, for being still borne along on 
 the stream of original and independent life. It is they 
 whom we must thank for everything that we have been 
 as a nation since those days, and to them we shall be 
 indebted for everything that we shall be in the future, 
 
PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 145 
 
 unless things have come to an end with us now and the 
 last drop of blood inherited from them has dried up in 
 our veins. To them the other branches of the race, 
 whom we now look upon as foreigners, but who by descent 
 from them are our brothers, are indebted for their very- 
 existence. When our ancestors triumphed over Roma the 
 eternal, not one of all these peoples was in existence, but 
 the possibility of their existence in the future was won for 
 them in the same fight. 
 
 122. These men, and all others of like mind in the 
 history of the world, won the victory because eternity 
 inspired them, and this inspiration always does, and always 
 must, defeat him who is not so inspired. It is neither the 
 strong right arm nor the efficient weapon that wins 
 victories, but only the power of the soul. He who sets 
 a limit to his sacrifices, and has no wish to venture beyond 
 a certain point, ceases to resist as soon as he finds himself in 
 danger at this point, even though it be one which is vital 
 to him and which ought not to be surrendered. He who' 
 sets no limit whatever for himself, but on the contrary 
 stakes everything he has, including the most precious 
 possession granted to dwellers here below, namely, life 
 itself, never ceases to resist, and will undoubtedly win the 
 victory over an opponent whose goal is more limited. 
 A people that is capable of firmly beholding the counten- 
 ance of that vision from the spiritual world, independence, 
 even though it be only its highest representatives and 
 leaders who are capable of perceiving it — a people capable 
 of being possessed by love of this vision, as our earliest 
 forefathers were, will undoubtedly win the victory over 
 a people that is used, as were the Roman armies, only as 
 the tool of foreign ambition to bring independent people 
 under the yoke ; for the former have everything to lose, 
 and the latter merely something to gain. But the way 
 
 10 
 
t 4 6 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 of thinking which regards war as a game of chance, where 
 the stakes are temporal gain or loss, and which fixes the 
 amount to be staked on the cards even before it begins 
 the game — such a way of thinking is defeated even by a 
 whim. Think, for example, of a Mahomet — not the 
 Mahomet of history, about whom I confess I have no 
 opinion, but the Mahomet of a well-known French poet. 1 
 He takes it firmly into his head once for all that he is one 
 of those exceptional beings who are called to lead the 
 obscure and common folk of the earth, and in accordance 
 with this preliminary assumption all his notions, no matter 
 how mean and limited they may be in reality, of necessity 
 seem to him, just because they are his own, great and sub- 
 lime ideas full of blessings for mankind ; all who set 
 themselves against these notions seem to him obscure and 
 common people, enemies of their own good, evil-minded, 
 and hateful. Then, in order to justify this conceit of 
 himself as a divine call, he lets this thought absorb his 
 whole life ; he must stake everything on it, and cannot 
 rest until he has trodden underfoot all who refuse to 
 think as highly of him as he does of himself, and until he 
 sees his own belief in his divine mission reflected in the 
 whole contemporary world. I will not say what would 
 happen to him if a spiritual vision, true and clear to itself, 
 entered the lists against him, but he is sure to be victorious 
 over those gamesters with limited stakes, for he stakes 
 everything against them and they do not stake everything. 
 No spirit drives them, but he is driven by a spirit, though 
 it be but a raving one, the violent and powerful spirit of 
 his own conceit. 
 
 123. From all this it follows that t he Stat^ . merely as 
 the government of human life in its progress along the 
 ordinary peaceful path, is not something which is primary 
 
 1 [The reference is apparently to Voltaire's tragedy Mahomet.'] 
 
PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 147 
 
 and which exists for its own sake, but is merely the means 
 to the higher purpose of th e eterna l, regular, and con- 
 tinuous development of what is purely human in this 
 nation. It follows, too, that the vision and the love of 
 this eternal development, and nothing else, should have 
 the higher supervision of State administration at all 
 times, not excluding periods of peace, and that this alone 
 is able to save the people's independence when it is 
 endangered. In the case of the Germans, among whom 
 as an original people this love of fatherland was possible 
 and, as we firmly believe, did actually exist up to the 
 present time, it has been able up to now to reckon with 
 great confidence on the security of what was most vital 
 to it. As was the case with the ancient Greeks alone, 
 with the Germans the State and the nation were actually 
 separated from each other, and each was represented for 
 itself, the former in the separate German realms and 
 principalities, the latter represented visibly in the imperial 
 connection and invisibly — by virtue of a law, not 
 written, but living and valid in the minds of all, a law 
 whose results struck the eye everywhere — in a mass of 
 customs and institutions. Wherever the German language 
 was spoken, everyone who had first seen the light of day 
 in its domain could consider himself as in a double sense 
 a citizen, on the one hand, of the State where he was born 
 and to whose care he was in the first instance commended, 
 and, on the other hand, of the whole common fatherland 
 of the German nation. To everyone it was permitted 
 to seek out for himself in the whole length and breadth 
 of this fatherland the culture most congenial to him or 
 the sphere of action to which his spirit was best adapted ; 
 and talent did not root itself like a tree in the place 
 where it first grew up, but was allowed to seek out its 
 own place. Anyone who, because of the turn taken by 
 
48 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 his own development, became out of harmony with his 
 immediate environment, easily found a willing reception 
 elsewhere, found new friends in place of those he had 
 lost, found time and leisure to make his meaning plainer 
 and perhaps to win over and to reconcile even those who 
 were offended with him, and so to unite the whole. No 
 German-born prince ever took upon himself to mark 
 out for his subjects as their fatherland, with mountains 
 or rivers as boundaries, the territory over which he 
 ruled, and to regard his subjects as bound to the soil. 
 A truth not permitted to find expression in one place 
 might find expression in another, where it might happen 
 that those truths were forbidden which were permitted 
 in the first. So, in spite of the many instances of one- 
 sidedness and narrowness of heart in the separate States, 
 there was nevertheless in Germany, considered as a whole, 
 the greatest freedom of investigation and publication that 
 any people has ever possessed. Everywhere the higher 
 culture was, and continued to be, the result of the inter- 
 action of the citizens of all German States : and then this 
 higher culture gradually worked its way down in this 
 form to the people at large, which thus never ceased, 
 broadly speaking, to educate itself by itself. This 
 essential security for the continuance of a German nation 
 was, as we have said, not impaired by any man of German 
 spirit seated at the helm of government ; and though 
 with respect to other original decisions things may not 
 always have happened as the higher German love of 
 fatherland could not but wish, at any rate there has been 
 no act in direct opposition to its interests ; there has 
 been no attempt to undermine that love or to extirpate 
 it and put a love of the opposite kind in its place. 
 
 124. But what if the original guidance of that higher 
 culture, as well as of the national power which may not 
 
PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 149 
 
 be used except to serve that culture and its continuance, 
 the utilization of German property and blood — what if 
 this should pass from the control of the German spirit 
 to that of another ? What would then be the inevitable 
 results ? 
 
 This is the place where there is special need of the 
 disposition which we invoked in our first address — the 
 disposition not to deceive ourselves wilfully about our 
 own affairs, and the courage to be willing to behold the 
 truth and confess it to ourselves. Moreover, it is still 
 permitted to us, so far as I know, to speak to each other 
 in the German language about the fatherland, or at 
 least to sigh over it, and, in my opinion, we should not 
 do well if we anticipated of our own accord such a pro- 
 hibition, or if we were ready to restrain our courage, 
 which without doubt will already have taken counsel 
 with itself as to the risk to be run, with the chains forged 
 by the timidity of some individuals. 
 
 Picture to yourselves, then, the new power, which we ^ 
 are presupposing, as well-disposed and as benevolent as 
 ever you may wish ; make it as good as God Himself ; 
 will you be able to impart to it divine understanding as 
 well ? Even though it wish in all earnestness the greatest 
 happiness and well-being of everyone, do you suppose f 
 that the greatest well-being it is able to conceive will be ' 
 the same thing as German well-being ? In regard to 
 the main point which I have put before you to-day, I 
 hope I have been thoroughly well understood by you ; 
 I hope that several, while they listened to me, thought 
 and felt that I was only expressing in plain words what 
 has always lain in their minds ; I hope that the other 
 Germans who will some day read this will have the same 
 feeling — indeed, several Germans have said practically 
 the same thing before I did, and the unconscious basis of 
 
150 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 the resistance that has been repeatedly manifested to a 
 purely mechanical constitution and policy of the State 
 has been the view of things which I have presented to you. 
 Now, I challenge all those who are acquainted with the 
 modern literature of foreign countries to show me one 
 of their poets or legislators who in recent times has ever 
 betrayed a glimmering of anything similar to the view 
 that regards the human race as eternally progressing, and 
 that refers all its activities in this world solely to this 
 eternal progress. Even in the period of their boldest 
 nights of political creation, was there a single one who 
 demanded more from the State than the abolition of 
 inequalities, the maintenance of peace within their 
 borders and of national reputation without, or, in the 
 extremest case, domestic bliss ? If, as we must conclude 
 from all these indications, this is their highest good, they 
 will not attribute to us any higher needs or any higher 
 demands on life. Assuming they always display that 
 beneficent disposition towards us and are free from any 
 selfishness or desire to be greater than we are, they will 
 think they have provided splendidly for us if we are given 
 everything that they themselves know to be desirable. 
 But the thing for which alone the nobler men among 
 us wish to live is then blotted out of public life ; and as 
 soon as the people, which has always shown itself responsive 
 to the stirrings of the noble mind and which we were 
 entitled to hope might be elevated in a body to that 
 nobility, is treated as those to whom we are referring 
 want to be treated, it is degraded and dishonoured, and, 
 by its confluence with a people of a lower species, it is 
 blotted out of the universe. 
 
 125. But he, in whom those higher demands on life 
 remain alive and powerful and who has a feeling that 
 their right is divine, feels himself set back, much against 
 
PEOPLE AND LOVE OF FATHERLAND 151 
 
 his will, into those early days of Christianity, when it was 
 said: "Resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee 
 on the right cheek, turn to him the other also ; and if 
 any man will take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke 
 also." The latter is well said, for, so long as he sees that 
 thou still hast a cloke, he seeks to pick a quarrel with thee 
 so as to take this from thee also, and only when thou art 
 quite naked wilt thou escape his attention and be left 
 in peace. To such a man the earth becomes a hell and 
 a place of horror, just because of his higher mind, which 
 does him honour. He wishes he had never been born ; 
 he wishes that his eyes may be closed to the light of day, 
 and the sooner the better ; his days are filled with ever- 
 lasting sorrow until he descends to the grave, and for those 
 whom he loves he can wish no greater boon than a dull 
 and contented mind, so that with less suffering they may 
 live for an eternal life beyond the grave. 
 
 These addresses lay before you the sole remaining means, 
 now that the others have been tried in vain, of preventing 
 this annihilation of every nobler impulse that may break out 
 among us in the future, and of preventing this degradation 
 of our whole nation. They propose that you establish 
 deeply and indelibly in the hearts of all, by means of 
 education, the true and all-powerful love of fatherland, 
 the conception of our people as an eternal people and 
 as the security for our own eternity. What kind of 
 education can do this, and how it is to be done, we shall 
 see in the following addresses. 
 
NINTH ADDRESS 
 
 THE STARTING-POINT THAT ACTUALLY EXISTS FOR THE 
 NEW NATIONAL EDUCATION OF THE GERMANS 
 
 126. In our last address several proofs that had been 
 promised in the first address were given and completed. 
 The present problem, the first task, we said, is simply 
 to preserve the existence and continuance of what is 
 German. All other differences vanished, we said, before 
 the higher point of view, and thereby no harm would 
 happen to the special obligations under which anyone 
 might consider himself to be. If only we keep in mind 
 the distinction that has been drawn between State and 
 nation, it is clear that even in the past it was not possible 
 for their interests ever to come into conflict. Besides, the 
 (higher love of fatherland, love for the whole people of the 
 German nation, had to reign supreme, and rightly so, in 
 each particular German State. Not one of them could, 
 indeed, lose sight of this higher interest without alienating 
 everything noble and good, and so hastening its own down- 
 fall. The more, therefore, anyone was affected and 
 animated by that higher interest, the better citizen also 
 he was for the particular German State, in which his 
 immediate sphere of action lay. " German States might 
 quarrel among themselves about particular established 
 privileges. Anyone who wished for the continuance of 
 the established state of affairs, and this must undoubtedly 
 152 
 
STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 153 
 
 have been the wish of every sensible person for the sake 
 of the more remote consequences, must have desired 
 right to prevail, no matter on what side it might be. 
 A particular German State could, at most, have aimed at 
 uniting the whole German nation under its sway, and at 
 introducing autocracy in place of the established republic 
 of peoples. Suppose, as I for instance of course maintain, 
 that it is just this republican constitution that has hitherto 
 been the best source of German civilization and the chief 
 guarantee of its individuality. Then, if the unity of 
 government which we are presupposing had itself borne, 
 not the republican, but the monarchical form, under 
 which it would have been possible for the autocrat to 
 nip in the bud for his lifetime any new branch of original 
 culture throughout the whole German soil — if my sup- 
 position is true, I say, it would certainly have been a 
 great disaster for the cause of German love of fatherland, 
 if that plan had succeeded, and every man of noble mind 
 throughout the whole length and breadth of the common 
 soil would have been bound to resist it. Yet, even in 
 this most unfortunate event, it would always have been 
 Germans who ruled over Germans and were the original 
 directors of their affairs. Even if for a short period the 
 characteristic German spirit had been lacking, there would 
 still have remained the hope that it would awake again, 
 and every stout heart throughout the whole country 
 could have expected to get a hearing and to make 
 itself intelligible. A German nation would always have 
 remained in existence and have ruled itself, and would 
 not have sunk into an existence of a lower order. Here 
 the essential point in our calculation is always that German 
 national love itself either is at the helm of the German 
 State or can reach it with its influence. But if, according 
 to our previous supposition, the control of the German 
 
154 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 State — whether now that State appear as one or as 
 several does not matter ; in reality it is one — dropped 
 from German into foreign hands, it is certain — for the 
 opposite would be contrary to all nature and utterly 
 impossible — it is certain, I say, that from that moment 
 onwards no longer German, but foreign interests would 
 decide. Whereas formerly the united national interest 
 of the Germans had its place and was represented at 
 the helm of the State, it would now be banished. Now, 
 if it is not to be completely destroyed from off the earth, 
 another place of refuge must be prepared for it, and that 
 in what alone remains, with the governed, among the 
 citizens. If it already existed in the majority of them, 
 we should not have got into the plight which we are now 
 considering ; therefore, it does not exist in them, and must 
 first of all be instilled in them. In other words, the 
 majority of the citizens must be educated to this sense 
 of fatherland, and, in order that one may be sure of the 
 \ majority, this education must be tried on all. So with 
 this it is now plainly and clearly proved, as was likewise 
 formerly promised, that education is the only possible 
 means of saving German independence. Undoubtedly 
 it will not be our fault if anyone has not even yet been 
 able to grasp the true content and the purpose of these 
 addresses, and the sense in which all our statements are 
 to be taken. 
 
 127. To put it more briefly. According to our sup- 
 position, those who need protection are deprived of the 
 'guardianship of their parents and relatives, whose place 
 has been taken by masters. If they are not to become 
 absolute slaves, they must be released from guardianship, 
 and the first step in this direction is to educate them to 
 manhood. German love of fatherland has lost its place ; 
 it shall get another, a wider and deeper one ; there in 
 
STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 155 
 
 peace and obscurity it shall establish itself and harden itself 
 like steel, and at the right moment break forth in youthful 
 strength and restore to the State its lost independence. 
 Now, in regard to this restoration foreigners, and also 
 those among us who have petty and narrow minds and 
 despairing hearts, need not be alarmed ; one can console 
 them with the assurance that not one of them will live 
 to see it, and that the age which will live to see it will 
 think otherwise than they. 
 
 128. Now whether this proof, closely though its parts 
 hang together, will affect others and stimulate them to 
 activity, depends first of all upon whether there is such 
 a thing as the German individuality and German love 
 of fatherland which we have described, and whether it 
 is worth preserving and striving after or not. That the 
 foreigner, abroad or at home, denies this may be taken 
 for granted ; but his advice is not asked for. Besides, 
 it is to be noted here that the deciding of this question 
 does not depend at all upon proof by conceptions ; 
 these can certainly make us clear in this matter, but can 
 give no information about real existence or value, which 
 can be proved only by the immediate experience of each 
 individual. In a case like this, though millions may say 
 that it does not exist, that can never mean more than that 
 it does not exist in them ; by no means, however, that 
 it does not exist at all ; and if a single person rises against 
 these millions and declares that it does exist, he carries 
 his point against them all. Nothing prevents me, as 
 I now speak, from being in the given case that one person 
 who asserts that he knows from immediate experience 
 that there is such a thing as German love of fatherland, 
 that he knows the infinite value of its object, that this 
 love alone has driven him, in spite of every danger, to 
 say what he has said and will still say, since nothing else 
 
156 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 is left to us now but speech, and even it is checked and 
 restrained in every way. Whoever feels this within him 
 will be convinced ; whoever does not feel it cannot be 
 convinced, for my proof rests entirely on that supposition ; 
 on him my words are lost ; but who would not stake 
 something so insignificant as words ? 
 
 129. That definite education, from which we expect 
 the salvation of the German nation, has been described 
 in general terms in our second and third addresses. We 
 described it as a complete regeneration of the human race, 
 and it will be appropriate to link up with this description 
 a repetition of the general survey. 
 
 130. As a rule, the world of the senses was formerly 
 accepted as the only true and really existing world ; it 
 
 /was the first that was brought before the pupil in educa- 
 tion. From it alone was he led on to thought and, for 
 the most- part, to thought that was about it and in its 
 service. The new education exactly reverses this order. 
 For it the world that is comprehended by thought is 
 ithe only true and really existing world, and into this it 
 wishes to introduce the pupil from the very beginning. 
 It is only to this world of the spirit that it wishes to link 
 his whole love and his whole pleasure, so that with him 
 there will inevitably begin and develop a life in it alone. 
 Formerly there lived in the majority naught but flesh, 
 matter, and nature ; through the new education spirit 
 alone shall live in the majority, yea, very soon in all, 
 and spur them on ; the stable and certain spirit, which 
 was mentioned before as the only possible foundation 
 of a well-organized State, shall be produced everywhere. 
 
 131. Such an education undoubtedly achieves the 
 object which we have specially set before us and from 
 which our addresses started. That spirit which is to 
 be produced includes the higher love of fatherland, the 
 
STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 157 
 
 conception of its earthly life as eternal and of the father- 
 land as the support of that eternity. If it is produced in 
 the Germans, it will include love of the German father- 
 land as one of its essential elements, and from that love 
 there spring of themselves the courageous defender of 
 his country and the peaceful and honest citizen. Such 
 an education, indeed, achieves even more than that 
 immediate object ; that is always the case when thorough- 
 going measures are willed for a great purpose ; the whole 
 man is inwardly perfected and completed in every part, 
 and outwardly equipped with perfect fitness for all 
 his purposes in time and eternity. Spiritual nature has 
 inseparably connected our complete cure from all the 
 evils that oppress us with our recovery as a nation and 
 fatherland. 
 
 132. We have nothing more to do here with the 
 stupid surprise of some, when we assert such a world of 
 pure thought, and assert it, indeed, as the only possible 
 world, and reject the world of sense ; nor have we anything 
 more to do with those who deny the former world 
 altogether, or deny only the possibility that the majority 
 of the people at large can be brought into it. We have 
 already completely rejected these things. He who does 
 not yet know that there is a world of thought can 
 instruct himself meanwhile about it elsewhere by the 
 available means ; we have no time for that instruction 
 here. But we do intend just this ; to show how even 
 the majority of the people at large can be raised into 
 that world. 
 
 133. Now, in our deliberate opinion the idea of such 
 a new education is not to be considered as simply a 
 picture set up for the exercise of ingenuity of mind or of 
 skill in argument, but is rather to be put into practice 
 at once and introduced into life. Our task, therefore, 
 
158 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 is first of all to point out what already exists in the actual 
 world with which the realization of this should be con- 
 nected. 
 
 We give this answer to the question : it ought to be 
 connected with the system of instruction invented and 
 proposed by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi , and already 
 successfully practised under his eyes. We intend to 
 give good reasons for this decision of ours and to define it 
 clearly. 
 
 First of all, we have read and reflected over the man's 
 own writings, from which we have formed our conception 
 of his art of instruction and education. We have taken 
 no notice of the reports and opinions of the current 
 literary periodicals, nor of their further opinions upon 
 those opinions. We observe this in order to recommend 
 this method and the complete avoidance of its opposite 
 to everyone who wishes likewise to have a conception of 
 this subject. Similarly, up to the present we have not 
 desired to see anything of it in actual practice ; not from 
 disrespect, but because we wanted first to provide our- 
 selves with a definite and clear conception of the inventor's 
 true intention. The application may often fall short of 
 the intention, but from that conception the conception 
 of the application and of the inevitable result follows 
 without any experiment, and, equipped with this alone, 
 one can truly understand the application and judge it 
 correctly. If, as some believe, even this system of 
 instruction has already degenerated here and there into 
 blind, empirical groping and into empty play and show, 
 for that the author's fundamental conception, at least, 
 is in my opinion quite blameless. 
 
 134. Now this fundamental conception is warranted 
 for me, first of all by the individuality of the man himself, 
 as he shows it in his writings with the truest and most 
 
STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 159 
 
 hearty frankness. I could have used him, just as well as 
 I used Luther or as I might use anyone else if there 
 have been others like them, to demonstrate the char- 
 acteristics of the German spirit and to give the gratifying 
 proof that this spirit, in all its miraculous power, reigned 
 down to the present day within the range of the German 
 tongue. He, also, has spent a laborious life struggling 
 with every possible obstacle ; within, with his own 
 stubborn obscurity and awkwardness and his very scanty 
 supply of the most ordinary aids to scholarly education ; 
 without, with continual misunderstanding. Towards an 
 end, which he simply surmised and which was quite 
 unknown to him, he has struggled, upheld and stimulated 
 by an unconquerable and all-powerful and German 
 impulse, a love of the poor neglected people. As in the 
 case of Luther, only in another connection and one more 
 in keeping with his age, this all-powerful love had made 
 him its instrument and had become the life of his life. 
 It was the unknown but definite and unchanging guide 
 which led his life through the all-enveloping night, and, 
 because it was impossible for such a love to leave the earth 
 unrewarded, crowned its evening with his truly spiritual 
 invention, which achieved far more than he had ever 
 longed for in his boldest wishes. He wished simply to 
 help the people ; but his invention, when developed to 
 the full, raises the people, removes every difference 
 between them and an educated class, provides national 
 education instead of the desired popular education, and 
 might, indeed, have the power of helping peoples and the 
 whole human race to rise from the depths of their present 
 misery. 
 
 135. This fundamental conception of his appears in 
 his writings with complete clearness and unmistakable 
 precision. First of all, in regard to the form, he desires, 
 
i6o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 not the caprice and blind groping that has hitherto 
 existed, but a definite and deliberate art of education ; 
 that is what we, too, wish and what German thoroughness 
 must necessarily wish. He relates 1 very frankly how a 
 French phrase, that he wanted to make education mecha- 
 nical, made his mind clear concerning this aim of his. 
 , In regard to the content, the first step in the new educa- 
 tion described by me is that it shall stimulate and train 
 | the free activity of the pupil's mind, his thought, in which 
 later the world of his love shall dawn for him. With 
 this first step Pestalozzi's writings deal excellently ; 
 our examination of his fundamental conception treats 
 this subject first of all. In this regard his censure of 
 the previous system of instruction, that it has only 
 plunged the pupil in mist and shadow and has never let 
 him reach actual truth and reality, agrees with ours, 
 that this system has never been able to influence life, nor 
 to form the root of life. Pestalozzi's proposed remedy 
 for this, to lead the pupil to direct perception, is synony- 
 mous with ours, to stimulate his mental activity to the 
 creation of images and to let him learn everything just 
 by this free formation ; for perception of what has been 
 freely created is the only possible perception. The 
 application, to be mentioned later, proves that the 
 inventor really means this, and does not understand by 
 perception that blindly groping and fumbling sense- 
 impression. Quite rightly, too, this general and very far- 
 reaching law is laid down for the stimulation of the pupil's 
 perception by education : from the beginning keep pace 
 exactly with the evolution of the child's powers that are 
 to be developed. 
 
 136. On the other hand, in Pestalozzi's system of 
 r instruction all the mistakes in terms and proposals have 
 
 1 [See De Guimps,Lz/<f of Pestalozzi, Sonnenschein & Co., 1903, p. 183.] 
 
STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 161 
 
 one common source, the confusion and opposition of 
 two things ; on one side, the paltry and limited end 
 originally aimed at, namely, to lend such aid as is abso- 
 lutely necessary to those children from among the people 
 who are the most neglected, on the supposition that the 
 whole people will remain as it is ; and on the other side, 
 the means leading to a far higher end. One is saved from 
 all error and obtains a completely consistent conception 
 by dropping the former and everything that results from 
 its consideration, and keeping only to the latter and carry- 
 ing it out consistently. Undoubtedly it was solely the 
 desire to release from school as soon as possible the very 
 poorest children for bread-winning, and yet to provide 
 them with a means of making up for the interrupted 
 instruction, that gave rise in Pestalozzi's loving heart to 
 the over-estimation of reading and writing, to the setting 
 up of these as almost the aim and climax of popular 
 education, and to his simple belief in the testimony of 
 past centuries, that this is the best aid to instruction. For 
 otherwise he would have found that reading and writing 
 have been hitherto just the very instruments for envelop- 
 ing men in mist and shadow and for making them con- 
 ceited. That same desire of his is undoubtedly the source 
 of several other proposals that are in contradiction to his 
 principle of direct perception, and especially his utterly 
 false notion of language as a means of raising our race 
 from dim perception to clear ideas. For our part, we 
 have not spoken of the education of the people in opposi- 
 tion to that of the higher classes, because we no longer 
 want to have the word " people " used in the sense of 
 vulgar common populace, nor can German national 
 interests tolerate this sense of the word any longer ; but 
 we have spoken of national education. If it shall ever 
 come to this, the miserable wish that education shall 
 
 1 1 
 
1 62 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 be finished very soon and the child again set to work 
 must not be breathed any longer, but given up right at 
 the beginning of the consideration of this matter. In 
 my opinion, indeed, this education will not be expensive, 
 the institutions will be able to maintain themselves to 
 a great extent, and work will not suffer. I shall state my 
 thoughts about this in due course ; but even if it were not 
 so, the pupil must unconditionally, and at any cost, remain 
 until education is and can be finished. That half- 
 education is not a bit better than none at all ; it leaves 
 matters as they were ; and if anyone desires this, he had 
 better dispense also with the half and declare plainly at 
 the very beginning that he does not want mankind to be 
 helped. Now, assuming that the pupil is to remain until 
 education is finished, reading and writing can be of no 
 use in the purely national education, so long as this 
 education continues. But it can, indeed, be very harm- 
 
 Iful ; because, as it has hitherto so often done, it may easily 
 lead the pupil astray from direct perception to mere 
 signs, and from attention, which knows that it grasps 
 nothing if it does not grasp it now and here, to distrac- 
 tion, which consoles itself by writing things down and 
 wants to learn some day from paper what it will probably 
 never learn, and, in general, to the dreaming which so 
 often accompanies dealings with the letters of the alphabet. 
 Not until the very end of education, and as its last gift 
 for the journey, should these arts be imparted and the 
 pupil led by analysis of the language, of which he has been 
 completely master for a long time, to discover and use 
 the letters. After the rest of the training he has already 
 acquired, this would be play. 
 
 1137. So much for the purely universal national educa- 
 tion. It is a different matter with the future scholar. 
 Some day he shall not only express his feelings about what is 
 
STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 163 
 
 universally valid, but also by solitary reflection lift up into / 
 the light of language the hidden and real depths of his 
 heart, of which he is unconscious. He must, therefore, get 
 into his hands sooner, in the form of writing, the instru- 
 ment of this solitary yet audible thought, and learn to 
 create ; yet even in his case there will be less need of 
 haste than there has been in the past. This will become 
 distinctly clearer in due course, when we distinguish 
 between purely national and scholarly education. 
 
 138. Everything that Pestalozzi says about sound and 
 word as means for the development of mental power is to 
 be corrected and limited in accordance with this view. 
 The scope of these addresses does not permit me to go 
 into details. I make, however, just the following remark 
 which profoundly affects the whole matter. His book 
 for mothers contains the foundation of his development 
 of all knowledge ; for, among other things, he relies very 
 much on home education. First of all, so far as this 
 home education itself is concerned, we have certainly 
 no desire to quarrel with him over the hopes that he 
 forms of mothers. But, so far as our higher conception 
 of a national education is concerned, we are firmly con- 
 vinced that, especially among the working classes,_it 
 cannot be either begun, continued, or ended in th e parents' 
 house, nor, indeed , without the complete separation of 
 the children from them. The hardship, the daily anxiety 
 about making ends meet, the petty meanness and avarice, 
 which occur here, would inevitably infect the children, 
 drag them down, and prevent them from making a free 
 flight into the world of thought. This also is one of the 
 absolute and indispensable conditions for the realization 
 of our scheme. We have seen enough of what will happen 
 if mankind as a whole repeats itself in each successive 
 generation as it was in the previous one. If its complete 
 
1 64 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 reformation is intended, it must once for all be entirely 
 separated from itself and cut off altogether from its old 
 
 fife. Not until a generation has passed through the new 
 :ducation can the question be considered, as to what 
 part of the national education shall be entrusted to 
 jthe home. 
 
 1 39. Setting that aside, and considering Pestalozzi's book 
 for mothers simply as the first foundation of instruction ; 
 to take, as the book does, the child's body as the subject 
 of instruction is also a complete mistake. He starts with 
 the very correct statement, that the first object of the 
 child's knowledge must be the child himself. But is the 
 child's body, then, the child himself? If it must be a 
 human body, would not the mother's body be far closer 
 and more visible to him ? And how can the child 
 obtain a perceptual knowledge of his body, without first 
 having learnt to use it ? That information is not know- 
 ledge, but simply the learning by heart of arbitrary 
 word-symbols, brought about by the over-estimation 
 of speaking. The true foundation of instruction and 
 knowledge would be, to use Pestalozzi's language, an 
 A B C of the sensations. When the child begins to 
 understand, and imperfectly to make, speech sounds, he 
 should be led to make himself quite clear, whether he is 
 hungry or sleepy, whether he sees or hears the actual 
 sensation denoted by this or that expression, or, indeed, 
 simply imagines it. He should be clear, too, as_to the 
 dJJEerenc^s and degree s of d ifference of the v arious 
 impjessjons^ on the same sens e that are denoted by special 
 words, e.g., the colours and the sounds of different bodies, 
 etc. All this should take place in succession, developing 
 properly and regularly the power of sensation. By this 
 means the child first obtains an ego, which he abstracts in 
 free and conscious conception, and which he scrutinizes 
 
STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 165 
 
 by its aid ; as soon as it awakes to life, a mental eye is 
 set in life, and from that time onward never leaves it. 
 Thus, also, measure and number, in themselves empty 
 forms, obtain for the succeeding exercises of perception 
 their clearly recognized inner content which, according 
 to Pestalozzi's method, can be given them only by 
 obscure tendency and compulsion. In Pestalozzi's writ- 
 ings a confession, which is remarkable from this point of 
 view, is made by one of his teachers who, when initiated 
 into this method, began to perceive only empty geometrical 
 bodies. This would happen to all pupils of that method 
 if spiritual nature did not, unnoticed, guard against it. 
 It is at this stage, too, when what is really perceived is 
 thus clearly grasped, that not language signs, indeed, but 
 speech itself and the need for expressing oneself to others 
 trains man, and raises him out of darkness and confusion 
 to clearness and definiteness. When the child first awakes 
 to consciousness, all the impressions of surrounding 
 nature immediately crowd upon him and are mingled 
 to a vague chaos, in which no single thing stands out from 
 among the general confusion. How is he ever to emerge 
 from this stage of vagueness ? He needs the help of 
 others ; he cannot get it except by definitely expressing 
 his need and distinguishing it from similar needs which 
 are already denoted in the language. Under the guidance 
 of those distinctions he is compelled to reflect and to 
 collect his thoughts, to notice what he actually feels, to 
 compare it with, and differentiate it from, something else 
 which he already knows but does not at present feel. 
 Thus a conscious and free ego begins to be separated off 
 in him. Now, education ought with deliberate and free 
 .art to continue the course which necessity and nature 
 begin with us. 
 
 140. In the field of objective knowledge, which is 
 
1 66 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 concerned with external objects, acquaintance with 
 the word-sign adds absolutely nothing to the clearness 
 and definiteness of the inner knowledge for the knower 
 himself, but simply brings it within the sphere of what 
 can be communicated to others, which is an altogether 
 different sphere. The clearness of that knowledge 
 depends entirely on perception, and whatever man's 
 imagination can create again at will in all its parts, just 
 as it really is, is fully known, whether one has a word for 
 it or not. Indeed, we are convinced that this perfection 
 of the perception should precede acquaintance with the 
 word-symbol. The opposite process leads straight to 
 that world of shadow and mist, and to premature loqua- 
 city, both of which are rightly so hateful to Pestalozzi. 
 He who wants to know the word as soon as possible, and 
 considers his knowledge increased as soon as he knows it, 
 lives in that very world of mist and is anxious merely to 
 extend it. Considering Pestalozzi's system of thought as 
 a whole, I believe that it was just this A B C of sensation 
 that he aimed at as the first foundation of mental develop- 
 ment and as the content of his book for mothers. In all 
 his statements about language he had a dim notion of 
 it, and it was only lack of training in philosophy that 
 prevented him from becoming quite clear on this point. 
 M 141. Now, presupposing this development of the 
 Knowing subject by means of sensation and setting it as the 
 first foundation of the national education we have in 
 view, Pestalozzi's A B C of sense-perception, the theory 
 of the relations of number and measure, is the entirely 
 appropriate and excellent consequence. With this per- 
 ception any part of the world of sense can be connected ; 
 it can be introduced into the domain of mathematics,, 
 until the pupil is sufficiently trained by these preliminary 
 exercises to be led on to the planning of a social order of 
 
STARTING-POINT FOR NEW EDUCATION 167 
 
 mankind and to love of that order. This is the second 
 
 142. But in the first part of education another subject, 
 which is also mentioned by Pestalozzi, is not to be over- 
 
 which must necessarily go hand in hand with those ofj[ 
 the mind. He demands an A B C of Art, i.e., of the 
 bodily powers. His most striking statements about this 
 are the following : 1 " Striking, carrying, throwing, 
 pushing, pulling, turning, struggling, swinging, etc., are 
 the simplest exercises of strength. There is a natural 
 sequence in these exercises from the beginnings to the 
 perfect art, i.e., to the highest stage of the nerve rhythm, 
 which ensures blow and push, swing and throw, in a 
 hundred different ways, and makes hand and foot certain." 
 In this, everything depends on the natural sequence, 
 and it is not enough that we should interfere in a blind 
 arbitrary way and introduce any kind of exercise, just 
 in order that it may be said of us that we too, like the 
 Greeks perhaps, have physical education. Now, everything 
 still remains to be done in this matter, for Pestalozzi has 
 supplied no A B C of Art. This must first of all be sup- 
 plied, and that certainly requires a man who is versed 
 in the anatomy of the human body and also in scientific 
 mechanics, and who combines with this knowledge a 
 high degree of philosophical spirit. Such a man will be 
 capable of discovering in all-round perfection that machine 
 which the human body is designed to be, and of showing 
 how this machine may gradually be developed out of 
 every healthy human body, so that every advance occurs + 
 
 1 [An almost exact quotation from Pestalozzi's Wie Gertrud ihre 
 Kinder lehrt ; cf. Pestalozzi's Ausgewaehlte Schriften, ed. F. Mann, Langen- 
 salza, vol. iii, p. 275, and see translation by Cooke, Sonnenschein & Co., 
 1907, pp. 177, 178.] 
 
 and essential step in his training. 
 
 looked ; the development 
 
1 68 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 I 
 
 jin the only possible correct sequence, thus preparing for 
 land facilitating those that follow. Thereby the health 
 and beauty of the body and the strength of the mind 
 are not only not endangered, but are even confirmed and 
 increased. It is obvious without further mention how 
 indispensable this element is to an education which pro- 
 mises to train the whole man and is especially intended for 
 a nation which shall restore again, and in the future 
 maintain, its independence. 
 
 We reserve for the next address what there is still to 
 say by way of further definition of our conception of 
 German national education. 
 
TENTH ADDRESS 
 
 FURTHER DEFINITION OF THE GERMAN NATIONAL 
 EDUCATION 
 
 143. The training of the pupil to make clear to himself 
 first his sensations and then his perceptions, which must 
 be accompanied by a systematic art of training his body, 
 is the first part of the new German national education. 
 In regard to the education of perception, we have a 
 suitable method from Pestalozzi. A method for the 
 education of the power of sensation is still lacking, but 
 he and his collaborators, who have been summoned 
 chiefly to solve this problem, will be able to furnish this 
 easily. A method for the systematic development of 
 physical strength is still lacking. What is required for 
 the solution of this problem has been indicated, and it 
 is to be hoped that, if the nation should show any eager- 
 ness for this solution, it will be found. All this part of 
 education is but a means and a preliminary exercise for 
 the second essential part, the civic and religious education. 
 The general remarks that it is necessary at present to make 
 about this have already been mentioned in our second and 
 third addresses, and we have nothing to add to them. 
 It is the business of that philosophy which proposes a 
 German national education to furnish definite instruc- 
 tions for the art of this education — always, of course, 
 taking into consideration and consultation Pestalozzi's own 
 169 
 
lyo ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 art of education. Once the need for such instructions 
 arises, through the first part being fully carried out, that 
 philosophy will not be slow to supply it. Every pupil, 
 even if born in the lowest class — for, in truth, the class 
 into which children are born makes no difference to their 
 talents — will grasp, and indeed grasp easily, the instruction 
 ^n those subjects. Such instruction, indeed, comprises, 
 if you like, the most profound metaphysics and is the result 
 lof the most abstract speculation, and those subjects at 
 present even scholars and speculating brains find it 
 impossible to grasp. Let no one grow weary just now, 
 wondering how this may be possible ; experience will 
 teach this later, if only we will obey in regard to the first 
 steps. It is only because our generation is held captive 
 in the world of empty ideas and has not entered the world 
 of true reality and perception at any point, that it is not to 
 be expected that this generation should begin perception 
 with the highest and most spiritual perception of all, 
 and when it is already clever beyond measure. Philo- 
 sophy must require it to give up its present world and to 
 provide itself with an entirely different one. It is no 
 wonder if such a demand proves unavailing. But, from 
 the very beginning, the pupil of our education has been 
 at home in the world of perception and has never seen 
 any other. He has not to change, but only to strengthen, 
 his world ; and this takes place of itself. This education 
 is, as we have already pointed out, the only possible 
 education for philosophy and also the sole means of 
 making philosophy universal. 
 
 j 144. Education ends with this civic and religious 
 I instruction, and the pupil is now to be released. Thus 
 we are clear at any rate in regard to the content of the 
 proposed education. 
 
 145. The_p\ipil's faculty of kn owledge must never 
 
NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 171 
 
 stimulated without lo ve for the known object^ being_ 
 s timu lajeiL at_the_ same t ime, for o t herwise k nowledg e 
 re_mains_ dead ; si milarly , love_jmust never be sti mulated 
 without b ecomin g clear to kn owledge, for ot herwise love 
 r emains blind . This is one of the chief principles of our 
 proposed education, with which Pestalozzi also must 
 agree, since it is in accordance with his whole system of 
 thought. Now, the stimulation and development of this 1 
 love is connected with the systematic course of instruction • 
 by means of sensation and perception, and arises w itho ut, 
 our design or assistance. The child has ajiatural inclina- 
 tion fo r cle arness -^Tvd-order. This is continually satisfied 
 in that course of instruction, and so fills the child with 
 joy and pleasure. But, while in this state of satisfaction, 
 he is stimulated again by the new obscurities that now 
 appear, and so he is satisfied anew. Thus life is passed 
 in love of and pleasure in learning. It is this love by 
 means of which each individual is connected with the 
 world of thought ; it is the bond of the sensuous and 
 spiritual worlds. This love renders possible the easy^ 
 development of the faculty of knowledge and the success-A 
 ful cultivation of the fields of science ; a result that is ' 
 certain and premeditated in this education, but which 
 was formerly attained by chance in the case of a few 
 specially favoured persons. 
 
 146. But there is yet another love, that which binds 
 man to man and combines all individuals into one rational 
 community with the same disposition. The first kind 
 of love fashions knowledge ; this other kind fashions the 
 life of action and stimulates people to show forth in them- 
 selves and in others that which has become part of their 
 knowledge. Since for our special purpose it would be of 
 little use simply to improve the scholar's education, and 
 since the national education intended by us aims first of 
 
172 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 all at training not scholars but simply men, it is clear that, 
 in addition to that first love, the development of the 
 second is also an essential duty of this education. 
 
 Pestalozzi speaks of this subject with soul-stirring 
 enthusiasm. Yet we must confess that his statements 
 did not seem at all clear to us, and, least of all, so clear 
 that they could serve as the foundation for an art of 
 developing that love. It is therefore necessary for us to 
 state our own thoughts concerning such a foundation. 
 
 'T 147. The usual assumption, that man is by nature 
 selfish, that the child also is born with this selfishness, and 
 that it is education alone which implants in him a moral 
 motive, is founded on very superficial observation, and 
 
 s|is utterly false. Nothing can be created from nothing, 
 and the development of a fundamental instinct, no matter 
 1 to what extent, can never make it the opposite of itself. 
 \\ //How then could education ever implant morality in the 
 child, if morality did not exist in him originally and before 
 all education ? It does, therefore, actually exist in all 
 human children that are born into the world ; the task 
 is simply to find out the purest and most primitive form 
 
 \in which it appears. 
 
 148. The results of speculative thought, as well as 
 common observation, agree that the purest and most 
 ■^primitive form of morality is the instinct for respect, 
 and that from this instinct there arises our knowledge of 
 what is moral as the only possible object of respect, the 
 right, the good, veracity, and the power of self-control. 
 In the child this instinct appears first of all as the desire 
 to be respected by those who inspire in him the highest 
 respect. This instinct goes to prove with certainty that 
 love does not arise from selfishness at all, because it is 
 directed as a rule far more strongly and decisively towards 
 the sterner parent, the father, who is more often absent, 
 
NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 173 
 
 and who does not appear directly as a benefactor, than) 
 towards the mother, who with her beneficence is everj 
 present. The child wants to be noticed by him, wants 
 to have his approval ; only in so far as the father is satis- 
 fied with him is he satisfied with himself. This is the 
 natural love of the child for the father, not as the guardian 
 of his sensuous well-being, but as the mirror, from which 
 his own worth or worthlessness is reflected for him. J 
 Now, the father himself can easily connect with this love 
 obedience and every kind of self-denial ; for the reward 
 of his hearty approval the child obeys with joy. Then 
 again, this is the love which the child longs for from the 
 father ; that he shall notice the child's effort to be good, 
 and acknowledge it ; that he shall show that it gives him 
 joy when he can approve, and grieves him heartily when 
 he must disapprove ; that he desires nothing more than 
 always to be able to be satisfied with him, and all his 
 demands on the child have simply the intention of making 
 him ever better and more worthy of respect. Again, the 
 sight of this love continually animates and strengthens the 
 child's love, and gives him new strength for all his further 
 efforts. On the other hand, that love is killed by being 
 disregarded, and by continual unjust misunderstanding ; 
 in particular, it produces even hate, if in dealing with the 
 child one allows selfishness to appear, and, e.g., treats as 
 a capital crime some damage caused by his carelessness. 
 He then sees himself regarded as a mere tool, and this 
 outrages his feeling that he must himself be of worth, 
 a feeling that is dim, indeed, but yet not absent. 
 
 149. To prove this by an example. What is it that 
 with the child adds shame to the pain of chastisement, 
 and what is this shame ? Obviously it is the feeling of 
 self-contempt, which is an inevitable accompaniment 
 when the displeasure of his parents and educators is shown 
 
 y 
 
174 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 to him. Therefore, where punishment is not accompanied 
 by shame, there is an end of education, and the punishment 
 appears as an act of violence, which the pupil proudly 
 disregards and ridicules. 
 
 (i 150. The bond, therefore, which makes men of one 
 mind, and the development of which is a chief part of 
 education for manhood, is not sensuous love, but the instinct 
 for mutual respect. That instinct appears in two forms ; 
 "^"►in the child it begins as unconditional respect for adults 
 and becomes the desire to be respected by them, and to 
 measure by means of their actual respect how far he also 
 should respect himself. This confidence, not in one's 
 own but in an external standard of self-respect, is also the 
 special characteristic of childhood and youth. On its 
 existence alone is based the possibility of all instruction 
 and of all education of growing youths to perfect men. 
 The adult has in himself his standard of self-esteem, and 
 wishes to be respected by others only in so far as they have 
 first of all made themselves worthy of his respect. With 
 ^>Lhim that instinct assumes the form of demanding that he 
 shall be able to respect others, and that he_shall himself 
 produce something worthy of respect^XTf there is no 
 "such fundamental instinct in man, whence then arises the 
 phenomenon, that even the tolerably good man grieves to 
 find men worse than he thought they were, and is deeply 
 hurt at having to despise them ; for selfishness, on the con- 
 trary, is necessarily pleased at being able to exalt itself 
 haughtily above others ? Now, the educator must 
 exhibit this latter characteristic of adult manhood, just 
 as, in the case of the pupil, the former characteristic is 
 to be relied on with certainty. In this respect, the aim of 
 ^education is just to produce adult manhood in the sense 
 that we have mentioned. Only when that aim is attained 
 is education really completed and ended. Hitherto many 
 
NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 175 
 
 men have remained children all their lives, viz., those 
 who needed for their satisfaction the approval of neigh- 
 bours, and believed they had done nothing right unless 
 they pleased the latter. In contrast to these, strong robust 
 characters have been those few who could rise above the 
 judgment of others and satisfy themselves. As a rule, 
 the latter have been hated, while the former were not, 
 indeed, respected, but were, nevertheless, considered 
 amiable. 
 
 151. The foundation of all moral education is this; 
 that one should know there is such an instinct in the child 
 and presuppose it firmly established ; then, that one 
 should recognize it when it appears, and gradually develop 
 it more and more by suitable stimulation, and by pre- 
 senting to it material for its satisfaction. The very 
 first principle is to direct it to the only object that is 
 suitable, viz., to moral matters, but not to put-it off with 
 some material that is foreign to it. Learning, for instance, 
 contains within itself its charm and its reward. Strenuous 
 diligence could at most deserve approval as an exercise in 
 self-control ; but this free and supererogatory diligence 
 will scarcely find a place, at least in the purely universal 
 national education. That the pupil will learn what he 
 ought to must, therefore, be regarded as a matter of 
 course, of which nothing more is to be said. The quicker 
 and better learning of the more capable mind must be 
 regarded merely as a natural phenomenon, which entitles 
 him to no praise or distinction, and above all does not 
 palliate other defects. It is in moral matters alone that 
 a sphere of action ought to be allotted to this instinct ; 
 but the root of all morality is self-possession, self-control, 
 the subordination of the selfish instincts to the idea of 
 the community. By this alone, and by absolutely nothing 
 else, shall it be possible for the pupil to receive the educa- 
 
176 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 tor's approval, which he is directed by his spiritual 
 nature, and accustomed by education, to need for his own 
 satisfaction. As we have already mentioned in our second 
 address, there are two very different ways of subordinat- 
 ing the personal self to the community. Firsj; of all, 
 that way which absolutely must exist and can in no wise 
 be omitted by anyone, subordination to the law of the 
 constitution which is drawn up merely for the regulation 
 of the community. He who does not transgress this law 
 is not blamed, and that is all ; he does not, however, receive 
 approbation. Similarly, real displeasure and censure 
 would fall upon him who transgressed ; this would take 
 place in public if the wrong were public, and if it remained 
 ineffective, it could even be intensified by the addition 
 of punishment. Secondly, there is that subordination 
 of the individual to the community which cannot be 
 demanded but can only be given voluntarily, viz., the 
 raising and advancing of the well-being of the community 
 by self-sacrifice. In order to impress correctly upon the 
 pupils from youth upwards the mutual relationship of mere 
 legality and this higher virtue, it will be appropriate to 
 allow him only, against whom for a certain period there 
 has been no complaint in regard to legality, to make these 
 voluntary sacrifices as the reward, so to speak, of legality, 
 but to refuse this permission to him who is not yet quite 
 sure of himself in regard to regularity and order. The 
 objects of such voluntary acts have already been pointed 
 out in general, and will be indicated still more clearly 
 later. Let this kind of sacrifice receive active approbation 
 and real recognition of its merits, not in public in the form 
 of praise, which might corrupt the heart, make it vain, and 
 turn it from its independence, but in secret and with the 
 pupil alone. This recognition ought to be nothing more 
 than the outward expression of the pupil's own good 
 
NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 177 
 
 conscience, the ratification of his satisfaction with him- 
 self and of his self-respect, and the encouragement to 
 rely still further on himself. The following arrangement 
 would promote admirably the advantages hereby intended. 
 Where there are several male and female teachers, which 
 we assume will be the rule, let each child choose freely, 
 and as his feelings and confidence move him, one of them 
 as a special friend and, as it were, adviser in matters of 
 conscience. Let him seek his advice whenever it is difficult 
 for him to do right. Let the teacher help him by friendly 
 exhortation ; let him be the confidant of the voluntary 
 acts which he undertakes ; and, finally, let him be the 
 person who crowns excellence with his approval. Now, 
 through these advisers in matters of conscience education 
 would inevitably be of systematic aid to each individual in 
 his own rise to ever greater power of self-control and self- 
 possession. In this way steadiness and independence will 
 gradually arise ; with their production, education comes 
 to an end and ceases. By our own deeds and actions is 
 the sphere of the moral world most clearly opened to us ; 
 when it is thus opened to anyone, it is in truth opened to 
 him. Such a person himself now knows what is contained 
 in the moral world, and no longer needs the testimony of 
 others concerning himself ; he can sit properly in judg- 
 ment on himself, and is from now onwards an adult. 
 
 152. By means of what has just been said we have 
 closed a gap that remained in our previous lecture and have, 
 for the first time, made our proposal really practicable. 
 Pleasure in the right and good for its own sake ought to 
 be set, by means of the new education, in the place of the 
 material hope or fear that has been employed hitherto ; 
 this pleasure, as the sole existing motive, ought to set all 
 future life in motion ; this is the essential feature of our 
 proposal. But the first question that arises here is this ; 
 
 12 
 
178 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 how, then, is this pleasure itself to be created ? Created, 
 indeed, in the proper sense of the word, it cannot be, 
 for men cannot make something out of nothing. If our 
 proposal is to be practicable at all, this pleasure must 
 exist originally, and be simply present and innate in all 
 men without exception. And in fact it is so. Every child 
 without exception wishes to be upright and good, and 
 does not want merely to be healthy, like a young animal. 
 Love is the essential element in man ; it exists, as man 
 exists, whole and complete, and nothing can be added to it, 
 for it transcends the growing phenomenon of the sensuous 
 life, and is independent of it. It is knowledge alone to 
 which this sensuous life is connected, and which begins 
 and develops with it. This development is but slow and 
 gradual with the progress of time ; how, then, is that 
 innate love to pass through the years of ignorance, and 
 develop and exercise itself until an ordered system of ideas 
 of right and wrong is formed, to which the motive of plea- 
 sure can be connected ? Wise nature has removed the 
 difficulty without any assistance from us. Consciousness, 
 starting from within the child, presents itself to him 
 outwardly, embodied in the judgment of the adult 
 world. Until a rational judge is developed in him, he 
 is referred to this world by a natural instinct, and thus 
 a conscience is given him outside himself, until one is 
 produced within him. The new education ought to 
 recognize this truth, but little known until now, and guide 
 towards what is right the love that exists independent 
 of education. Up to now, this simplicity and childlike 
 faith of the young in the higher perfection of adults has 
 ipeen used, as a rule, for their corruption. It was pre- 
 cisely their innocence and their natural faith in us that 
 made it possible for us, before they could distinguish 
 good from evil, to implant in them, instead of the good 
 
NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 179 
 
 that they inwardly wished, our own corruption, which 
 they would have abhorred if they had been able to 
 recognize it. 
 
 153. This, I say, is the very greatest transgression of 
 which our age is guilty, and this also explains a phenomenon 
 of daily occurrence ; that, as a rule, man becomes so 
 much the worse, more selfish, more dead to all good 
 impulses, and more unfit for any good deed, the older 
 he gets and the farther he has gone from the early days 
 of his innocence — days which even yet echo, though 
 faintly, in some intimations of the Good. It also proves 
 that the present generation, if it does not completely 
 isolate its successors, will inevitably leave behind an even 
 more corrupt posterity, and this, again, one still more 
 corrupt. An honoured teacher of the human race says 
 of them with striking truth, that it were better that a 
 millstone were hanged at once about their neck, and they 
 were drowned in the depths of the sea. It is an absurd 
 slander on human nature to say that man is born a sinner. 
 If that were true, how, then, could there ever come to him 
 an idea of sin, which, indeed, is possible only in contrast 
 with what is not sin ? His life makes him a sinner, and 
 human life hitherto was usually a progressive development 
 in sinfulness. 
 
 154. What has been said shows in a new light the 
 necessity of making preparation without delay for a real 
 education. If only the youths of the future could grow 
 up without any contact with adults and entirely without 
 education, one might always test what the result would be. 
 But even if we only leave them in our society, their 
 education takes place of itself without any wish or will 
 of ours. They educate themselves to us ; to be like us, 
 that - forces itself upon them as their pattern. They 
 emulate us, even without our requiring thi3, and desire 
 
i8o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 nothing more than to become just as we are. Now, 
 usually the great majority of us are thoroughly perverse, 
 partly without knowing it ; and because we are ourselves 
 just as simple as children, we consider our perversity to 
 be what is right. Even if we knew that we were perverse, 
 how could we suddenly lay aside, in the presence of our 
 children, that which a long life has made second nature 
 to us, and exchange our whole former disposition and 
 spirit for a new one r In contact with us they must 
 become corrupt ; that is unavoidable. If we have a 
 spark of love for them, we must remove them from our 
 tainted atmosphere and erect a purer abode for them. 
 We must bring them into the society of men who, 
 whatever they may be in other respects, have at least, 
 by continuous practice, become accustomed, and gained 
 the ability, to remember that children are watching them, 
 the power of restraining themselves at least for so long, 
 and the knowledge of how one must appear before 
 children. We must not let them out of this society into 
 ours again, until they have learnt to detest thoroughly 
 all our corruption, and are thereby completely safe from 
 all infection. 
 
 These are the points that we have considered it neces- 
 sary to bring forward here concerning moral education 
 in general. 
 
 155. That the children ought to live together in com- 
 plete isolation from adults, with only their teachers and 
 masters, has been mentioned several times. It is under- 
 stood, without special note from us, that this education 
 must be given to both sexes in the same way. A separa- 
 tion of the sexes into special institutions for boys and 
 girls would not suit our purpose, and would break several 
 important principles of the education for perfect manhood. 
 N The subjects of instruction are the same for both sexes ; 
 
NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 181 
 
 the difference in the manual tasks can easily be maintained, 
 even while the rest of the education is common. Like 
 the larger society which they are to enter some day as 
 perfect human beings, the smaller society in which they 
 are trained for manhood must consist of a combination 
 of both sexes. Both must first of all recognize and 
 learn to love in one another their common humanity, and 
 must have male and female friends, before their attention 
 is directed to sex distinction and they become husbands 
 and wives. Also, the general relationship of the two 
 sexes to each other, stout-hearted protection on the one 
 side and loving help on the other, must appear in the 
 educational institution and be fostered in the pupils. 
 
 156. If our proposal should come to be realized, the 
 first business would be to frame a law for the internal 
 organization of these educational institutions. If the 
 fundamental principle we have put forward once becomes 
 thoroughly established, this is a very easy task, and we do 
 not intend to lose time over it here. 
 
 157. It is a principal requirement of this new national 
 education that in it l earning and working sha lUb e com- 
 bined, that the institution shall appear, to the pupils at 
 least, to be self-supporting, and that everyone shall be 
 reminded to contribute to this aim with all his strength. 
 This is in any case directly required by the problem of 
 education as such, quite apart from the purpose of outward 
 practicability and of economy, which will undoubtedly 
 be expected of our proposal. One reason is that all who 
 get through only the universal national education are 
 intended for the working classes, and training them to 
 be good workmen is undoubtedly part of their education. 
 The special reason, however, is that a man's well-founded 
 confidence that he will always be able to get on in the world 
 by his own strength, and that he requires for maintenance 
 
1 82 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 no charity from others, is part of man's personal independ- 
 ence, and conditions moral independence much more 
 than seems to be believed at present. This training would 
 supply another part of education, which one might call 
 education in the proper management of one's resources, 
 which hitherto has also usually been left to blind chance. 
 This part of education must be considered, not from 
 the paltry and narrow point of view of saving for the sake 
 of saving, which some ridicule with the name of economy, 
 but from the higher moral standpoint. Our age often 
 lays down as a principle beyond all contradiction that one 
 must flatter, cringe, and be everyone's lackey, if one wishes 
 to live, and that no other way will do. Our age does not 
 reflect that, even if one should wish to spare it the 
 counter-proposition (which may sound heroic, but is 
 absolutely true), namely that, if such is the case, it ought 
 not to go on living but ought to die, there yet remains the 
 remark that our age ought to have learnt to live with 
 honour. Let anyone fully inquire who are the persons 
 conspicuous for dishonourable behaviour ; he will always 
 find that they have not learnt to work, or that they are 
 afraid of work, and, moreover, manage things badly. 
 The pupil of our education ought, therefore, to be made 
 accustomed to work, in order that he may be raised 
 above the temptation to dishonesty in his struggle for a 
 living. It ought to be impressed deeply on his mind as 
 the very first principle of honour, that it is shameful to 
 be willing to owe his means of existence to anything but 
 his own work. 
 
 158. Pestalozzi wishes all kinds of manual work to be 
 carried on together with learning. We do not wish to 
 deny the possibility of this combination under the con- 
 dition mentioned by him, that the child is already 
 thoroughly skilled in manual work ; yet this proposal seems 
 
NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 183 
 
 to us to arise from the paltriness of the original aim. In 
 my opinion, instruction must be represented as so sacred 
 and honourable that it requires the whole attention and 
 concentration, and cannot be received along with some- 
 thing else. If such manual work as knitting, spinning, 
 etc., is to be carried on during working hours in seasons 
 which in any case keep the pupils indoors, it will be very 
 useful to combine with it collective mental exercises under 
 supervision, in order that the mind may remain active. 
 But in this case the work is the important thing, and these 
 exercises are to be regarded, not as instruction, but merely 
 as recreation. 
 
 159. In general, all manual work of this inferior kind 
 must be put forward only as incidental, and not as essen- 
 tial. The essential manual work is the practice of agri- 
 culture, gardening, cattle rearing, and those trades which 
 they need in their little State. Of course, the partici- 
 pation in these that is expected of anyone is to be pro- 
 portional to the physical strength of his age ; the rest of 
 the energy is to be supplied by machines and tools that 
 will be invented. Here the chief consideration is that, 
 so far as possible, the pupils must understand the prin- 
 ciples of what they do, and that they have already received 
 the information necessary for their occupations concern- 
 ing the growing of plants, the characteristics and needs 
 of the animal body, and the laws of mechanics. In this 
 way their education becomes a kind of course of instruc- 
 tion in the occupations which they have to follow in the 
 future, and the thoughtful and intelligent farmer is 
 trained by direct perception. Further, their mechanical 
 work is even at this stage ennobled and made intellectual ; 
 it is just as much a verification from direct perception of 
 what they have grasped in their minds, as it is work for 
 a living. Even though associated with the animal and 
 
1 84 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 with the clod, they do not sink to the level of these, but 
 remain within the sphere of the spiritual world. 
 
 1 60. Let it be the fundamental law of this little economic 
 State that no article of food, clothing, etc., and, so far 
 as this is possible, no tool is to be used, which is not 
 produced and made there. If this housekeeping requires 
 support from outside, natural objects should be supplied, 
 but none of any other kind than those it possesses. This 
 must be done without the pupils learning that their own 
 products have been increased ; or, if it is appropriate 
 that they should be told, they should receive the_supply 
 simply as a loan and return it at a fixed time^/Now, for 
 this independence and self-sufficiency of the community 
 every individual should work with all his might, without 
 making a statement of account with it or claiming anything 
 for his own property. Everyone should know that he is 
 indebted absolutely to the community, and should eat or 
 starve along with the community. Thereby the hon- 
 ourable independence of the State and of the family, 
 which he is to enter some day, and the relationship of 
 their individual members to them, is disclosed to his 
 , vivid observation and rooted ineradicably in his heart. 
 I 161. This training to mechanical work is the point 
 at which the education of the scholar, which is a part of, 
 and rests upon, the universal national education, diverges 
 from the latter. The scholar's education, which is now 
 to be discussed, is, I said, part of the universal national 
 education. I offer no opinion as to whether in the future 
 everyone who believes he has sufficient ability to study 
 or ranks himself for any reason with the higher classes of 
 former days will not still be free to take the old path of 
 scholarly education. If we should once get our national 
 education, experience will show how the majority of 
 those scholars will fare, with their purchased learning, 
 
NEW EDUCATION FURTHER DEFINED 185 
 
 against, I will not say the scholar trained in the new 
 school, but even against the ordinary man produced by it. 
 However, I want to speak now, not of that, but of the 
 scholar's education according to the new method. 
 
 According to its principles, the future scholar, too, must 
 have gone through the universal national education and 
 have received completely and clearly its first part, the 
 development of knowledge by sensation, perception, and 
 whatever is connected with the latter. Permission to 
 take up this profession can be granted by the new national 
 education only to the boy who shows an excellent gift 
 for learning and a conspicuous inclination for the world 
 of ideas. It must, however, grant this permission to 
 every boy who shows these qualities, without exception 
 and without regard to so-called difference of birth. 
 For a man is not a scholar for his own convenience ; 
 every talent of that kind is a precious possession of the 
 nation, and may not be taken from it. 
 
 162. The pejjoji who is__not a_ s chola r is destined jto 
 maintai n the h uman race %t_ the_stage q_1 culture it^ has 
 reache d, the sc hola r J^advarice jx_ f urthe r a ccordin g to 
 a clear c oncep tion and with deliberate art. The scholar 
 with his conception must always be in advance of the 
 present age, must understand the future, and be able to 
 implant it in the present for its future development. For 
 this purpose he needs a clear survey of the previous 
 condition of the world, unlimited skill in pure thought 
 independent of phenomena, and, in order that he may be 
 able to communicate his thoughts, control of language 
 down to its living and creative root. All this necessitates 
 mental self-activity, without guidance from others, and 
 solitary reflection, in which, therefore, the future scholar 
 must be exercised from the moment his profession is 
 decided ; it does not mean, as in the case of the person 
 
86 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 who is not a scholar, merely thinking under the eye of an 
 ever-present teacher ; it necessitates a great amount of 
 subsidiary knowledge, which is quite useless in his voca- 
 tion to the person who is not a scholar. This solitary 
 reflection will be the scholar's work, the daily occupation 
 of his life. He is to be trained at once for this work, 
 but in return he is to be exempted from the other mechani- 
 j cal toil. The education of the future scholar for manhood 
 will, therefore, as formerly, proceed in general simultan- 
 eously with the universal national education, and along 
 with all the others he will attend the instruction it supplies. 
 Only those hours which the others spend in manual work 
 will be devoted to the study of whatever his future 
 profession specifically demands ; this will be the only 
 difference. The general knowledge of agriculture, of 
 other mechanical arts, and of their particular methods, 
 which is to be expected of every man, the scholar will 
 undoubtedly have learnt already while passing through 
 the first class ; if he has not, he will have to acquire that 
 knowledge afterwards. It is obvious that he is the last 
 pupil of all to be exempted from the physical exercises 
 that are prescribed. To give an account of the particular 
 subjects which a scholar's education would include, or 
 the course to be followed in them, is, however, beyond 
 the scope of these addresses. 
 
ELEVENTH ADDRESS 
 
 ON WHOM WILL THE CARRYING-OUT OF THIS 
 SCHEME OF EDUCATION DEVOLVE ? 
 
 163. The scheme for the new German national education 
 has been stated sufficiently for our purpose. The next 
 question, which is now urgent, is this : who ought to 
 place himself at the head to carry out this scheme, who is 
 to be relied on, and on whom have we relied ? 
 
 We have represented this education as the highest and, 
 at present, the only urgent concern of German love of 
 fatherland, and wish to make it first and foremost the 
 means of bringing into the world the improvement and 
 regeneration of the whole human race. But that love 
 of fatherland ought above all to inspire the German 
 State, wherever Germans are governed, and take the lead, 
 and be the motive power in all its decisions. It is the 
 
 State, therefore, to which we shall first of all have to 
 turn our expectant gaze. 
 
 Will it realize our hopes ? After what has already 
 been said, what can we expect of it, looking, as is always 
 understood, at no particular State, but at Germany as 
 a whole ? 
 
 164. In modern Europe education actually originated, 
 not with the State, but with that power from which 
 States, too, for the most part obtained their power — 
 from the heavenly spiritual kingdom of the Church. 
 187 
 
1 88 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 The Church considered itself not so much a part of the 
 earthly community as a colony from heaven quite foreign 
 to the earthly community and sent out to enrol citizens 
 for that foreign State, wherever it could take root. Its 
 education aimed at nothing else but that men should not 
 be damned in the other world but saved. The Refor- 
 mation merely united this ecclesiastical power, which 
 otherwise continued to regard itself as before, to the 
 temporal power, with which formerly it had very often 
 been actually in conflict. In that connection, this was 
 the only difference that resulted from that event ; there 
 also remained, therefore, the old view of educational 
 matters. Even in recent times, and until the present 
 
 ^ day, the education of the richer classes has been looked 
 jupon as the private concern of the parents, who might 
 arrange it to their own satisfaction ; and their children 
 were usually put to school simply because some day it 
 I would be useful to them. The sole public education, 
 
 V that of the people, however, was simply education for 
 salvation in heaven ; the essential feature was a little 
 Christianity and reading, with writing if it could be 
 managed — all for the sake of Christianity. All other 
 development of man was left to the blind and casual 
 influence of the society in which they grew up, and to 
 actual life. Even the institutions for scholarly education 
 were intended mainly for the training of ecclesiastics. 
 Theology was the important faculty ; the others were 
 merely supplementary to it, and usually received only 
 its leavings. 
 
 165. So long as those who stood at the head of the 
 Government remained in the dark concerning its true 
 aim and were filled with that anxiety of conscience about 
 the salvation of themselves and others, one could rely 
 with certainty on their zeal for this kind of public educa- 
 
THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 189 
 
 tion and on their earnest efforts in its behalf. But, as 
 soon as they were clear about the true aim of government 
 and understood that the sphere of the State's action lies' 
 within the visible world, it must have been evident to 
 them that anxiety about the eternal salvation of their 
 subjects could be no concern of theirs, and that anyone 
 who wanted to be saved there should see to it himself. 
 From that time onwards they considered they were doing 
 enough, if for the future they left to their original 
 destiny the foundations and institutions that had origi- 
 nated in more pious ages. However unsuitable and 
 insufficient they might be for totally changed times, 
 they considered they were neither obliged to contribute 
 to them by saving on their other aims, nor justified 
 in interfering actively and setting useful innovations in 
 the place of antiquated and useless things. To all pro- 
 posals of this kind the ever-ready answer was : the State 
 has no money for that. If an exception were ever made, 
 it was to the advantage of the institutions for higher 
 education, which shed splendour far and wide, and pro- 
 cured fame for their patrons. But the education of 
 that class which is the real foundation of the human race, 
 by which the higher culture is ever restored, and on which 
 that culture must continually react — the education of ^ 
 the people remained neglected and, from the Reforma- 
 tion down to the present day, has been in a state of 
 increasing decay. 
 
 166. Now, if for the future, and from this very hour, 
 we are to be able to hope better things in this matter 
 from the State, it will have to exchange what seems to 
 have been up to the present its fundamental conception 
 of the aim of education for an entirely different one. 
 It must see that it was quite right before to refuse to be 
 anxious about the eternal salvation of its citizens, because 
 
1 9 o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 no special training is required for such salvation, and 
 that a nursery for heaven, like the Church, whose power 
 has at last been handed over to the State, should not be 
 permitted, for it only obstructs all good education, and 
 
 | must be dispensed with. On the other hand, the State 
 ^>must see that education for life on earth is very greatly 
 
 I needed ; from such a thorough education, training for 
 heaven follows as an easy supplement. The more 
 enlightened the State thought it was before, the more 
 firmly it seems to have believed that it could attain its 
 true aim merely by means of coercive institutions, and 
 without any religion and morality in its citizens, who 
 might do as they liked in regard to such matters. May 
 it have learnt this at least from recent experiences — that 
 it cannot do so, and that it has got into its present con- 
 dition just because of the want of religion and morality ! 
 
 167. As for the State's doubt whether it can meet the 
 cost of a national education, would that one could con- 
 vince it that by this one expenditure it will provide for 
 most of the others in the most economical way, and that, 
 if only it undertakes this, it will soon have no other big 
 expenditure to make ! Up to the present, by far the 
 largest part of the State's income has been spent on the 
 maintenance of standing armies. We have seen the 
 result of that expenditure ; that is sufficient ; it is 
 beyond our plan to go more deeply into the special 
 reasons for that result, which lie in the organization of 
 those armies. On the other hand, the State which 
 introduced universally the national education proposed 
 by us, from the moment that a new generation of youths 
 had passed through it, would need no special army at 
 all, but would have in them an army such as no age has 
 yet seen. Each individual is exercised thoroughly in 
 every possible use of his physical powers, and under- 
 
THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 191 
 
 stands them at once, being accustomed to bear every effort 
 and hardship ; his mind, developed in direct perception, 
 is ever alert and self-possessed ; in his heart there lives 
 love of the community of which he is a member, of the 
 State, and of his country, and this love destroys every 
 other selfish impulse. The State can summon them and 
 put them under arms when it will, and can be sure that 
 no enemy will defeat them. Formerly, another source 
 of concern and expenditure in wisely governed States 
 was improvement in the management of the State's 
 resources in its widest sense and in all its branches. In 
 this, owing to the ignorance and helplessness of the lower 
 classes, much care and money were spent in vain, and the 
 matter has everywhere made but little progress. By 
 means of our education the State will get working- 
 classes accustomed from their youth up to thinking about 
 their business, and already able and inclined to help them- 
 selves. Now if, in addition, the State can help them in 
 a suitable way, they will understand in a moment, and 
 accept its instruction very gratefully. All branches 
 of the State's economy will in a short time attain, without 
 much difficulty, a prosperity which no age has yet seen ; 
 and the State's original expenditure will be repaid a 
 thousandfold, if it cares to reckon up and if by that time 
 it has learnt the true fundamental value of things. 
 Hitherto the State has had to do a great deal, and yet has 
 never been able to do enough, for law and police institu- 
 tions. Convict prisons and reformatories have caused 
 it expense. Finally, the more that was spent on poor- 
 houses, the more they required ; indeed, under the 
 prevailing circumstances, they seemed to be institutions 
 for making people poor. In a State which makes the 
 new education universal, the former will be greatly 
 reduced, the latter will vanish entirely. Early discipline 
 
192 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 is a guarantee against the need in later years of reforma- 
 tion and penal discipline, which are very doubtful 
 measures, while in a nation so trained there are no poor 
 at all. 
 
 1 68. May the State and all its advisers dare to look its 
 true present position in the face and acknowledge it ! 
 May it realize vividly that, apart from the education of 
 the succeeding generations, there remains absolutely no 
 sphere, in which it can act originally and independently 
 like a real State, and make decisions ! May it see that, 
 if it does not want to do nothing at all, there is but this 
 that it can still do, and may it realize, too, that no one 
 will envy or detract from the merit of this service ! The 
 fact that we can no longer make active resistance has 
 already been postulated by us as obvious, and is admitted 
 by everyone. Now, how can we justify the continuance 
 of our forfeited existence against the reproach of cow- 
 ardice and of an unworthy love of life ? In no other way 
 than by deciding not to live for ourselves, and by proving 
 this in action ; by being willing to make ourselves the 
 seed of a more worthy posterity and, for its sake alone, 
 to maintain ourselves until we have set it up. Deprived 
 of that chief aim in life, what can we do ? Our constitu- 
 tions will be made for us ; our alliances and the employ- 
 ment of our fighting forces will be prescribed to us ; 
 a code of law will be given to us ; even justice and judg- 
 ment and their administration will sometimes be taken 
 from us. For the immediate future we shall be spared 
 the trouble of these matters. It is only of education 
 that no one has thought ; if we are looking for an occu- 
 pation, let us seize this ! We may expect to be left in it 
 undisturbed. I hope — perhaps I deceive myself in 
 this, but as I care to live only for that hope, I cannot 
 give up hoping — I hope that I shall convince some 
 
THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 193 
 
 Germans, and get them to see that it is education alone 
 that can save us from all the ills that oppress us. I 
 rely especially on necessity having made us more inclined 
 to attention and to serious reflection. Other countries 
 have other consolations and other resources ; it is not 
 to be expected that they will give any attention to the 
 thought of education, or have any faith in it, should it 
 ever occur to them. I hope rather that it will be a rich 
 source of amusement to the readers of their papers, when 
 they learn that anyone expects such great things from 
 education. 
 
 169. May the State and its advisers not let themselves 
 become more loath to take up this task by the considera- 
 tion that the result hoped for is remote ! If among the 
 numerous and highly complicated reasons for our present 
 fate one wanted to single out that for which our govern- 
 ments alone are peculiarly to blame, it would be found 
 that, although they above all others are bound to look 
 the future in the face and master it, they have never 
 tried, in spite of the urgency of the great events of their 
 time, to do more than get out of the difficulty of the 
 immediate moment as well as they could. In regard to 
 the future, however, they have reckoned, not on their 
 present age, but on some piece of good luck which should 
 sever the fixed chain of cause and effect. But such hopes 
 are deceptive. A motive power which is once allowed 
 to enter the flow of time continues and completes its 
 course ; once the first careless act has been committed, 
 belated reflection cannot arrest it. Our fate has for the 
 moment removed from us the possibility of making the 
 first mistake, that of providing merely for the present ; 
 the present is no longer ours. Let us not repeat the 
 second, that of hoping for a better future from anything 
 but ourselves. Indeed, the present can afford no con- 
 
 •3 
 
i 9 4 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 solation for the duty to live to any one of us who requires 
 for life something more than food ; the hope of a better 
 future is the only atmosphere in which we can still 
 breathe. But only the dreamer can base this hope on 
 anything but what he himself can plant in the present 
 for the development of a future. Let those who rule 
 over us permit us to think as well of them as we do of 
 each other, and as the better man feels ! Let them put 
 themselves at the head of the business that is to us, too, 
 quite clear, so that we may yet see arising before our 
 eyes that which will some day wipe from our memory 
 the shame that has been done to the German name before 
 our eyes ! 
 
 170. If the State undertakes the proposed task, it will 
 make this education universal throughout the length and 
 breadth of its domain for every one of its future citizens 
 without exception. Indeed, it is for that universality 
 alone that we need the State, since for individual begin- 
 nings and isolated attempts the resources of well-disposed 
 private persons would suffice. Of course, it is not to be 
 expected that all parents will be willing to be separated 
 from their children, and to hand them over to this new 
 education, a notion of which it will be difficult to convey 
 to them. From past experience we must reckon that 
 everyone who still believes he is able to support his 
 children at home will set himself against public education, 
 and especially against a public education that separates 
 so strictly and lasts so long. Now, in these cases of ex- 
 pected resistance it has been customary in the past for 
 statesmen to reject the proposal with the reply : The 
 State has no right to use compulsion for that purpose. 
 If they want to wait until all men have the good will, 
 since universal goodwill will never be produced without 
 education, they are thereby secured against all improve- 
 
THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 195 
 
 ment, and may expect that there will be no change 
 until the end of time. In so far as these statesmen are 
 among those who either consider any education an un- 
 necessary luxury, with which people should be supplied 
 as scantily as possible, or see in our proposals only a 
 daring new experiment with humanity, which may or 
 may not succeed, they are to be praised for their con- 
 scientiousness. Those who are filled with admiration 
 for the existing state of public education and with de- 
 light at the perfection which it has reached under their 
 direction cannot really be expected now to agree with 
 something which they do not already know. Not one 
 of them is of any use for our purpose, and it would be 
 deplorable if the decision in this matter were to rest 
 with them. But statesmen might be found and consulted 
 on this matter who, above all things, have educated them- 
 selves by a deep and thorough study of philosophy and 
 science, who are in real earnest about their business, have 
 a definite idea of man and of his vocation, and are capable 
 of understanding the present and of judging what is 
 absolutely necessary for mankind at this time. If such 
 men perceived from those preliminary conceptions that 
 education alone can save us from the barbarism and 
 relapse into savagery that is otherwise bound to over- 
 whelm us, if they had a vision of the new human race 
 which would arise through this education, if they were 
 themselves inwardly convinced of the infallibility and 
 certainty of the proposed remedy, they might be expected 
 to have realized at the same time that the State, as the 
 supreme administrator of human affairs and the guardian 
 of those who are its wards, responsible only to God and 
 to its own conscience, has a perfect right even to compel 
 the latter for their welfare. For where is there a State 
 to-day which doubts whether it has the right to compel 
 
1 96 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 its subjects to military service, and for that purpose to 
 take away children from parents, whether one parent or 
 both be willing or unwilling ? Yet this compulsion to 
 adopt permanently a certain mode of life against one's 
 will is far more serious, and has frequently the most 
 harmful results to the moral condition, health, and life 
 of those who are so compelled. On the other hand, the 
 compulsion of which we speak restores complete personal 
 freedom when education is finished, and can have none 
 but the most salutary results. It is true that even mili- 
 tary service was formerly voluntary ; but, when it was 
 discovered that this was not sufficient for the purpose 
 intended, we did not scruple to back it up by compulsion, 
 because the matter was sufficiently important for us, 
 and necessity demanded compulsion. If only in regard 
 to education, too, our eyes were opened to our need and 
 the matter became as important to us, that hesitation 
 would vanish of itself ; especially as compulsion will be 
 needed only in the first generation and will vanish in the 
 next, which will itself have passed through this education. 
 Moreover, compulsory military service, too, will thereby 
 be ended, because those who are thus educated are all 
 equally willing to bear arms for their fatherland. Even 
 if, in order not to have too much of an outcry at the 
 beginning, it is desirable to limit this compulsion to public 
 education in the same way as compulsion to military 
 service has hitherto been limited, and to exclude from the 
 former the classes that are exempt from the latter, no 
 serious harm will result. The intelligent parents among 
 those exempted will voluntarily hand^ over their children 
 to this education. The children of the unintelligent 
 parents of these classes, an insignificant minority, may 
 continue to grow up as before. They will survive among 
 the better generation that is to be created, and serve 
 
THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 197 
 
 merely as a curious memorial of the past, and to encourage 
 the new age to a vivid knowledge of its greater good 
 fortune. 
 
 171. Now, this education is to be national education 
 of the Germans simply ; and the great majority of those 
 who speak the German language, and not just the citizens 
 of this or that particular German State only, are to exist 
 as a new race of men. Every German State, therefore, 
 must undertake this task for itself, and independently 
 of all the others. The language in which this matter 
 was first mentioned, in which the means thereto are and 
 will be written, in which the teachers are trained, the 
 one vein of sensuous imagery that permeates all this is 
 common to all Germans. I can scarcely imagine how and 
 with what changes all these means of education, especially 
 to the full extent of our scheme, could be translated into 
 the language of any foreign country so as to seem, not 
 an alien transplanted thing, but a native product arising 
 from the very life of its language. For all Germans 
 alike this difficulty is removed ; for them the thing is 
 ready ; they need only avail themselves of it. 
 
 172. In this respect it is well for us, indeed, that there 
 are various German States separated from one another. 
 What has so often been to our disadvantage may perhaps 
 in this important national business serve to our advantage. 
 The rivalry of several States and the desire to anticipate 
 one another may perhaps bring about what the calm 
 self-sufficiency of the single State would not produce. 
 For it is clear that, whichever German State makes a start 
 in this matter, that State will win for itself the chief 
 place in the respect, love, and gratitude of all, and will 
 rank as the greatest benefactor and the true founder of 
 the nation. It will encourage the others, set them an 
 instructive example, and be their model. It will remove 
 
198 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 doubts which hold the others fast. It will produce the 
 textbooks and the first teachers, and lend them to the 
 others. The State that follows it next will win the second 
 place of honour. There is gratifying evidence that among 
 the Germans the taste for higher things has never quite 
 died out, for several German peoples and States have 
 striven with one another for the honour of having the 
 higher culture. Some have claimed to have more exten- 
 sive freedom of the press and greater disregard for tradi- 
 tional opinion, others better organized schools and 
 universities ; some have cited former glory and merit, 
 others something else ; and the strife could not be de- 
 cided. On the present occasion it will be decided. 
 Only that education which dares to make itself universal 
 and to include all men without distinction is a real part 
 of life and is sure of itself. Any other is foreign trimming, 
 put on simply for show and not even worn with right good 
 conscience. It will now be revealed where the boasted 
 culture exists only in a few people of the middle class, 
 who show it in their writings (and such people are to be 
 found in every German State), and where, on the other 
 hand, it has reached also the higher classes who advise 
 the State. Then it will be shown, too, how one has to 
 judge the zeal displayed here and there for the erection 
 and welfare of institutions for higher education ; whether 
 the motive was pure love of educating mankind, which 
 would indeed treat with equal zeal every branch of educa- 
 tion and especially the very first foundation, or mere 
 passion for showing off and, perhaps, paltry schemes for 
 making money. 
 
 173. The first German State to carry out this pro- 
 posal will, I said, have the greatest glory. Yet it will 
 not long stand alone, but will doubtless soon find imi- 
 tators and rivals. The important thing is to make a 
 
THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 199 
 
 start. Even if there were no other motive, a sense of 
 honour, or jealousy, or the desire to have what another 
 possesses and, if possible, to have it in a better form, will 
 spur on the rest to follow the example one after the other. 
 Then, too, the above-mentioned considerations concerning 
 the State's own advantage, which perhaps seem doubtful 
 to many just now, will become more obvious, once they 
 are proved by personal observation. 
 
 If it could be expected that every German State would 
 at once, and from this very hour, make serious prepara- 
 tions to carry out that scheme, the better generation that 
 we need would be in existence in twenty-five years, and 
 anyone who might expect to live so long could hope to 
 see it with his own eyes. 
 
 174. But we must also take this contingency into 
 account. Among all the German States that now exist, 
 there might not be a single one which had among its 
 highest advisers a man capable of understanding, and of 
 being affected by, all that has been mentioned above, 
 and in which the majority of the counsellors did not at 
 any rate oppose him. In that case, of course, this business 
 would devolve upon well-disposed private persons, and 
 it would be desirable that they should make a start with 
 the proposed new education. We have in mind here, 
 first of all, great landowners, who could establish on their 
 estates such educational institutions for the children of 
 their dependents. It is to Germany's credit, and a very 
 honourable mark of distinction from the other nations 
 of modern Europe, that among the class mentioned there 
 have always been some here and there, who made it 
 ^their serious business to care for the instruction and 
 education of the children on their estates, and were 
 gladly willing to do for them to the best of their know- 
 ledge. It is to be hoped that they will now be inclined 
 
200 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 to inform themselves about the complete scheme that is 
 offered them, and be just as willing to do now on a large 
 scale and thoroughly what they have hitherto done on a 
 small scale and imperfectly. It may be that some of 
 them did what they did partly because they saw that it 
 was more profitable for them to have educated, rather 
 than uneducated, dependents. In those cases where the 
 State, by abolishing the relationship of serf and lord, 
 has now removed the latter motive, may it bear in mind 
 the more earnestly that it is its essential duty at the same 
 time not to do away with the one blessing which, where 
 the lords were well-disposed, was attached to that 
 relationship ! May the State in this case not fail to do 
 that which, apart from this, is its duty, when it has 
 released therefrom those who did it voluntarily in its 
 stead ! Then, in regard to the cities, we look to volun- 
 tary associations formed for that purpose by well-disposed 
 citizens. So far as I have been able to see, no burden 
 of misery has ever yet extinguished in German hearts 
 the impulse to do good. Yet, owing to a number of 
 faults in our institutions, which could all be included 
 under the one head of neglected education, these good 
 works seldom remove misery, but seem, indeed, often to 
 increase it. May we at last direct that excellent impulse 
 chiefly towards the good work which puts an end to all 
 misery and to all need of further good works — the good 
 work of education. Yet we need, and count upon, a 
 blessing and sacrifice of another kind, which consists, 
 not in giving, but in doing and acting. May budding 
 scholars, whose position allows it, dedicate the time 
 between their departure from the university and theic 
 appointment to a public post to the business of receiving 
 instruction in these institutions concerning this method 
 of teaching, and of teaching in them ! Apart from the 
 
THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 201 
 
 fact that they will thereby deserve well of the community, 
 we can assure them that they will themselves gain very 
 much. All the knowledge which they carry away with 
 them from the usual university teaching, and which is 
 often so dead, will become clear and living in the atmos- 
 phere of general observation into which they come here. 
 They will learn to reproduce and use their knowledge 
 with skill. Since all the features of mankind appear 
 pure and clear in the child, they will acquire a store of 
 true knowledge of mankind that alone deserves the name ; 
 they will be introduced to the great art of life and action, 
 in which the university usually gives no instruction. 
 
 175. If the State does not undertake the proffered task, 
 so much the greater glory for the private persons who do. 
 Far be it from us to anticipate the future with surmises, 
 or strike the note of doubt and distrust. We have stated 
 clearly what we wish for first. We may, however, be 
 permitted to say that, if the State and the princes should 
 in fact leave the matter to private persons, this would be 
 in accordance with the usual course of German develop- 
 ment and culture, which has been already mentioned 
 and proved by examples, and which would continue so 
 to the end. In this case, too, the State will follow in 
 its own time ; at first like an individual, wanting just 
 to do its part, until later it reflects that it is not a part, 
 but the whole, and that it is its duty, as well as its right, 
 to care for the whole. From that moment onwards, all 
 the independent efforts of private persons cease and are 
 subordinated to the State's general scheme. 
 
 Should the matter take this course, the intended refor- 
 mation of our race will certainly proceed but slowly, and 
 without the possibility of a definite and fixed survey and 
 estimate of the whole. But let us not be deterred by this 
 from making a start ! It is the very nature of the thing 
 
202 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 that it can never perish, but, once set in motion, it lives 
 on of itself and spreads, ever gaining fresh ground. Every- 
 one who has received this education becomes a witness 
 for it and a zealous propagator. Everyone will pay his 
 debt for the teaching received by becoming a teacher 
 himself, and by making as many disciples as he can, who 
 will also in turn some day become teachers. This must 
 continue until the whole community without exception 
 is affected. 
 
 176. If the State should not undertake the matter, 
 private enterprise has this to fear ; that those parents 
 who are at all well-to-do will not give up their children 
 to this education. In that case, in God's name let 
 us turn with full confidence to the poor orphans, to 
 the wretched street-children, and to all those whom 
 the adult world has cast out and rejected. Formerly, 
 especially in those German States where the piety of 
 ancestors had greatly increased and richly endowed the 
 public educational institutions, many parents let their 
 families have instruction, because along with it, as in 
 no other occupation, they found maintenance at the same 
 time. Let us, therefore, since it is necessary, reverse 
 this order, and give bread to those to whom no one else 
 gives it, in order that, along with the bread, they may 
 receive mental culture also. Let us not fear that the 
 misery and wildness of their former condition will hinder 
 our purpose ! If only we snatch them away from it 
 suddenly and completely, bring them into an entirely 
 new world, and leave nothing to remind them of the past, 
 they will themselves forget and be like newly-created 
 beings. Our course of instruction and daily routine 
 must guarantee that only good is engraven on this clean 
 new tablet. It will be a testimony against our age and 
 a warning to all posterity if the very ones whom it has 
 
THE CARRYING-OUT OF THE SCHEME 203 
 
 rejected obtain through this rejection the sole privilege 
 of founding a new race, if they bring the blessing of educa- 
 tion to the children of those who would not mix with 
 them, and if they become the ancestors of our future 
 heroes, sages, lawgivers, and saviours of mankind. 
 
 177. For the first establishment capable teachers and 
 educators above all are needed. Pestalozzi's school has 
 trained such people, and is always ready to train more. 
 An important thing to keep in mind at the beginning 
 will be that every institution of the kind should regard 
 itself also as a training school for teachers, where, round 
 the teachers who are already trained, a number of young 
 men may gather to learn and, at the same time, to practise 
 teaching, and by practice to learn it better and better. 
 This, too, will greatly facilitate the supply of teachers, 
 in case the institutions have at first to struggle against 
 poverty. Most of them will be there to learn ; let the 
 sole return asked of them be to apply for a time what they 
 have learnt to the benefit of the institution where they 
 learnt it. 
 
 Moreover, such an institution needs a building, initial 
 equipment, and an adequate piece of land. It seems 
 evident that, as these institutions develop, they will 
 contain a relatively large number of growing youths of 
 an age at which, under the existing arrangement, they 
 earn as servants not only their maintenance but also a 
 yearly wage. To these the children of more tender 
 age can be entrusted, and by diligence and wise economy, 
 which in any case are necessary, these institutions will 
 be mainly self-supporting. At first, so long as there are 
 none of these older pupils, the institutions will need rather 
 large contributions. It is to be hoped that people will 
 be more disposed to make contributions, when they see 
 the prospect of an end to them. Let us not be parsi- 
 
2o 4 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 monious, and so prejudice the aim. It is far better that 
 we should do nothing at all than permit this. 
 
 My opinion, therefore, is that, goodwill alone pre- 
 supposed, the realization of this scheme presents no 
 difficulty that could not easily be overcome by the com- 
 bination of several people, and by the directing of all 
 their strength to this one purpose. 
 
TWELFTH ADDRESS 
 
 CONCERNING THE MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 
 UNTIL WE ATTAIN OUR MAIN OBJECT 
 
 178. The education which we propose to the Germans 
 as their future national education has now been suffi- 
 ciently described. When once the generation that has 
 been formed by this education is in existence— a._ genera- 
 tion impelled by its taste_for_the_ r ight and_t he good and 
 by n othing else whatever ; a generation provided with an 
 understanding that is adequate for its standpoint and 
 recognizes the r ight u nfailingl y on_ every o ccasion ; a 
 generation equipped with full power, both physical and 
 spiritual, to carry out its will on every occasion — when 
 once this generation is in existence, everything that we 
 can long for in our boldest wishes will come into being 
 of itself from the very existence of that generation, and 
 will grow out of it naturally. That age is in so little 
 need of any rules we can make for its guidance that we 
 should rather have to learn from it. 
 
 Since this generation is in the meantime not in exis- 
 tence, but must first be raised up by education, and since, 
 even if everything else should go on excellently and beyond 
 our expectation, we shall nevertheless require a consider- 
 able interval before we pass over to that new age, the 
 more urgent question arises : How are we to manage to 
 get through this interval ? Since we can do nothing 
 205 
 
2o6 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 better, how are we to maintain ourselves at any rate as the 
 soil on which the improvement may take place, and as 
 the point of departure at which this improvement may 
 begin its work ? When once the generation formed in 
 this way emerges from its seclusion and appears among 
 us, how are we to prevent it from finding among us actual 
 conditions that have not the slightest relationship to 
 the order of things which it has conceived as embodying 
 the right — actual conditions under which no one under- 
 stands it or has the slightest wish for, or need of, such 
 an order of things, but, on the contrary, regards the 
 existing state of things as entirely natural and the only 
 one possible ? Would not those who have another world 
 in their hearts soon become confused ; and in this case 
 would not the new education be just as useless for the 
 improvement of actual life as the former education, 
 and lose its savour in the same way ? 
 
 179. If the majority of people continue in their 
 previous state of heedlessness, thoughtlessness, and lack 
 of concentration, this very result may be expected as 
 inevitable. He who lets himself go without paying heed 
 to himself, and allows himself to be moulded by circum- 
 stances just as they please, soon accustoms himself to any 
 possible order of things. However much his eye may 
 have been offended by something when he first saw it, let 
 it only present itself anew every day in the same way and 
 he accustoms himself to it. Later, he finds it natural, 
 and in the end he even gets to like it as something inevit- 
 able ; he would not thank you for the restoration of 
 the original and better state of things, because this would 
 tear him out of the mode of life to which he has become 
 accustomed. In this way men become accustomed even 
 to slavery, if only their material existence is not thereby 
 affected, and in time they get to like it. It is just this 
 
MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 207 
 
 that is the most dangerous thing about a state of subjection; 
 it makes men insensitive to all true honour, and, more- 
 over, for the indolent man it has its very pleasant side, 
 because it relieves him of many a care and of the need 
 of thinking for himself. 
 
 180. Let us be on our guard against being taken un- 
 awares by this sweetness of servitude, for it robs even our 
 posterity of the hope of future emancipation. If our 
 external activity is restricted and fettered, let us elevate 
 our spirit all the more boldly to the thought of freedom ; 
 let us rise to live in this thought and make it the sole 
 object of our wish and longing. What if freedom dis- 
 appear for a time from the visible world ? Let us give 
 it a place of refuge in our innermost thoughts, until 
 there shall grow up round about us the new world which 
 has the power of manifesting our thoughts outwardly. 
 In the sphere where no one can deprive us of the freedom 
 to do as we think best — in our own minds let us make 
 ourselves a pattern, a prophecy, and a guarantee of that 
 which will become a reality when we are gone. Let us 
 not allow our spirit, as well as our body, to be bent and 
 subjected and brought into captivity. 
 
 181. If you ask me how this is to be brought about, 
 the only entirely comprehensive answer is this : We must 
 at once become what we ought to be in any case, 
 namely, Germans. We are not to subject our spirit ; 
 therefore we must before all things provide a spirit for 
 ourselves, and a firm and certain spirit ; we must become 
 earnest in all things and not go on existing frivolously, as 
 if life were a jest ; we must form for ourselves enduring and 
 unshakable principles which will serve as a sure guide 
 for all the rest of our thoughts and actions. Life and 
 thought with us must be of one piece and a solid and 
 interpenetrating whole ; in both we must live according 
 
208 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 to nature and truth, and throw away foreign contrivances ; 
 in a word, we must provide character for ourselves ; for 
 to have character and to be German [Charakter haben 
 und deutsch sein\ undoubtedly mean the same ; and the 
 thing has no special name in our language, because it is 
 intended to proceed immediately from our very existence 
 without any knowledge or reflection on our part. 
 
 182. We must first of all set our own thoughts to 
 work and think about the great events of our days, their 
 relation to us, and what we have to expect from them ; 
 and we must provide ourselves with a firm and clear view 
 of all these matters, and a definite and unchangeable Yes 
 or No in answer to the questions that arise out of them. 
 Everyone who makes the slightest claim to culture is 
 bound to do that. The animal life of man proceeds in 
 all ages according to the same laws, and in this every 
 age is alike. Only to the understanding are there such 
 things as different ages ; and only the man whose conception 
 penetrates them lives in them, and only he exists in his 
 own age ; any other kind of life is nothing but the life 
 of plants and animals. To let everything that happens 
 pass by one unperceived, perhaps to close eye and ear 
 diligently to its urgent message, and even to boast of such 
 thoughtlessness as if it were great wisdom — this may be 
 the proper thing for a rock on which the waves of the 
 sea beat without its feeling them, or for a tree-trunk 
 dashed to and fro by storms without its perceiving them ; 
 but in no wise does it beseem a thinking being. Even the 
 thinker who dwells in the higher spheres is not absolved 
 from this general obligation of understanding his own 
 age. Everything that is on the higher plane must want 
 to influence the immediate present in its own fashion ; 
 and he who truly lives in the former lives at the same 
 time in the latter also ; if he did not live in the latter 
 
MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 209 
 
 also, it would be a proof that he did not live in the 
 former either, but only dreamed in it. That lack of heed 
 to what is going on before our eyes, and the artful dis- 
 traction to other objects of the attention that is everywhere 
 aroused, would be the best thing that an enemy of our 
 independence could wish to find. If he is sure that 
 nothing will set us thinking, he can do anything he wishes 
 with us, as if we were lifeless tools. It is precisely this 
 thoughtlessness that accustoms itself to anything ; but 
 where clear and comprehensive thought, and in that 
 thought the image of what ought to be, always remains 
 watchful, there is no question of becoming accustomed 
 to such things. 
 
 183. These addresses have in the first place invited you, 
 and they will invite the whole German nation, in so far 
 as it is possible at the present time to assemble the nation 
 around a speaker by means of the printed book, to come 
 to a definite decision and to be at one with themselves 
 in their own minds on the following questions : 
 
 (1) Whether it is true or untrue that there is a German 
 nation, and that its continued existence in its peculiar 
 and independent nature is at the present time in danger ; 
 
 (2) Whether it is worth the trouble, or not worth the 
 trouble, to maintain this nation ; 
 
 (3) Whether there is any sure and thorough means of 
 maintaining it, and what this means is. 
 
 184. It was hitherto a custom of long standing among 
 us that, when any earnest word was uttered, either to 
 an audience or in print, those who never got beyond 
 polite conversation took possession of the word and 
 transformed it into an amusing subject of talk to relieve 
 their boredom. Now, I have not noticed, as I have on 
 former occasions, that those around me have made such 
 a use of the addresses I am now delivering ; but I have not 
 
2io ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 acquainted myself with the current tone of the social 
 gatherings in the field of books — I mean the literary 
 papers and other journals — and I do not know whether 
 they may be expected to take me in joke or in earnest. 
 However this may be, it has at any rate not been my 
 intention to joke, or to set in motion once more the wit 
 which this age of ours is known to possess. 
 
 185. A custom that took deeper root among us and 
 became almost second nature — so much so that not to 
 observe it was almost unheard-of — was that the Germans 
 regarded the introduction of any topic as an invitation to 
 everyone who had a mouth to have his own say about it, 
 quickly and on the spot, and to inform us whether he was 
 of the same opinion or not ; and when the vote had been 
 taken in this way the whole thing was over, and public 
 conversation felt bound to proceed with haste to another 
 subject. In this way all literary discussion among the 
 Germans transformed itself, like Echo in the ancient 
 fable, into nothing but pure sound, without any body 
 or bodily substance. We know how it is in the personal 
 intercourse of third-rate society, and so it was in this 
 literary fellowship ; the only thing that mattered was 
 that the human voice should go on sounding, and that 
 each one should take up the ball of conversation and with- 
 out a pause throw it to his neighbour ; but what was said 
 did not matter in the least. Now, if that is not being 
 without character and un-German, what is ? Nor has 
 it been my intention to do homage to this custom and 
 merely keep alive public discussion. I have long ago 
 sufficiently performed my own share in this public 
 conversation — though only incidentally, my purpose 
 having been different — and I think I might at last be 
 absolved from any further contribution. I do not want to 
 know on the spot what A or B thinks about the questions 
 
MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 211 
 
 that have been raised here, i.e., what he has hitherto 
 thought about them, or not thought. He must consider 
 it for himself and think deeply about it, until his judg- 
 ment is ready and completely clear, and he must take 
 the necessary time for that purpose ; if he is still lacking 
 in the requisite preliminary knowledge, and in the full 
 degree of culture that is required before a judgment 
 can be formed in these matters, he must further take time 
 to make good these deficiencies. If anyone has his 
 judgment ready and clear in this way, we do not exactly 
 insist that he shall deliver it publicly. Should it agree 
 with what has been said here — well, it has been said 
 already and does not need saying twice. Only he who 
 can say something different and better is called upon to 
 speak. On the other hand, what has been said here 
 must be really lived and put into practice by each one 
 in his own way and according to his own circumstances. 
 
 186. Least of all, in conclusion, has it been my inten- 
 tion to lay these addresses as an exercise in composition 
 before our German masters of doctrine and writing, so 
 that they may correct them and I may learn in this way 
 what promise, if any, there is in my work. In this 
 respect also plenty of good doctrine and advice has 
 already been directed towards me and, if improvement 
 were to be expected, it ought to have shown itself by now. 
 
 187. No, my intention in the first place was to be a 
 guide among the swarm of questions and investigations 
 and the host of contradictory opinions concerning them, 
 in which educated men among us have hitherto been 
 tossed about, and to lead as many men as I could to a 
 point where they might take a firm stand, to the point 
 which concerns us most intimately — the point of our own 
 common interests. My intention was to bring them in 
 this one matter to a firm opinion which might remain 
 
2i2 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 unshaken, and to a clearness in which they might really 
 see their way. However much else might be a matter of 
 dispute among them, my intention was to unite them in 
 this one matter at least, and to make them of one mind. 
 It was my intention, finally, to bring this out as one 
 certain characteristic of the German, viz., that he is a 
 man who has appreciated the need of forming an opinion 
 for himself about that which concerns Germans ; and to 
 make it clear that a man who does not want to hear or to 
 ^ think anything about this subject may rightly be regarded, 
 i from now on, as not belonging to us. 
 
 1 88. The creation of a firm opinion of this kind, and 
 the association and mutual comprehension of divers 
 persons on this subject, will do two things. It will be 
 the direct means of redeeming our character, by removing 
 that lack of concentration which is so unworthy of us, 
 and at the same time it will become a powerful means 
 of attaining our main object, the introduction of the new 
 national education. It was just because we ourselves, 
 individually and collectively, were never of one opinion, 
 but wanted one thing to-day and something different 
 tomorrow, and because each one made the clamour 
 more confused by shouting something different — it was 
 for this reason that our governments, who to be sure 
 listened to us, and often listened more attentively than 
 was advisable, became confused and swayed to and fro 
 just like our own opinion. If our common affairs are 
 at last to pursue a firm and certain course, what is there 
 to prevent us from beginning at once with ourselves and 
 setting the example of firmness and decision ? When 
 once a united and unchanging opinion makes itself heard, 
 when a definite need announces itself as a general need and 
 makes itself felt — the need of a national education, as we 
 assume it will be — I am quite sure that our governments 
 
MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 213 
 
 will listen to us ; they will help us, if we show the inclina- 
 tion to allow ourselves to be helped. At any rate, if 
 they did not, we would then, and not before, have the 
 right to complain about them ; at the present time, 
 when our governments are pretty much as we want them 
 to be, it ill becomes us to complain. 
 
 189. Whether there is a sure and thorough means of 
 preserving the German nation, and what this means may 
 be, is the most important of the questions which I have 
 submitted to this nation for decision. My object in 
 answering the question, and in stating the reasons for my 
 way of answering it, was not to say what the final judgment 
 will be — that could not be of any use, because everyone 
 who is to have a hand in this matter must have convinced 
 himself in his own mind by his own activity — on the con- 
 trary, my object was only to stimulate men to reflect for 
 themselves and form their own judgment. From this point 
 onwards I must leave each man to settle it for himself. 
 One warning I can give and nothing more ; do not 
 let yourselves be deceived by the shallow and superficial 
 thoughts which are in circulation even on this subject ; do 
 not let yourselves be restrained from deep reflection, and 
 do not accept the empty consolations that are offered. 
 
 190. For example, long before the most recent events, 
 
 we had to hear, in advance as it were, a saying which since/ 
 then has frequently been repeated in our ears : that evenii 
 if our political independence were lost we should still' 
 keep our language and our literature, and thereby always 
 remain a nation ; so we could easily console ourselves for 
 the loss of everything else. 
 
 But, first of all, what basis is there for hoping that we I / 
 shall keep our language even if we lose our political | ' 
 independence ? Surely those who say this do not 
 ascribe this miraculous power to their own persuasions 
 
214 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 and admonitions when addressed to their children, their 
 children's children, and to all the centuries to come. 
 Those men now living and mature, who have accustomed 
 themselves to speaking, writing, and reading in the 
 German language, will no doubt go on doing so ; but 
 what will the next generation do, and, more important 
 still, the third generation ? What counterpoise do we 
 propose to place in the hearts of these generations that 
 will hold the scale against their desire to please, by speech 
 and writing, the race with which all glory rests and which 
 has all favours to distribute ? Have we, then, never 
 heard of a language 1 which is the first in the world, 
 although it is known that the first works in that language 
 are still to be written ; and do we not already see before 
 our eyes that writings are appearing in it by whose con- 
 tents the authors hope to find favour ? The example of 
 two other languages is brought forward in support, one 
 of the ancient and one of the modern world, which, in 
 spite of the political destruction of the peoples who spoke 
 them, continued to exist as living languages. I do not 
 intend even to examine the manner in which they have 
 continued to exist ; but this much is clear at first sight, 
 that both languages had something in them which ours 
 does not possess, and by means of this they found favour 
 with their conquerors, which our language can never 
 find. If these vain comforters had looked about them 
 better, they would have found another example which, 
 in our opinion, is entirely to the point here, viz., the 
 language of the Wends. This, too, has continued to 
 exist during all the centuries in which the people that 
 speaks it has been deprived of its freedom — it exists, that 
 
 1 [Fichte seems here to be referring ironically to French and to those 
 Germans who were writing in that language in order to curry favour with 
 Napoleon.] 
 
MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 215 
 
 is to say, in the wretched hovels of the serf bound to the 
 soil, so that he may bemoan his fate in his own language 
 which his oppressor does not understand. 
 
 But let us suppose that our language remains a living 
 and a literary language and so preserves its literature ; 
 what sort of literature can that be, the literature of a 
 people without political independence ? What does a 
 sensible writer want, and what can he want ? Nothing 
 else but to influence public life and the life of all, and to 
 form and reshape it according to his vision ; and if he 
 does not want to do this, everything he says is empty 
 sound to tickle the ears of the indolent. He wants to 
 think originally and from the root of spiritual life for 
 those who act just as originally, i.e., govern. He can, 
 therefore, only write in a language in which the governors 
 think, in a language in which the work of government 
 is carried on, in the language of a people that forms an 
 independent State. For what is the ultimate aim of all 
 our efforts even in regard to the most abstract sciences ? 
 Admitting that the immediate objects of these efforts is 
 to propagate the science from generation to generation 
 and to maintain it in the world, the question arises : 
 Why should it be maintained ? Obviously only in order 
 to shape the life of all and the whole human order of , 
 things when the right time comes. That is its ultimate 
 object ; hence, every effort in science indirectly serves the 
 State, though it may be only in a remote future. If it 
 abandons this aim, it loses its worth and its independence. 
 But he who sets this aim before him must write in the 
 language of the dominant race. 
 
 191. Just as it is true beyond doubt that, wherever a 
 separate language is found, there a separate nation exists, 
 which has the right to take independent charge of its 
 affairs and to govern itself ; so one can say, on the other 
 
216 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 hand, that, where a people has ceased to govern itself, it 
 is equally bound to give up its language and to coalesce 
 with its conquerors, in order that there may be unity 
 and internal peace and complete oblivion of relationships 
 which no longer exist. Even a semi-intelligent leader of 
 such a mixture of races must insist on this ; and we may 
 be quite sure that in our case the insistence will not be 
 lacking. Until this amalgamation has taken place, 
 approved school-books will be translated into the lan- 
 guage of the barbarians, i.e., those who are too stupid to 
 learn the language of the dominant race, and who thereby 
 exclude themselves from all influence on public affairs 
 and condemn themselves to lifelong subjection. These 
 persons, who have sentenced themselves to silence con- 
 cerning actual events, will be permitted to exercise their 
 oratorical skill on the disputes of a fictitious world, or to 
 imitate in their own way obsolete and ancient forms ; 
 proofs of the former condition may be found in the case 
 of the ancient language that was cited above as an example, 
 and of the latter in the case of the modern language. 
 Such a literature we might perhaps retain for some time 
 yet ; and with such a literature let him console himself 
 who has no better consolation. But, as to those who 
 might be capable of playing the man, of seeing the truth, 
 and of becoming aroused by the sight of it to decision 
 and action — that they should be kept in indolent slumber 
 by such a worthless consolation, which would be the very 
 thing to serve the purpose of an enemy of our independence, 
 that is what I should like to prevent if I could. 
 
 192. So we are promised the continuance of a German 
 literature for future generations ! In order to form a 
 better judgment of the hopes that we can entertain in 
 this matter, it would be very profitable to look about us 
 and see whether we still have at this moment a German 
 
MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 217 
 
 literature in the true sense of the word. The noblest 
 privilege and the most sacred function of the man of 
 letters is this : to assemble his nation and to take counsel 
 with it about its most important affairs. But especially 
 in Germany this has always been the exclusive function 
 of the man of letters, because Germany was split up into 
 several separate States, and was held together as a common 
 whole almost solely by the instrumentality of the man of 
 letters, by speech and writing. In the most special and 
 urgent way does it become his function at the present 
 time, now that the last external bond which united the 
 Germans, the imperial constitution, has also been de- 
 stroyed. If it should now be evident — we are not speaking 
 here of something we know or fear, but only of a possible 
 case, which we must nevertheless take into consideration 
 in advance — if it should, I say, be evident that State 
 officials in the separate States were already so obsessed by 
 anxiety, fear, and terror, that they first forbade such 
 voices to make themselves heard or prohibited the 
 spreading of the message, voices which assumed that a 
 nation was still in existence and addressed themselves 
 to it ; then, that would be a proof that we already had 
 no German men of letters at work, and we should know 
 what our prospects would be for any literature in the 
 future. 
 
 193. Now, what could it be that these people are 
 afraid of ? Perhaps that this man or that will not be 
 pleased to hear voices of that kind. Then, at any rate 
 they would have chosen the time badly for their tender 
 consideration. Pamphlets libelling and degrading the 
 fatherland, insipid praises of what is foreign, they are 
 plainly unable to prevent ; then let them not be so strict 
 against a word for the fatherland which makes itself heard 
 in between. It is quite possible that all are not equally 
 
2i 8 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 willing to hear all things ; but at this time we cannot 
 concern ourselves with that ; we are urged on by necessity, 
 and we must say just what necessity orders us to say. 
 We are fighting for life ; do they want us to walk delicately, 
 lest some robe of state be covered with the dust we may 
 raise ? We are sinking in the water-floods ; are we to 
 refrain from calling for help, lest some weak-nerved 
 neighbour may be alarmed ? 
 
 194. For, who are they who might not like to hear it, 
 and on what condition might they not like to hear it ? 
 In every case it is only obscurity and darkness which 
 cause alarm. Every terrifying vision vanishes when one 
 gazes at it firmly. With the same unconcern and direct- 
 ness, with which we have hitherto analysed every subject 
 that has occurred in these addresses, let us look this 
 terror, too, in the face. 
 
 We must assume either that the being 1 to whom at the 
 present time the conduct of a great part of the world's 
 affairs has fallen is a truly great soul, or we must assume 
 the contrary ; no third assumption is possible. In the 
 first case : on what is all human greatness based, if not 
 on the independence and originality of the person and 
 on the fact that the person is not an artificial product of 
 his age, but a growth out of the eternal and spontaneous 
 spirit -world, which has grown up just as it is ? Is not 
 greatness based on the fact that to one person a new and 
 individual view of the universe has dawned, and that this 
 person has the firm will and the iron strength to impose 
 his view on the actual world ? But it is quite impossible 
 for such a soul not to honour in peoples and individuals 
 external to himself that in which his own internal great- 
 ness consists, viz., independence, constancy, and indivi- 
 duality of existence. In proportion as the great soul feels 
 
 1 [Napoleon.] 
 
MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 219 
 
 sure of his own greatness and trusts thereto, he disdains to 
 rule over a people with a wretched servile spirit or to be a 
 giant among dwarfs ; he disdains the thought that he must 
 first degrade men in order to rule over them ; he is oppressed 
 by the sight of degeneration round about him. Not to 
 be able to respect men causes him pain ; but every- 
 thing that elevates and ennobles his brother men and 
 places them in a worthier light is a cause of satisfaction to 
 his own noble spirit and is his greatest delight. Are we 
 to believe that such a soul would note with displeasure 
 that the upheavals which the present times have brought 
 about are being used to arouse an ancient and honourable 
 nation from its deep slumber — a nation that is the stem 
 from which most of the peoples of modern Europe have 
 sprung, and which is the creator of them all — and to induce 
 it to lay hold of a sure means of preservation in order to 
 raise itself from ruin — a means which ensures at the same 
 time that it will never sink again, and that it will raise 
 all the other peoples along with itself ? We are here not 
 inciting people to riotous measures ; we are rather warning 
 people against them as sure to lead to ruin. We are 
 pointing out a firm and unchangeable foundation, on 
 which the highest and purest morality, such as was never 
 yet seen among men, may be built up at last for the world 
 in one people and assured for all time to come, and which 
 may thence be spread abroad among all other peoples. 
 We are pointing the way to a regeneration of the human 
 race, a way to turn earthly and sensuous creatures into 
 pure and noble spirits. Does anyone think that such a 
 proposal could be felt as an insult by a mind that is itself 
 pure and noble and great, or by anyone who forms him- 
 self after that pattern ? 
 
 What, on the other hand, would be the assumption 
 of those who entertained this fear and admitted it by 
 
220 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 their actions, and what would they proclaim to all the 
 world as their assumption ? They would acknowledge 
 that they believed we were ruled over by an enemy of 
 mankind, by a very base and petty Principle, alarmed by 
 every stirring of independent strength and unable to 
 hear of morality, religion, or ennoblement of souls without 
 anxiety ; because nothing but the degradation of men, 
 their stupor, and their vices would make his position 
 safe and give him hope of maintaining himself. With 
 this belief of theirs, which would add to our other miseries 
 the crushing shame of being ruled over by such a man as 
 this, are we now forthwith to proclaim ourselves in agree- 
 ment, and are we to act in accordance with it before we 
 have clear proof that it is true ? 
 
 Let us suppose the worst : that they are in the right 
 and not we, who show by our action that we make the 
 former assumption. Is, then, the human race really to 
 be degraded and to go under as a favour to one man who 
 profits by the fall and to those who are afraid ? Is one, 
 whose heart bids him do it, not to be allowed to warn 
 them of destruction ? Suppose, not only that they were 
 in the right, but that one should resolve, in the sight of 
 this generation and of posterity, to admit that they were 
 right and to deliver aloud on one's self the judgment 
 just expressed ; what, then, would be the greatest 
 ultimate consequence for the unwelcome warner ? Do 
 they know anything greater than death ? This awaits us 
 all in any case, and from the beginning of humanity 
 noble souls have defied the danger of death for the sake 
 of less important matters — for when was there ever a 
 higher matter than the present one ? Who has the right 
 to intervene in an undertaking that is begun with full 
 knowledge of this danger ? 
 
 195. Should there be such people — though I hope not — 
 
MEANS FOR OUR PRESERVATION 221 
 
 among us Germans, they would offer their necks without 
 invitation, without thanks, and, as I hope, without find- 
 ing acceptance, to the yoke of spiritual serfdom. They 
 would bitterly revile their own country in flattering its 
 oppressor ; they would think that diplomatic, for they 
 do not know the mind of true greatness, but measure its 
 thoughts by the thoughts suggested by their own petti- 
 ness ; thus they would make use of literature, for which 
 they know no other use, to pay their court by slaughtering 
 it as a sacrificial victim. We, on the other hand, praise 
 the greatness of the soul, with whom power lies, much 
 more by the fact of our confidence and our courage than 
 words could ever do. Throughout the entire domain of 
 the whole German language, wherever our voice rings out 
 free and unrestrained, it thus invokes Germans by the 
 very fact of its existence : No one wants your oppression, 
 your servility, your slavish subjection ; but your indepen- 
 dence, your true freedom, your elevation, and your 
 ennoblement are wanted ; for it is not forbidden to discuss 
 these things openly with you and to show you the infall- 
 ible means of attaining them. If this voice finds a hear- 
 ing and has the result intended, it will set up a memorial 
 of this greatness, and of our faith in it, for all centuries 
 to come — a memorial which time cannot destroy, but 
 which will grow greater, and spread more widely, with each 
 new generation. Who dares to set himself against the 
 attempt to erect such a memorial ? 
 
 So, instead of consoling ourselves for the loss of our 
 independence with the promise of a period of bloom for 
 our literature in the future, and instead of allowing our- 
 selves to be deterred by consolations of that kind from 
 seeking a means to restore our independence, we prefer 
 to ask whether those Germans, to whom a kind of guardian- 
 ship of literature has fallen, still allow, even in these days, 
 
222 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 a literature in the true sense of the word to the other 
 Germans who themselves write and read, and whether 
 they consider that such a literature is still allowed in 
 Germany or not. But some decision will shortly have 
 to be made as to what they really think about it. 
 
 196. After jdl^ the __first t hing that weji ave to do, in 
 orde r merely_ to m aintai n o urselves in e xistence until the 
 time co mes_ for the c omplete and_t horough r egeneration 
 of our race, is this_; to provide o urselv es with c haracter, 
 and to prove it first of all by thinking for ourselves and 
 so forming a firm opinion of our true situation and of 
 the sure means of improving it. The worthlessness of 
 the consolation to be derived from the continued exis- 
 tence of our language and literature has been demon- 
 strated. There are, however, other delusive views which 
 have not yet been mentioned in these addresses, and which 
 hinder the formation of that firm opinion. It is appro- 
 priate to our purpose to consider these views as well ; 
 but we reserve this subject for the next address. 
 
THIRTEENTH ADDRESS 1 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 
 
 197. At the end of the preceding address we said that 
 there were in circulation among us a number of worth- 
 less thoughts and deceptive theories as to the affairs of 
 peoples, and that this prevented the Germans from 
 forming such a definite view of their present situation 
 as would be in accordance with their own special char- 
 acteristics. As these vain phantoms are being held up 
 for public veneration with great zeal just at present, and 
 as they might be embraced by many people now that so 
 much else has begun to topple over, solely in order to fill 
 up the places that have become vacant, it seems appro- 
 priate to our purpose to subject these phantoms to a 
 more serious examination than their intrinsic importance 
 would deserve. 
 
 198. To begin with and before all things : the first, 
 original, and truly natural boundaries of States are 
 beyond doubt their internal boundaries. Those who 
 speak the same language are joined to each other by a 
 multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long 
 before any human art begins ; they understand each other 
 
 1 [Fichte's manuscript of this address, after having received the 
 imprimatur at the censor's office in Berlin, was mislaid and lost. As Fichte 
 had meanwhile burnt the loose sheets which he had used in preparing the 
 address, he was compelled to rewrite it as best he could.] 
 223 
 
224 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 and have the power of continuing to make themselves 
 understood more and more clearly ; they belong to- 
 gether and are by nature one and an inseparable whole. 
 Such a whole, if it wishes to absorb and mingle with itself 
 any other people of different descent and language, cannot 
 do so without itself becoming confused, in the beginning 
 at any rate, and violently disturbing the even progress 
 of its culture. From this internal boundary, which is 
 drawn by the spiritual nature of man himself, the marking 
 of the external boundary by dwelling-place results as 
 a consequence ; and in the natural view of things it is 
 not because men dwell between certain mountains and 
 rivers that they are a people, but, on the contrary, men 
 dwell together — and, if their luck has so arranged it, 
 are protected by rivers and mountains — because they 
 were a people already by a law of nature which is much 
 higher. 
 
 199. Thus was the German nation placed — sufficiently 
 united within itself by a common language and a common 
 way of thinking, and sharply enough severed from the 
 other peoples — in the middle of Europe, as a wall to 
 divide races not akin. The German nation was numerous 
 and brave enough to protect its boundaries against 
 any foreign attack ; it was left to itself, and by its whole 
 way of thinking was little inclined to take notice of the 
 neighbouring peoples, to interfere in their affairs, or to 
 provoke them to enmity by disturbances. As time went 
 on, a kind fortune preserved it from direct participation 
 in the conquest of other worlds — that event which, more 
 than any other, has been the basis of the development 
 taken by modern world-history, of the fates of peoples, 
 and of the largest part of their ideas and opinions. Since 
 that event, and not before, Christian Europe, which 
 hitherto, without being clearly conscious of it, had been 
 
SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 225 
 
 one, and by joint enterprises had shown itself to be one — 
 Christian Europe, I say, split itself into various separate 
 parts. Since that event, and not before, there was a 
 prey in sight which anyone might obtain ; and each one 
 lusted after it in the same way, because all were able to 
 make use of it in the same way ; and each one was envious 
 on seeing it in the hands of another. Now, and not 
 before, was there a reason for secret enmity and lust for 
 war on the part of all against all. Moreover, now, and 
 not before, did it become profitable for peoples to incor- 
 porate with themselves peoples of other descent and other 
 languages, by conquest or, if that were not possible, by 
 alliances, and to appropriate their forces. A people 
 that has remained true to nature may have the wish, 
 when its abode becomes too narrow for it, to enlarge 
 it by conquest of the neighbouring soil in order to gain 
 more room, and then it will drive out the former inhabi- 
 tants. It may have the wish to exchange a harsh and 
 unfruitful region for a milder and more fortunate one, 
 and in this case, too, it will drive out the former owners. 
 It may, if it should degenerate, undertake mere pillaging 
 raids in which, without craving after the soil or its 
 inhabitants, it merely takes possession of every useful 
 thing, sweeps the countries clear and then departs. 
 Finally, it may regard the former inhabitants of the 
 conquered soil as one of the useful things and allot them 
 as slaves to individuals. But, for it to attach to itself 
 as a component part of the State the foreign population 
 just as it is, that will not profit it in the least, and it will 
 never be tempted to do so. 
 
 But if the case is thus : that there is a tempting com- 
 mon prey to be fought for and to be won from an equally 
 strong or even stronger rival ; then the calculation is 
 different. It matters not how much or how little the 
 
 15 
 
226 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 conquered people may blend with us ; we can at any 
 rate make use of their fists to overcome the opponent 
 we have to rob, and every man is welcome to us as an 
 addition to our fighting strength. Now, suppose that 
 some wise man, who wished for peace and quiet, had had 
 his eyes opened to this state of affairs ; from what source 
 could he expect quiet to come ? Obviously not from 
 the limitation set by nature to human greed, viz., that 
 superfluity is of no benefit to anyone ; for there was a 
 prey which tempted everyone. Just as little could he 
 expect peace to come from the will to set a limit to one's 
 self ; for, where everyone grabs for himself everything 
 that he can, anyone who limits himself must of necessity 
 go under. No one wants to share with another what he 
 then owns himself ; everyone wants to rob the other of 
 what he has, if he possibly can. If one of them is quiet, 
 it is only because he does not think himself strong enough 
 to begin a quarrel ; he will certainly begin it as soon as 
 he perceives the necessary strength in himself. 
 
 Hence, the only means of maintaining peace is this : 
 that no one shall acquire enough power to be able to 
 disturb the peace, and that each one shall know that 
 there is just as much strength to resist on the other side 
 as there is to attack on his side ; and that thus there 
 may arise a balance and counterbalance of the total power 
 whereby alone, now that all other means have vanished, 
 each one is kept in possession of what he has at present 
 and all are kept in peace. This well-known system of 
 a balance of power in Europe, therefore, assumes two 
 things : first, a prey to which no one at all has any right, 
 but for which all have a like desire ; and second, the 
 universal, ever-present, and unceasingly active lust for 
 booty. Indeed, on these assumptions, this balance of 
 power would be the only means of maintaining peace, 
 
SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 227 
 
 if only one could find the second means, namely, that of 
 creating the equilibrium and transforming it from an 
 empty thought into a thing of reality. 
 
 200. But were these assumptions in fact to be made 
 universally and without any exception ? Had not the 
 mighty German nation, in the middle of Europe, kept 
 its hands off this prey, and was it not untainted by any 
 craving for it, and almost incapable of making a claim to 
 it ? If only the German nation had remained united, 
 with a common will and a common strength ! Then, 
 though the other Europeans might have wanted to murder 
 each other on every sea and shore, and on every island 
 too, in the middle of Europe the firm wall of the Germans 
 would have prevented them from reaching each other. 
 Here peace would have remained, and the Germans 
 would have maintained themselves, and with themselves 
 also a part of the other European peoples, in quiet and 
 prosperity. 
 
 201. That things should remain thus did not suit the 
 selfishness of foreign countries, whose calculations did not 
 look more than one moment ahead. They found German 
 bravery useful in waging their wars and German hands 
 useful to snatch the booty from their rivals. A means 
 had to be found to attain this end, and foreign cunning 
 won an easy victory over German ingenuousness and lack 
 of suspicion. It was foreign countries which first made 
 use of the division of mind produced by religious disputes 
 in Germany — Germany, which presented on a small 
 scale the features of Christian Europe as a whole — 
 foreign countries, I say, made use of these disputes to 
 break up the close inner unity of Germany into separate 
 and disconnected parts. Foreign countries had already 
 destroyed their own unity naturally, by splitting into 
 parts over a common prey ; and now they artificially 
 
228 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 destroyed German unity. Thev knew how to present 
 each of these separate States that had thus arisen in the 
 lap of the one nation — which had no enemy except those 
 foreign countries themselves, and no concern except the 
 common one of setting itself with united strength against 
 their seductive craft and cunning — foreign countries, I say, 
 knew how to present each of these States to the others as a 
 natural enemy, against which each State must be perpetu- 
 ally on its guard. On the other hand, they knew how to 
 make themselves appear to the German States as natural 
 allies against the danger threatening them from their 
 own countrymen — as allies with whom alone they would 
 themselves stand or fall, and whose enterprises they must 
 in turn support with all their might. It was only be- 
 cause of this artificial bond that all the disputes which 
 might arise about any matter whatever in the Old World 
 or the New became disputes of the German races in their 
 relation to each other. Every war, no matter what its 
 cause, had to be fought out on German soil and with 
 German blood ; every disturbance of the balance had 
 to be adjusted in that nation to which the whole fountain- 
 head of such relationships was unknown ; and the German 
 States, whose separate existence was in itself contrary 
 to all nature and reason, were compelled, in order that 
 they might count for something, to act as make-weights 
 to the chief forces in the scale of the European equili- 
 brium, whose movement they followed blindly and with- 
 out any will of their own. Just as in many States abroad 
 the citizens are designated as belonging to this or that 
 foreign party, or voting for this or that foreign alliance, 
 but no name is found for those who belong to the party 
 of their own country, so it was with the Germans ; for 
 long enough they belonged only to some foreign party 
 or other, and one seldom came across a man who sup- 
 
SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 229 
 
 ported the party of the Germans and was of the opinion 
 that this country ought to make an alliance with itself. 
 
 202. This, then, is the true origin and meaning, this the I 
 result for Germany and for the world, of that notorious 1 
 doctrine of a balance of power to be artificially main- 
 tained between the European States. If Christian Europe 
 had remained one, as it ought to be and as it originally was, 
 there would never have been any occasion to think of such 
 a thing. That which is one rests upon itself and supports 
 itself, and does not split up into conflicting forces which 
 must be brought to an equilibrium. Only when Europe 
 became divided and without a law did the thought 
 of a balance acquire a meaning from necessity. To 
 this Europe, divided and without a law, Germany did not 
 belong. I f onl y Germany at any rate had remained one, 
 it would have rested on itself in the centre of the civilized 
 world like the sun in the centre of the universe ; it would 
 have kept itself at peace, and with itself the adjacent 
 countries ; and without any artificial measures it would 
 have kept everything in equilibrium by the mere fact of 
 its natural existence. It was only the deceit of foreign 
 countries that dragged Germany into their own lawless- 
 ness and their own disputes ; it was they who taught 
 Germany the treacherous notion of the balance of power, 
 for they knew it to be one of the most effective means of 
 deluding Germany as to its own true advantage and of 
 keeping it in that state of delusion. This aim is now 
 sufficiently attained, and the result that was intended is 
 now complete before our eyes. Even if we cannot do away 
 with this result, why should we not at any rate extirpate 
 the source of it in our own understanding, which is now 
 almost the only thing over which we still have sovereign 
 power ? Why should the old dream still be placed 
 before our eyes, now that disaster has awakened us from 
 
2 3 o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 sleep ? Why should we not now at any rate see the truth 
 and perceive the only means that could have saved us ? 
 Perhaps our descendants may do what we see ought to 
 be done, just as we now suffer because our fathers dreamed. 
 Let us understand that the conception of an equilibrium 
 to be artificially maintained might have been a consoling 
 dream for foreign countries amid the guilt and evil that 
 oppressed them; but that this conception, being an entirely 
 foreign product, ought never to have taken root in the mind 
 of a German, and that the Germans ought never to have 
 been so situated that it could take root among them. 
 Let us understand that now at any rate we must perceive 
 the utter worthlessness of such a conception, and must see 
 that the salvation of all is to be found, not in it, but solely 
 in the unity of the Germans among themselves. 
 
 203. Just as foreign to the German is the freedom of 
 the seas, which is so frequently preached in our days, 
 whether what is intended be real freedom or merely the 
 power to exclude everyone else from it. Throughout the 
 course of centuries, while all other nations were in rivalry, 
 the German showed little desire to participate in this 
 freedom to any great extent, and he will never do so. 
 Moreover, he is not in need of it. The abundant supplies 
 of his own land, together with his own diligence, afford 
 him all that is needed in the life of a civilized man ; nor 
 does he lack skill in the art of making his resources serve 
 that purpose. As for acquiring the only true advantage 
 that world-trade brings in its train, viz., the increase 
 in scientific knowledge of the earth and its inhabitants, 
 his own scientific spirit will not let him lack a means of 
 exchange. O, if only his kindly fortune had preserved 
 the German from indirect participation in the booty of 
 lother worlds, as it preserved him from direct participa- 
 tion ! If only we had not been led by our credulity, 
 
SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 231 
 
 and by the craving for a life as fine and as distinguished 
 as that of other peoples, to make necessaries of the wares 
 produced in foreign parts which we could do without ; 
 if only we had made conditions tolerable for our free 1 
 fellow-citizen in regard to the wares we can less easily 
 do without, instead of wishing to draw a profit from the 
 sweat and blood of a poor slave across the seas ! Then, 
 at any rate, we should not ourselves have furnished the 
 pretext for our present fate ; war would not have been 
 waged against us as purchasers, nor would we have been 
 ruined because we are a market-place. Almost ten years 
 ago, before anyone could foresee what has since happened, 
 the Germans were advised 1 to make themselves inde- 
 pendent of world-trade, and to turn themselves into a ^ 
 closed commercial State. This proposal raji counter to 
 our habits, and especially to our idolatrous veneration 
 of coined metals ; it was passionately attacked and 
 thrust aside. Since then we have been learning, in 
 dishonour and under the compulsion of a foreign power, 
 to do without those things, and far more than those 
 things, which we then protested we could not do with- 
 out, though we might have done so then in freedom 
 and with the greatest honour to ourselves. O, that we 
 might seize this opportunity, since enjoyment at least 
 is not corrupting us, to correct our ideas once for all ! 
 O, that we might at last see that all those swindling 
 theories about world-trade and manufacturing for the 
 world-market, though they suit the foreigner and form 
 part of the weapons with which he has always made war 
 on us, have no application to the Germans ; and that, 
 next to the unity of the Germans among themselves, 
 their internal autonomy and commercial independence 
 
 1 [In 1800 by Fichte himself, in Der geschlossene Handelsstaat (The 
 Closed Commercial State).] 
 
232 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 form the second means for their salvation, and through 
 them for the salvation of Europe ! 
 
 204. Now, at last, let us be bold enough to look at 
 \ the deceptive vision of a universal monarchy, which 
 people are beginning to hold up for public veneration in 
 place of that equilibrium which for some time has been 
 growing more and more preposterous, and let us perceive 
 how hateful and contrary to reason that vision is. Spiri- 
 tual nature was able to present the essence of humanity 
 in extremely diverse gradations in individuals and in 
 individuality as a whole, in peoples. Only when each 
 people, left to itself, develops and forms itself in accord- 
 ance with its own peculiar quality, and only when in 
 every people each individual develops himself in accord- 
 ance with that common quality, as well as in accordance 
 with his own peculiar quality — then, and then only, 
 does the manifestation of divinity appear in its true 
 mirror as it ought to be ; and only a man who either 
 entirely lacks the notion of the rule of law and divine 
 order, or else is an obdurate enemy thereto, could take 
 upon himself to want to interfere with that law, which 
 is the highest law in the spiritual world. Only in the 
 invisible qualities of nations, which are hidden from 
 their own eyes — qualities as the means whereby these 
 nations remain in touch with the source of original 
 life — only therein is to be found the guarantee of their 
 present and future worth, virtue, and merit. If these 
 qualities are dulled by admixture and worn away by 
 friction, the flatness that results will bring about a 
 separation from spiritual nature, and this in its turn will 
 cause all men to be fused together to their uniform and 
 conjoint destruction. As for the writers who console us 
 for all our ills with the prospect that we, too, shall be 
 subjects of the new universal monarchy that is beginning 
 
SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 233 
 
 - — are we to believe them when they say that someone 
 or other has decided upon such a grinding together of 
 all the germs of what is human in humanity, in order to 
 press the unresisting dough into some new form, and 
 that so monstrous an act of brutality or enmity against 
 the human race is possible in this age of ours ? Even 
 if, in the first place, we were willing to make up our 
 minds to believe such an utterly incredible thing, the 
 further question arises : By what instrument is such a 
 plan to be carried out ? What sort of people is it to 
 be which, in the present state of European culture, shall 
 conquer the world for some new universal monarch ? 
 For many centuries now the peoples of Europe have ceased 
 to be savages or to rejoice in destructive activity for its 
 own sake. All men seek behind war a final peace, behind 
 exertion rest, behind confusion order ; and all men want 
 to see their career crowned with the peace of a quiet 
 and domestic life. For a time they may be made enthu- 
 siastic for war even by the mere prospect of advantage 
 to the nation ; but when the call comes again and 
 again in the same fashion, the delusion vanishes and 
 with it the feverish strength it produced. The longing 
 for peace and order returns, and the question arises : 
 For what purpose am I doing and bearing all this ? 
 All these feelings a world-conqueror in our time would t 
 first have to stamp out ; and, as the present age by its I 
 nature does not produce a race of savages, he would have ] 
 to create one with deliberate art. But more would 
 remain to be done. A man who has been accustomed 
 from youth upwards to cultivated and settled countries, 
 to prosperity and order, finds pleasure in these things 
 wherever he sees them, if he is but permitted to be at 
 peace for a little while ; for they represent to him the 
 background of his own longing, which after all can never 
 
234 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 be quite rooted out ; and it is a source of pain to himself 
 when he is obliged to destroy them. To offset this kindly 
 feeling, so deeply implanted in man as a social being, 
 and this grief and sorrow at the evils which the soldier 
 brings upon the countries he conquers, a counterpoise 
 must be found. There is no other than the lust for 
 booty. If it becomes the soldier's dominating motive to 
 acquire a fortune for himself, and if he becomes accus- 
 tomed, when devastating flourishing countries, to think 
 of nothing but what he may gain for himself from the 
 general wretchedness, then it is to be expected that the 
 feelings of sympathy and pity will become silent in him. 
 In addition to that barbarous brutality, a world-con- 
 queror of our time would have to train his people to 
 coldblooded and deliberate lust for booty ; he would 
 not have to punish extortions, but rather to encourage 
 them. Moreover, the disgrace that naturally adheres to 
 such a thing would first of all have to be cleared away, 
 and robbery would have to be looked upon as the honour- 
 able sign of a superior mind ; it would have to be reckoned 
 among great deeds and pave the way to all dignities and 
 honours. Where is there in modern Europe a nation so 
 lacking in honour that it could be trained up in this way ? 
 Even supposing that a world-conqueror succeeded in 
 reshaping a nation in this fashion ; the very means he takes 
 to do it will frustrate the attainment of his object. Such 
 a people will thenceforward regard the human beings, 
 the countries, and the works of art that they have acquired 
 by conquest, as nothing more than a means of making 
 money with all speed, so that they may move on and make 
 more money. They will extort rapidly, and when they 
 have sucked the juice out of a thing they will throw it 
 away, regardless of what may happen to it ; they will 
 cut down the tree whose fruits they want to reach. For 
 
SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 235 
 
 a man who works with such tools as these all the arts of 
 seduction, persuasion, and deception will be in vain. 
 Only from a distance can such men deceive anyone ; as 
 soon as they are seen at close quarters, their brutal 
 roughness and their shameless and insolent lust for 
 booty will be obvious even to the feeblest mind ; and 
 the detestation of the whole human race will cry aloud 
 upon them. With such tools as these one can indeed 
 plunder and lay waste the earth, and grind it down to 
 stupor and chaos, but one can never establish it as a 
 universal monarchy. 
 
 205. The ideas we have mentioned, and all ideas of 
 this kind, are products of a form of thinking which merely 
 plays a game with itself and sometimes, too, gets caught 
 in its own cobwebs — a form of thinking which is unworthy 
 of German thoroughness and earnestness. At best, 
 some of these ideas, as, for example, that of a political 
 equilibrium, are serviceable guiding-lines to enable one 
 to find one's way about in the extensive and confused 
 multiplicity of phenomena and to set it in order ; but 
 to believe that these things exist in nature, or to strive 
 to realize them, is the same as to expect to find the poles, 
 the meridians, and the tropics, by which our survey of 
 the earth is guided, actually marked and indicated on the 
 surface of the globe. May it become the custom in our 
 nation, not merely to think idly and as it were experi- 
 mentally, just to see what will come of it, but to think 
 in such a way that what we think shall be true and have 
 a real effect in life ! Then it will be superfluous to warn 
 people against such phantoms of a political wisdom whose 
 origin is foreign and which only deludes the Germans. 
 
 This thoroughness, earnestness, and weightiness in 
 our way of thinking, once we have made it our own, will 
 show itself in our life as well. We are defeated ; whether 
 
236 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 we are now to be despised as well, and rightly despised, 
 whether in addition to all other losses we are to lose 
 our honour also — that will still depend on ourselves. 
 uThe fight with weapons has ended ; there arises now, 
 if we so will it, the new fight of principles, of morals, of 
 l| character. 
 
 J 206. Let us give our guests a picture of faithful devo- 
 tion to friends and fatherland, of incorruptible uprightness 
 and love of duty, of all civic and domestic virtues, to take 
 home with them as a friendly gift from their hosts ; 
 for they will return home at last some time or other. 
 * Let us be careful not to invite them to despise us ; there 
 would, however, be no surer way for us to do this than if 
 we either feared them beyond measure or gave up our 
 own way of life and strove to resemble them in theirs. 
 Be it far from us as individuals to be so unmannerly as 
 to provoke or irritate individuals ; but, as to the rest, our 
 safest measure will be to go our own way in all things, 
 as if we were alone with ourselves, and not to establish 
 any relation that is not laid upon us by absolute neces- 
 sity ; and the surest means to this will be for each one 
 to content himself with what the old national conditions 
 are able to afford him, to take up his share of the common 
 burden according to his powers, but to look upon any 
 favour from foreigners as a disgrace and a dishonour. 
 Unfortunately, it has become an almost general European 
 custom, and therefore a German custom too, for people 
 to prefer to descend to the level of others, rather than 
 to appear what is called singular or noticeable, when the 
 choice is open to them ; indeed, the whole system of 
 what are esteemed good manners may perhaps be regarded 
 as based upon that one principle. Let us Germans at 
 the present juncture offend rather against this code of 
 manners than against something higher. Let us remain 
 
SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 237 
 
 as we are, even though that may be an offence of this 
 kind ; nay, let us become, if we can, even stronger and 
 more determined, as we ought to be. It is the custom to 
 tell us that we are sorely lacking in quickness and ease and 
 grace, and that we grow too serious, too heavy, and too 
 ponderous over everything. Let us not be in the least 
 ashamed of this, but rather strive to deserve the accusa- 
 tion more and more fully and to an ever greater extent. 
 Let us confirm ourselves in this resolve by the conviction, 
 which is easily to be attained, that in spite of all the 
 trouble we take, we shall never do right in the eyes of 
 our accusers, unless we cease entirely to be ourselves, 
 which is the same thing as ceasing to exist at all. There 
 are certain peoples who, while preserving their own special 
 characteristics and wishing to have them respected by 
 others, yet recognize the special characteristics of other 
 peoples, and permit and encourage their retention. To 
 such peoples the Germans belong without a doubt ; and 
 this trait is so deeply marked in their whole life in the 
 world, both past and present, that very often, in order 
 to be just both to contemporary foreign countries and to 
 antiquity, they have been unjust to themselves. Then 
 there are other peoples, whose ego is so closely wrapped 
 up in itself that it never allows them the freedom to 
 detach themselves for the purpose of taking a cool and 
 calm view of what is foreign to them, and who are there- 
 fore compelled to believe that there is only one possible 
 way of existence for a civilized human being, and that is 
 always the way which some chance or other has indicated 
 to them alone at the time ; the rest of mankind all over 
 the world have no other destiny, in their opinion, than to 
 become just what they are, and ought to be extremely 
 grateful to them if they take upon themselves the trouble 
 of moulding them in this way. Between peoples of the 
 
238 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 former type there takes place an interaction of culture 
 and education which is most beneficial to the develop- 
 ment of man as such, and an interpenetration which none 
 the less allows each one, with the goodwill of the other, 
 to remain its own self. Peoples of the latter type are 
 unable to form anything, for they are unable to apprehend 
 anything in its actual state of existence ; they only want 
 to destroy everything that exists and to create every- 
 where, except in themselves, a void in which they can 
 reproduce their own image and never anything else. 
 Even their apparent acceptance of foreign ways when 
 they begin is only gracious condescension on the part of 
 the tutor to the still feeble but promising pupil. Even 
 the figures of the ancient world that has come to an end 
 do not please them, until they have clad them in their own 
 garments ; and they would call them from their graves, 
 if they had the power, to train them after their own 
 fashion. Far from me be the presumption of accusing 
 any existing nation as a whole and without exception of 
 such narrow-mindedness. Let us rather assume that 
 here, too, those who express no opinion are the better 
 sort. But if those who have appeared among us and 
 expressed their opinions are to be judged by the opinions 
 they have expressed, it seems to follow that they are to 
 be placed in the class we have described. As such a 
 statement appears to require proof, I adduce the following, 
 passing over in silence the other manifestations of this 
 spirit which are before the eyes of Europe. We have 
 been at war with each other ; as for us, we are defeated, 
 and they are the victors ; that is true, and is admitted ; 
 with that our opponents might doubtless be contented. 
 But if anyone among us went on to maintain that never- 
 theless we had had the just cause and deserved the victory, 
 and that it was to be deplored that victory had not fallen 
 
SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 239 
 
 to us ; would this be so very wrong, and could those 
 opponents, who, of course, for their own part may likewise 
 think what they will, take it amiss that we should be of 
 this opinion ? But no, we must not dare to think that. 
 We must at the same time recognize how wrong it is 
 ever to have a will other than theirs, and to resist them ; 
 we must bless our defeats as the best thing that could 
 happen to us, and bless them as our greatest benefactors. 
 It cannot be otherwise, and they hope this much of our 
 good sense. But why should I go on expounding what 
 was expounded with great exactness almost two thousand 
 years ago, for example, in the Histories of Tacitus ? 
 That opinion of the Romans as to the relationship of 
 the conquered barbarians towards them, an opinion which 
 in their case was founded on a view of things that had 
 some excuse, the opinion that it was criminal rebellion 
 and insurrection against divine and human laws to offer 
 resistance to them, and that their arms could bring 
 nothing but blessing to the nations, and their chains 
 nothing but honour — it is this opinion that has been 
 formed about us in these days ; with great good-nature 
 they expect us to hold it about ourselves, and they assume 
 in advance that we do hold it. I do not take these 
 utterances as evidence of arrogance and scorn ; I can 
 understand how such opinions may be held in earnest 
 by people who are very conceited and narrow-minded, 
 and how they can honestly impute the same belief to 
 their opponents, just as I believe that the Romans really 
 thought so ; but I only raise a doubt as to whether those 
 among us, whose conversion to that way of thinking is 
 for ever impossible, can reckon upon an agreement of 
 any kind whatever. 
 
 207. We shall bring the deep contempt of foreigners 
 upon ourselves if in their hearing we accuse each other, 
 
240 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 German races, classes, and persons, of being responsible 
 for the fate that has befallen every one of us, and bitterly 
 and passionately reproach each other. In the first place, 
 all accusations of this kind are for the most part unfair, 
 unjust, and unfounded. The causes that have brought 
 about Germany's latest doom we have already indicated ; 
 these causes have for centuries been native to all German 
 races without exception in the same way ; the latest 
 events are not the consequences of any particular error 
 of any one race or its government ; they have been in 
 preparation long enough, and might just as well have 
 happened to us long ago, if it had depended solely on 
 the causes that lie within our own selves. In this matter 
 the guilt or innocence of all is, one may say, equally 
 great, and a reckoning is no longer possible. When the 
 final result came about in haste, it was found that the 
 separate German States did not even know themselves, 
 their powers, and their true situation ; how, then, could 
 any one of them have the presumption to look beyond its 
 own borders and pronounce upon the guilt of others a 
 final judgment based on thorough knowledge ? 
 
 208. It may be that in every race of the German 
 fatherland the blame falls with more reason on one 
 special class, not because it did not have more insight or 
 greater ability than all the others, for in that respect 
 all were equally to blame, but because it pretended that 
 it had more insight and greater ability, and kept everyone 
 else away from the work of administration in the various 
 States. But, even if a reproach of this kind were well 
 founded, who is to utter it, and why is it necessary to 
 utter and discuss it, just at this moment, more loudly 
 and more bitterly then ever ? We see that men of letters 
 are doing this. If they spoke just as they do now in the 
 days when all power and all authority were in the hands of 
 
SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 241 
 
 that class, with the tacit approval of the decisive majority 
 of the rest of mankind, who can object if they bring to 
 remembrance what they then said, now that it has been 
 only too well confirmed by experience ? We hear also 
 that they bring certain persons by name before the 
 tribunal of the people, persons who formerly stood at 
 the head of affairs, that they set forth their incapacity, 
 their indolence, and their evil will, and clearly show how 
 from such causes such effects were bound to follow. If, 
 when power was still in the hands of the accused persons, 
 and when the evils that were the inevitable result of 
 their administration could have been warded off, these 
 writers saw what they now see and expressed it just as 
 loudly ; if they then accused with the same vigour those 
 whom they now find guilty, and if they left no means 
 untried to rescue the fatherland out of their hands, 
 and if no one listened to them ; then, they do well to 
 recall to mind the warning that was scornfully rejected. 
 But, if they have derived their present wisdom only from 
 the course of events, from which all people since then 
 have derived with them exactly the same wisdom, why 
 do they now say what everyone else now knows just as 
 well ? Or further, if in those days from motives of gain 
 they flattered, or from motives of fear they remained 
 silent before, that class and those persons on whom, now 
 that they have lost power, they pour the full stream of 
 denunciation ; then, let them not forget henceforth, when 
 they are stating the causes of our present miseries, to 
 put with the nobility and the incompetent ministers and 
 generals the writers on politics also, who know only after 
 the event what ought to have been done, just like the 
 common people, and who flatter the holders of power, 
 but with malicious joy deride the fallen ! 
 
 Or do they blame the errors of the past, which for all 
 
 16 
 
242 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 their blame is indestructible, only in order that they may 
 not be repeated in the future ; and is it solely their zeal 
 to bring about a thorough improvement in human affairs 
 which makes them so bold in disregarding all considera- 
 tions of prudence and decency ? Gladly would we credit 
 them with such goodwill, if only, they were entitled by 
 thorough insight and thorough understanding to have 
 goodwill in this matter. It is not so much the particular 
 persons who happen to have been in the highest places, 
 but the connection and complication of the whole, the 
 whole spirit of the age, the errors, the ignorance, shallow- 
 ness, timidity, and the uncertain tread inseparable from 
 these things, it is the whole way of life of the age that has 
 brought these miseries upon us ; and so it is far less the 
 persons who have acted than the places ; it is everyone's 
 fault ; and everyone, even the violent fault-finders 
 themselves, may assume with great probability that if 
 they had been in the same place they would have been 
 forced by their surroundings to much the same end. 
 Let us not dream so much of deliberate wickedness and 
 treachery ! Stupidity and indolence are in nearly every 
 case sufficient to explain the things that have happened ; 
 and this is a charge of which no one should entirely clear 
 himself without searching self-examination. Especially in 
 a state of affairs where there is in the whole mass a very 
 great measure of indolence, the individual who is to force 
 his way through must possess the power of action in a 
 very high degree. So, even if the mistakes of individuals 
 pre ever so sharply singled out, that does not in any way 
 lay bare the cause of the evil ; nor is this cause removed by 
 avoiding these mistakes in future. So long as men remain 
 liable to error, they cannot do otherwise than commit 
 errors ; and even if they avoid those of their predecessors, 
 in the infinite space of liability to error they will all too 
 
SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 243 
 
 easily make new errors of their own. Only a complete 
 regeneration, only the beginning of an entirely new spirit 
 can help us. If they co-operate for the development of 
 this new spirit, we shall be ready and willing to give 
 them credit, not only for goodwill, but also for right and 
 saving understanding. 
 
 209. These mutual reproaches, besides being unjust 
 and useless, are extremely unwise, and must degrade us 
 deeply in the eyes of foreigners ; we not only make it 
 easy for them to find out all about us, but positively 
 force the knowledge on them in every way. If we never 
 grow weary of telling them how confused and stale all 
 things were with us, and how miserably we were governed, 
 must they not believe that no matter how they behave 
 towards us they are none the less much too good for us, 
 and can never become too bad ? Must they not believe 
 that, because of our great clumsiness and helplessness, 
 we are bound to accept with the humblest thanks any 
 and every thing out of the rich store of their art of govern- 
 ment, administration, and legislation that they have 
 already presented to us, or have in contemplation for us 
 in the future ? Is there any need for us to confirm their 
 already not unfavourable opinion of themselves and the 
 low opinion they have of us ? Do not certain utterances, 
 which would otherwise have to be taken as evidence of 
 bitter scorn — for example, that they have been the first 
 to bring a fatherland to German countries, which previ- 
 ously had none, or that they have abolished that slavish 
 dependence of persons, as such, on other persons, which 
 used to be established by law among us — do not such 
 utterances, when we remember what we ourselves have 
 said, show themselves as a repetition of our own statements 
 and an echo of our own flattering speeches ? It is a 
 disgrace, which we Germans share with no other of the 
 
244 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 European peoples whose fate in other respects has been 
 similar to ours, that, as soon as ever foreign arms ruled 
 over us, we behaved as if we had long been awaiting this 
 moment, and sought to do ourselves a good turn quickly, 
 before it was too late, by pouring forth a stream of denun- 
 ciation on our governments and our rulers, whom we 
 had formerly flattered in a way that offended against 
 good taste, and by railing against everything represented 
 by the word " fatherland." 
 
 210. How shall those of us who are not guilty ward off 
 the disgrace from our heads and let the guilty ones stand 
 by themselves ? There is a means. No more scurrilous 
 denunciations will be printed the moment it is certain 
 that no more will be bought, and as soon as their authors 
 and publishers can no longer reckon on readers tempted to 
 buy them for lack of something better to do, by idle 
 curiosity and love of gossip, or by the malicious joy of 
 seeing those men humiliated who at one time instilled 
 into them the painful feeling of respect. Let everyone 
 who feels the disgrace hand back with fitting contempt a 
 libel that is offered him to read ; let him do this, although 
 he believes he is the only one who acts in this way, until 
 it becomes the custom among us for every man of honour 
 to do the same ; and then, without any enforcement of 
 restrictions on books, we shall soon be free of this scanda- 
 lous portion of our literature. 
 
 211. Finally, we debase ourselves most of all before 
 foreigners when we lay ourselves out to flatter them. 
 In former days certain persons among us made themselves 
 contemptible, ludicrous, and nauseating beyond measure 
 by burning thick incense before our own rulers on every 
 occasion, and by caring for neither sense nor decency, 
 neither taste nor good manners, when they thought 
 there was a chance of delivering a flattering address. 
 
SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 245 
 
 This practice has ceased at this time, and these paeans of 
 praise have been transformed in some cases into words 
 of abuse. However, in order not to get out of practice, 
 as it were, we gave our clouds of incense another direction 
 and turned them towards the place where power now 
 resides. Even the old way — and not only the flattery 
 itself, but also the fact that it was not declined — could 
 not but give pain to every serious-minded German ; 
 still, we kept it to ourselves. Are we now going to make 
 foreigners also the witnesses of this base craving of ours, 
 and of the great clumsiness with which we give vent to it ; 
 and are we thus going to add to the contemptible exhibi- 
 tion of our baseness the ludicrous demonstration of our 
 lack of adroitness? For, when we set about these things, 
 we are lacking in all the refinement that the foreigner 
 possesses ; so as to avoid not being heard, we lay it on 
 thick and exaggerate everything ; we begin straight 
 away with deifications and place our heroes among the 
 stars. Another thing is that we give the impression of 
 being driven to these paeans of praise chiefly by fear and 
 terror ; but there is nothing more ridiculous than a 
 frightened man who praises the beauty and graciousness 
 of a creature which in fact he takes to be a monster, 
 and which he merely seeks to bribe by his flattery not to 
 swallow him up. 
 
 212. Or are these hymns of praise perhaps not flattery, 
 but the genuine expression of reverence and admiration 
 which they are compelled to pay to the great genius who, 
 according to them, now directs the affairs of mankind ? 
 How little they know, in this case too, the character of 
 true greatness ! In all ages and among all peoples true 
 greatness has remained the same in this respect, that it 
 was not vain ; just as, on the other hand, whatever 
 displayed vanity has always been beyond a doubt base 
 
246 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 and petty. True greatness, resting on itself, finds no 
 pleasure in monuments erected by contemporaries, or 
 in being called " The Great," or in the shrieking applause 
 and praises of the mob ; rather, it rejects these things 
 with fitting contempt, and awaits first the verdict on 
 itself from its own indwelling judge, and then the public 
 verdict from the judgment of posterity. True greatness 
 has always had this further characteristic : it is filled with 
 awe and reverence in the face of dark and mysterious 
 fate, it is mindful of the ever-rolling wheel of destiny, 
 and never allows itself to be counted great or happy before 
 its end. Hence, those who hymn its praises contradict 
 themselves, and by using words they make their words a 
 lie. If they believed that the object of their pretended 
 veneration was really great, they would humbly admit 
 that he was exalted above their acclamations and lauda- 
 tion, and they would honour him by reverent silence. 
 By making it their business to praise him they show that 
 in fact they take him to be petty and base, and so vain 
 that their hymns of praise can give him pleasure, and 
 that they hope thereby to divert some evil from them-, 
 selves, or procure themselves some benefit. 
 
 That cry of enthusiasm : " What a sublime genius ! 
 What profound wisdom ! What a comprehensive plan ! " 
 — what after all does it mean when we look at it properly ? 
 It means that the genius is so great that we, too, can 
 fully understand it, the wisdom so profound that we, too, 
 can see through it, the plan so comprehensive that we, 
 too, are able to imitate it completely. Hence it means 
 that he who is praised has about the same measure of 
 greatness as he who praises ; and yet not quite, for the 
 latter, of course, understands the former fully and is 
 superior to him ; hence, he stands above him and, if he 
 only exerted himself thoroughly, could no doubt achieve 
 
SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 247 
 
 something even greater. He must have a very good 
 opinion of himself who believes that he can pay court 
 acceptably in this way ; and the one who is praised must 
 have a very low opinion of himself if he finds pleasure in 
 such tributes. 
 
 213. No! Good, earnest, steady German men and 
 countrymen, far from our spirit be such a lack of under- 
 standing, and far be such defilement from our language, 
 which is formed to express the truth. Let us leave it 
 to foreigners to burst into jubilation and amazement 
 at every new phenomenon, to make a new standard of 
 greatness every decade, to create new gods, and to speak 
 blasphemies in order to please human beings. Let our 
 standard of greatness be the old one : that alone is great 
 which is capable of receiving the ideas which always bring 
 nothing but salvation upon the peoples, and which is 
 inspired by those ideas. But, as regards the living, let 
 us leave the verdict to the judgment of posterity. 
 
FOURTEENTH ADDRESS 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 214. In the addresses which I conclude to-day, I have 
 spoken aloud to you first of all, but I have had in view 
 the whole German nation, and my intention has been to 
 gather round me, in the room in which you are bodily 
 present, everyone in the domain of the German language 
 who is able to understand me. If I have succeeded in 
 throwing into any heart which has beaten here in front of 
 me a spark which will continue to glow there and to 
 influence its life, it is not my intention that these hearts 
 should remain apart and lonely ; I want to gather to them 
 from over the whole of our common soil men of similar 
 sentiments and resolutions, and to link them together, 
 so that at this central point a single, continuous, and 
 unceasing flame of patriotic disposition may be kindled, 
 which will spread over the whole soil of the fatherland 
 to its utmost boundaries. These addresses have not been 
 meant for the entertainment of indolent ears and eyes 
 in the present age ; on the contrary, I want to know once 
 for all, and everyone of like disposition shall know it with 
 me, whether there is anyone besides ourselves whose way of 
 thinking is akin to ours. Every German who still believes 
 himself to be a member of a nation, who thinks highly 
 and nobly of that nation, hopes for it, ventures, endures, 
 and suffers for it, shall at last have the uncertainty of his 
 248 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 249 
 
 belief removed ; he shall see clearly whether he is right 
 or is only a fool and a dreamer ; from now on he shall 
 either pursue his way with the glad consciousness of 
 certainty, or else firmly and vigorously renounce a 
 fatherland here below, and find in the heavenly one his 
 only consolation. To them, not as individuals in our 
 everyday limited life, but as representatives of the nation, 
 and so through their ears to the whole nation, these 
 addresses make this appeal : — 
 
 215. Centuries have come and gone since you were last 
 convoked as you are to-day ; in such numbers ; in a cause 
 so great, so urgent, and of such concern to all and every- 
 one ; so entirely as a nation and as Germans. Never 
 again will the offer come to you in this way. If you now 
 take no heed and withdraw into yourselves, if you again 
 let these addresses go by you as if they were meant merely 
 to tickle your ears, or if you regard them as something 
 strange and fabulous, then no human being will ever take 
 you into account again. Hearken now at last ; reflect 
 now at last. Go not from your place this time at least 
 without first making a firm resolution ; and let everyone 
 who hears my voice make this resolution by himself and 
 for himself, just as if he were alone and had to do everything 
 alone. If very many individuals think in this way, there 
 will soon be formed a large community which will be 
 fused into a single close-connected force. But if, on the 
 contrary, each one, leaving himself out, puts his hope in 
 the rest and leaves the matter to others, then there will 
 be no others, and all together will remain as they were 
 before. Make it on the spot, this resolution. Do not 
 say : " Let us rest a little longer, let us sleep and dream a 
 little longer, till the improvement comes of itself." It 
 will never come of itself. He who has once let yesterday 
 go by, which would have been a more convenient time 
 
250 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 for reflection, and yet cannot use his will to-day, will be 
 still less able to do so to-morrow. Every delay makes us 
 all the more indolent, and cradles us still more deeply 
 in the habit of familiarity with our wretched condition. 
 Then, too, the external motives to reflection can never be 
 stronger or more urgent. He who is not aroused by the 
 present situation has beyond a doubt lost all power of 
 feeling. You are convoked to make a firm and final resolu- 
 tion and decision ; and in no wise to give a command, an 
 order, an incitement to others, but an incitement to your- 
 selves. You must make a resolution of a kind which each 
 one can carry out only by himself and in his own person. 
 In this matter the leisurely indication of an intention does 
 not suffice, nor the will to exert a will at some future 
 time, nor yet the indolent resolve to submit some time 
 or other to what is proposed, if one should meanwhile of 
 one's self have become a better man. No, you are called 
 upon to make a resolve that will itself be part of your 
 life, a resolve that is itself a deed within you, that endures 
 there and continues to hold sway without being moved or 
 shaken, a resolve that never grows cold, until it has 
 attained its object. 
 
 216. Or is, perchance, the root, from which alone such 
 a resolution can spring and have an influence on life, 
 completely destroyed, and has it disappeared ? Is your 
 whole being in truth and in fact thinned and reduced 
 to an empty shadow, without sap and blood and power 
 of motion ; reduced to a dream in which bright visions 
 are begotten and busily pursue each other, but where the 
 body lies stiff and as it were dead ? This age has long been 
 told to its face, and has heard it repeated in every shape 
 and form, that this or something like it is the general 
 opinion. Its spokesmen have believed that people who 
 said this only wanted to slander them, and have regarded 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 251 
 
 it as a challenge to themselves to slander in return, 
 supposing that the natural order of things would thereby 
 be restored. Yet there has not been the least trace of 
 any alteration or improvement. But if you have under- 
 stood the indictment, if it has succeeded in making you 
 indignant, then by your acts give the lie to those who 
 think and speak thus of you ; show before the eyes of 
 all the world that you are different, and then those men 
 in the eyes of all the world will be convicted of untruth. 
 Perchance it was precisely with the intention of being 
 refuted by you in this way, and because they despaired 
 of any other means of rousing you, that they spoke of 
 you as harshly as they did. If that was the case, how 
 much better disposed towards you they were than those 
 who flatter you, in order that you may be kept in sloth 
 and quietude and all-unheeding thoughtlessness ! 
 
 However weak and powerless you may be, never before 
 has clear and calm reflection been made so easy for you as 
 at the present time. The thing that really plunged us 
 into confusion as to our position, that caused our thought- 
 lessness, our blind acquiescence in all that happened, was 
 our sweet self-satisfaction ; we were satisfied with our- 
 selves and our way of life. Things had gone on all right 
 hitherto and continued to go on just the same. If anyone 
 challenged us to reflection, we triumphantly pointed out 
 to him, in place of any other refutation, our existence and 
 continuance, which came about without any reflection 
 on our part. But things went on all right solely because 
 we had not been put to the test. Since then we have gone 
 through it. Since that time the deceptions, the illusions, 
 the false consolation, by which we all led each other 
 mutually astray, have surely collapsed. The inborn 
 prejudices which, without proceeding from any one place, 
 spread themselves like a natural fog over everyone, and 
 
252 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 enveloped everyone in the same twilight — surely they have 
 vanished now ! That twilight no longer binds our eyes ; 
 moreover, it can no longer serve us as an excuse. Here 
 we stand now, bare and empty, with all external coverings 
 and hangings taken away, just as we are ourselves. Now 
 there must be revealed what that self is or is not. 
 
 217. Perhaps someone may come forward from among 
 you and ask me : " What gives you alone of all German 
 men and writers the special task, the vocation, and the 
 right to assemble us and press your views upon us ? 
 Would not each one of the thousands of Germany's 
 men of letters have just as much right to it as you ? 
 Not one of them does it, but you alone thrust yourself 
 forward." I answer that, of course, everyone would have 
 the same right as I have, that I am doing it solely because 
 not one of them has done it before me, and that I would 
 be silent if another had already done it. This was the 
 first step to the goal of a thorough reformation ; someone 
 or other had to take it. I was the first one to see it 
 vividly ; therefore it fell to me to take the first step. 
 After this some other step will be the second ; all have 
 now the same right to take this step ; but once again 
 it will in fact be one man, and one man only, who does 
 take it. There must always be one who is first ; then let 
 him be first who can ! 
 
 218. Without troubling yourselves about this objection, 
 let your gaze rest for a little while upon the view to which 
 we have already conducted you, viz., in what an enviable 
 condition Germany would be, and the world as well, if 
 the former had known how to make use of the good for- 
 tune due to its position and to recognize its advantages. 
 Let your eye dwell upon what both are now, and make 
 vourselves feel to the quick the pain and indignation 
 which must seize every noble-minded man when he 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 253 
 
 beholds it. Turn back then to your own selves and see 
 that it is you whom time will free from the errors of the 
 preceding ages and from whose eyes it will remove the 
 mist, if you permit it ; that it is granted to you, as to 
 no generation before you, to undo what has been done 
 and to delete the discreditable intervening period from 
 the pages of German history. 
 
 Review in your own minds the various conditions 
 between which you now have to make a choice. If 
 you continue in your dullness and helplessness, all the 
 evils of serfdom are awaiting you ; deprivations, humilia- 
 tions, the scorn and arrogance of the conqueror ; you will 
 be driven and harried in every corner, because you are 
 in the wrong and in the way everywhere ; until, by the 
 sacrifice of your nationality and your language, you have 
 purchased for yourselves some subordinate and petty 
 place, and until in this way you gradually die out as a 
 people. If, on the other hand, you bestir yourselves and 
 play the man, you will continue in a tolerable and hon- 
 ourable existence, and you will see growing up among 
 and around you a generation that will be the promise for 
 you and for the Germans of most illustrious renown. 
 You will see in spirit the German name rising by means 
 of this generation to be the most glorious among all 
 peoples ; you will see this nation the regenerator and 
 re-creator of the world. 
 
 219. It depends on you whether you want to be the 
 end, and to be the last of a generation unworthy of respect 
 and certain to be despised by posterity even beyond its 
 due — a generation of whose history (if, indeed, there can 
 be any history in the barbarism that will then begin) your 
 descendants will read the end with gladness, saying that 
 its fate was just ; or whether you want to be the beginning 
 and the point of development for a new age glorious 
 
254 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 beyond all your conceptions, and the generation from whom 
 posterity will reckon the year of their salvation. Reflect 
 that you are the last in whose power this great alteration 
 lies. You have, even in your day, heard the Germans 
 spoken of as one ; you have seen or have heard of a visible 
 sign of their unity, an empire and an imperial federa- 
 tion ; among you voices have made themselves heard 
 from time to time which were inspired by the higher 
 love of fatherland. Those who come after you will 
 accustom themselves to other ideas, will adopt alien 
 forms and another way of conducting life and affairs ; 
 and how long will it be then before there is no one living 
 who has seen or heard of Germans ? 
 
 220. What is demanded of you is not much. You are 
 only bidden to undertake to pull yourselves together for 
 a short time, and to think over that which lies immediately 
 and openly before your eyes. On that alone you are to 
 form a definite opinion, to remain true to it, and utter 
 and express it in your own immediate surroundings. 
 It is an assumption, it is our sure conviction, that the 
 result of this thinking will prove to be the same with all 
 of you, and that, if only you really think and do not go on 
 in the old heedlessness, you will think alike ; that, if 
 only you put on the spirit and do not remain on the level 
 of mere vegetable existence, unity and concord of spirit 
 will come of itself. But, once that has come about, 
 everything else that we need will be added to us without 
 our seeking. 
 
 Now, this effort of thought is in fact demanded of each 
 one of you, who is still capable of thinking for himself 
 about a thing that lies plainly before his eyes. You have 
 time for it ; there is no question of the present moment 
 bewildering you or taking you by surprise ; the documents 
 recording the negotiations conducted with you still lie 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 255 
 
 before your eyes. Do not lay them aside until you have 
 made up your minds. Do not, O, do not allow yourselves 
 to relax by trusting in others or in anything whatever 
 that lies outside yourselves, nor yet by the foolish wisdom 
 of the time, which holds that the ages make themselves, 
 without any human aid, by means of some unknown force. 
 These addresses have not grown weary of impressing upon 
 you that nothing whatever can help you except yourselves ; 
 and they find it necessary to repeat it up to the last 
 moment. It may be that rain and dew and fruitful 
 or unfruitful seasons are made by a force unknown to us 
 and not in our power ; but all human relationships, the 
 whole special province of man, are made only by men 
 themselves and by absolutely no power outside them. 
 Only when they are all equally blind and ignorant do 
 they fall victims to this hidden power ; but it rests with 
 them not to be blind and ignorant. It is true that 
 the degree of evil, be it greater or less, which will befall 
 us may depend partly on that unknown power ; but it 
 will depend very specially on the understanding and good- 
 will of those to whom we are subjected. But whether 
 it will ever go well with us again depends entirely on 
 ourselves ; and it is certain that no well-being whatever 
 will come to us again unless we procure it for ourselves, 
 and especially unless each one of us, in his own way, 
 acts and works as if he were alone, and as if upon him 
 alone depended the salvation of generations to come. 
 
 221. This is what you have to do. These addresses 
 solemnly appeal to you to do it without delay. 
 
 To you, young men, they solemnly appeal. I, who 
 have long ceased to belong to your ranks, am of the 
 opinion, which I have expressed in these addresses, that 
 you are even more capable than others of any thought 
 that lies outside the common round, and more susceptible 
 
256 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 to all that is good and vigorous, because your age lies 
 nearer to the years of childlike innocence and of nature. 
 Quite otherwise is this trait in you regarded by the majority 
 of the older world. They accuse you of arrogance, of 
 hasty and presumptuous judgment exceeding your powers, 
 of always thinking yourselves in the right, of a mania for 
 innovation. Yet they only smile good-humouredly at 
 these failings of yours. All this, they think, is founded 
 solely on your lack of knowledge of the world — that is to 
 say, of the general state of human corruption ; for they have 
 no eyes for anything else in the world. You have courage 
 now, they think, only because you hope to find helpers of 
 like mind, and do not know the grim and stiff-necked 
 resistance which will be offered to your plans for the 
 better. Just wait a little while, they say ; when once the 
 youthful fire of your imagination has died away, when you 
 have come to learn the general state of selfishness, sloth- 
 fulness, and dislike for work, when you yourselves have 
 once properly tasted the sweetness of going on in an accus- 
 tomed groove, then the desire and the will to be better 
 and cleverer than all the rest will depart from you. This 
 good hope which they have of you is not based on thin 
 air ; they have found it confirmed in their own person. 
 They must confess that in the days of their foolish youth 
 they dreamed of improving the world, just as you do 
 now ; nevertheless, as they grew more mature they became 
 as tame and peaceful as you see them at present. I 
 believe them ; I have myself, even in my own not very 
 long experience, seen young men, who at first aroused 
 other hopes, none the less at a later stage fully come up to 
 the well-meaning expectations of this age of maturity. 
 Do this no longer, young men ; for if you do, how can a 
 better generation ever begin ? The glow of youth will, 
 it is true, fall from you, and the flame of your imagina- 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 257 
 
 tive power will cease to find nourishment in itself ; but 
 seize this flame and concentrate it by clear thinking, 
 make the art of such thinking your very own and you will 
 have added unto you the finest equipment of man, 
 which is character. In and by that clear thinking main- 
 tain the source of the eternal bloom of youth ; however 
 much your body may grow old or your knees tremble, 
 your mind will re-create itself in ever-renewed freshness, 
 and your character will stand fast and upright. Embrace 
 at once the opportunity that here presents itself to you ; 
 think clearly over the subject that is proffered to you for 
 reflection ; the clearness that has dawned for you on 
 this one point will gradually spread itself over all the 
 others too. 
 
 222. These addresses appeal solemnly to you, old men. 
 You have just heard what people think of you ; they say 
 it to your face, and I, the speaker, frankly add thereto for 
 myself that, with regard to the great majority among 
 you, apart from the exceptions which are undoubtedly 
 not rare and which are all the more worthy of honour, 
 what people say is entirely justified. Go through the^ 
 history of the last two or three decades ; everyone except 1 
 you yourselves is agreed (and even among yourselves ! 
 each one is agreed except as regards the special branch [ 
 with which he himself is concerned) that, always apart ' 
 from the exceptions and with reference only to the majority, 1 
 in every branch, in science as well as in the affairs of life, ' 
 more inefficiency and selfishness was found among the^" 
 older men than anywhere else. The whole contemporary 
 world looked on and saw how every man that wished for 
 a better and more perfect state of things had to fight, not 
 only against his own lack of clearness and his other 
 environment — his greatest fight was against you ; the 
 world saw that you had firmly resolved that nothing must 
 
 17 
 
258 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 come to the front which you had not known about or 
 done, that you regarded every stirring of thought as an 
 insult to your intelligence, and that you left no power 
 unused by which you might become the victors in this 
 fight against the better, as indeed you were generally 
 the victors. Thus, you were the force which held up 
 all the improvements which kindly nature offered to us 
 from her ever-youthful lap, until you were gathered to 
 the dust (dust that you were already !), and the younger 
 generation in the war with you had become like you and 
 took over your old way of administration. You only 
 need to act now as you have hitherto acted in regard to 
 all proposals for improvement ; you only need to put 
 higher than the common weal your vanity in regarding 
 it as a point of honour that there shall be nothing under 
 heaven that you have not already discovered ; then, by 
 this last fight you will be spared any further fighting ; 
 no improvement will take place, but deterioration will 
 follow on deterioration, so that you will still have many 
 an occasion to rejoice. 
 
 I do not want you to think that I despise old age as 
 such, or run it down. If only the source of original life 
 and of its continued movement has by means of freedom 
 been taken up into life, clearness grows, and power with 
 it, so long as life lasts. Such a life becomes better as it 
 is lived, the clay of its earthly origin falling away more and 
 more ; it ennobles itself and reaches upwards towards 
 eternal life and blossoms out to meet it. In such a life 
 experience does not reconcile itself to evil, but only 
 makes clearer the means, and brings more skill in the art, 
 of fighting evil triumphantly. For the deterioration due 
 to increasing age, the times we live in are solely to blame ; 
 such deterioration must be the result wherever society 
 is very corrupt. It is not nature that corrupts us ; nature 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 259 
 
 creates us in innocence ; society corrupts us. He who once 
 surrenders himself to its influence must in the nature 
 of things become worse and worse, the longer he is 
 exposed to this influence. It would be worth while 
 to examine from this point of view the history of other 
 ages that have been very corrupt, and to see, for example, 
 whether under the government of the Roman emperors 
 what was bad did not become worse and worse with 
 increasing age. 
 
 So, among you old men and men of experience it is 
 first to those who form the exception that these addresses 
 solemnly appeal. Support, strengthen, and give counsel 
 in this matter to the younger generation who reverently 
 direct their gaze towards you. But to you others who 
 form the majority the solemn appeal of these addresses 
 is this : you are not asked to help, but just for this once 
 do not interfere ; do not put yourselves in the way, as 
 you have always done hitherto, with your wisdom and 
 your thousand grave objections. This matter, like every 
 other matter of reason in the world, has not a thousand 
 aspects, but only one ; and that is one of the thousand 
 things you do not know. If your wisdom could bring 
 salvation, it would have saved us before this, for it is you 
 who have advised us hitherto. That is now, like every- 
 thing else, in vain, and shall not be brought up against 
 you any more. But learn at long last to know yourselves, 
 and be silent. 
 
 223. These addresses appeal solemnly to you, men of 
 business. With few exceptions you have hitherto been 
 at heart hostile to abstract thought, and to every science 
 that wished to be something for its own sake, although you 
 put on an air of superiority and treated all that sort of 
 thing with contempt. You kept the men who pursued 
 such subjects, and the proposals they macye, as far from 
 
2 6o ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 you as you possibly could ; to be called lunatics, or 
 advised to betake themselves to a madhouse, was the 
 thanks they could most generally reckon on getting from 
 you. They for their part did not dare to express them- 
 selves about you with the same frankness, because they 
 were dependent on you ; but, in their inmost hearts, their 
 true opinion of you was this, that with few exceptions 
 you are shallow babblers and puffed-up braggarts, half- 
 educated men who merely ran through a course at school, 
 blind men who have to feel their way and creep along in 
 the old groove, and who neither want nor are capable of 
 anything else. By your actions convict them of lying. 
 For this purpose seize the opportunity now offered to 
 you ; lay aside your contempt of profound thought and 
 science ; let yourselves be told what you do not know, 
 then listen and learn ; otherwise your accusers will carry 
 their point. 
 
 224. These addresses appeal solemnly to you, t hinkers , 
 scholar s, and men _of lette rs, to such of you as are still 
 worthy of the name. The reproach that men of affairs 
 brought against you was in a certain sense not unjust. 
 Often you went on in the sphere of pure thought too 
 unconcernedly, without troubling yourselves about the 
 actual world, or trying to find out how the two might be 
 brought into connection ; you described your own world, 
 and left the actual one too much alone, despising and 
 scorning it. It is true that all regulation and formation 
 of actual life must proceed from a higher regulating idea, 
 and that going along in the accustomed way is not enough ; 
 that is an eternal truth, and in God's name crushes with 
 unconcealed contempt everyone who dares to occupy him- 
 self with affairs without knowing this. Nevertheless, 
 between the idea and the act of introducing it into every 
 separate form of life there lies a great gulf. To fill up 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 261 
 
 this gulf is not only the work of the man of affairs, who 
 indeed must previously have learnt enough to be able 
 to understand you, but the work also of you, who in the 
 world of thought must not forget life. At this point 
 both of you meet. Instead of looking askance at each 
 other across the gulf and depreciating each other, rather 
 let each party be zealous to fill up the gulf from his side 
 and so pave the way to union. Finally, comprehend 
 that both of you are as necessary to each other as head 
 and arm are necessary to each other. 
 
 These addresses appeal solemnly in other respects as well 
 to you, thinkers, scholars, and men of letters, to such of you 
 as are still worthy of the name. Your complaints about 
 the general shallowness, thoughtlessness, and vagueness, 
 about conceitedness and the inexhaustible flow of idle 
 chatter, about the contempt for seriousness and thorough- 
 ness that prevail in all classes, may be true, as indeed they 
 are. But then, what class is it which has brought up all 
 these classes, which has turned everything scientific into 
 a game for them, and has trained them from their earliest 
 youth to that conceitedness and idle chatter ? Who is it 
 that continues to instruct the generations that have left 
 school ? The most obvious cause of the stupidity of the 
 age is that it has read itself stupid with the works which 
 you have written. Why do you, nevertheless, continue 
 to make it your business to keep such indolent people 
 entertained, regardless of the fact that they have learnt 
 nothing and want to learn nothing ? Why do you call 
 them " the public," flatter them by making them your 
 judges, set them on against your rivals, and seek by every 
 means to win over this blind and confused mob to your 
 side ? Finally, why do you give them, even in your 
 reviewing establishments and journals, not only the 
 material, but also the model for their hasty judgments, by 
 
262 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 delivering judgment yourselves as the fancy seizes you, 
 without any connecting principle and usually without 
 taste, in a way that the meanest of your readers could 
 equal ? If you do not all think like this, if even yet there 
 are better-disposed writers among you, why do they not 
 unite to put an end to the evil ? Especially with refer- 
 ence to our men of business ; they ran through a course 
 at school under you ; you say it yourselves. Why did 
 you not make use of the time they spent with you to instil 
 into them at any rate some silent respect for the sciences, 
 and especially to shatter betimes the conceit of high-born 
 youths and to show them that, when it comes to thinking, 
 neither rank nor birth are of any avail ? If perchance 
 even at that time you flattered them and gave them 
 prominence beyond their merits, you must now bear the 
 burden of what you yourselves have created. 
 
 They are willing to pardon you, these addresses, on 
 the assumption that you had not grasped the importance 
 of your business ; they solemnly appeal to you to make 
 yourselves acquainted from this very hour with its impor- 
 tance, and no longer to carry it on as if it were merely a 
 trade. Learn to respect yourselves, show by your actions 
 that you do so, and the world will respect you. The first 
 proof of it you will give by the influence you yourselves 
 exert on the resolution that is here proposed, and by the 
 way in which you conduct yourselves in connection 
 therewith. 
 
 225. These addresses appeal solemnly to you, princes 
 of Germany. Those who in their dealings with you act 
 as if no one ought to say anything whatever to you, or 
 could have occasion to say anything, are contemptible 
 flatterers ; they wickedly slander you and no one else ; 
 put them far from you. The truth is that you are born 
 just as ignorant as all the rest of us, and that you must 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 263 
 
 listen and learn just as we must, if you are to emerge from 
 this state of natural ignorance. Your share in bringing 
 about the fate that has befallen you together with your 
 peoples has been stated here in the mildest and, we 
 believe, the only just and equitable way ; and unless you 
 are willing to listen to flattery only, but never to the 
 truth, you can have no complaint to make against these 
 addresses. Let all this be forgotten, in the same way that 
 all the rest of us wish that our share of the blame may be 
 forgotten. For you too, as for all of us, a new life now 
 begins. O, that this voice of mine might penetrate to 
 you through the whole environment which is wont to 
 make you inaccessible ! With proud self-reliance it may 
 say to you : you rule over peoples more loyal, more docile, 
 more worthy of happiness than any princes have ever 
 ruled over in any age or any nation. They have a sense 
 of freedom and a capacity for it ; but they followed you 
 into a bloody war against what seemed to them freedom, 
 because you willed it. Some among you willed otherwise 
 later, and they followed you into what must have seemed 
 to them a war of extirpation against one of the last 
 remnants of German independence and autonomy, again 
 because you willed it so. Since then they have been bearing 
 and enduring the oppressive burden of our common woes ; 
 and they cease not to be loyal to you, to cleave to you 
 with intense devotion, and to love you as their divinely 
 appointed guardians. If you could only observe them 
 without their knowing it ; if you could only escape from 
 that environment, which does not always present the 
 loveliest aspect of humanity to you, and descend into the 
 houses of the citizen and the cottages of the peasant, 
 there to follow and reflect upon the quiet and secluded 
 life of these classes of society, with whom the qualities 
 of loyalty and uprightness, so rare now among the upper 
 
264 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 classes, seem to have taken refuge ; O, then, beyond a 
 doubt you would be rilled with a resolve to think more 
 earnestly than ever how help might be brought to them. 
 These addresses have suggested to you a means of help 
 which they deem certain, thoroughgoing, and decisive. 
 Let your counsellors take counsel among themselves as 
 to whether they too are of this opinion, or whether they 
 know a better means ; only it must be equally decisive. 
 But the conviction that something must happen, and must 
 happen without delay, and that something thorough- 
 going and decisive must happen, and that the time for 
 half-measures and temporary expedients is over, this 
 conviction I would have these addresses bring forth in 
 you yourselves, if they can, seeing that they still have 
 the greatest confidence in your uprightness. 
 
 226. To all you Germans, whatever position you may 
 occupy in society, these addresses solemnly appeal ; let 
 every one of you, who can think, think first of all about 
 the subject here suggested, and let each do for it 
 what lies nearest to him individually in the position 
 he occupies. 
 
 227. Your forefathers unite themselves with these 
 addresses, and make a solemn appeal to you. Think that 
 in my voice there are mingled the voices of your ancestors 
 of the hoary past, who with their own bodies stemmed 
 the onrush of Roman world-dominion, who with their 
 blood won the independence of those mountains, plains, 
 and rivers which under you have fallen a prey to the 
 foreigner. They call to you : " Act for us ; let the 
 memory of us which you hand on to posterity be just 
 as honourable and without reproach as it was when it 
 came to you, when you took pride in it and in your 
 descent from us. Until now, the resistance we made has 
 been regarded as great and wise and noble ; we seemed 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 265 
 
 the consecrated and the inspired in the divine world- 
 purpose. If our race dies out with you, our honour will 
 be turned to shame and our wisdom to foolishness. 
 For if, indeed, the German stock is to be swallowed up in 
 Roman civilization, it were better that it had fallen before 
 the Rome of old than before a Rome of to-day. The 
 former we resisted and conquered ; by the latter you 
 have been ground to dust. Seeing that this is so, you 
 shall now not conquer them with temporal weapons ; 
 your spirit alone shall rise up against them and stand 
 erect. To you has fallen the greater destiny, to found 
 the empire of the spirit and of reason, and completely to 
 annihilate the rule of brute physical force in the world. 
 If you do this, then you are worthy of your descent from 
 us." 
 
 228. Then, too, there mingle with these voices the 
 spirits of your more recent forefathers, those who fell in 
 the holy war for the freedom of belief and of religion. 
 " Save our honour too," they cry to you. " To us it 
 was not entirely clear what we fought for ; besides the 
 lawful resolve not to let ourselves be dictated to by exter- 
 nal force in matters of conscience, there was another 
 and a higher spirit driving us, which never fully revealed 
 itself to us. To you it is revealed, this spirit, if you have 
 the power of vision in the spiritual world ; it beholds you 
 with eyes clear and sublime. The varied and confused 
 mixture of sensuous and spiritual motives that has hitherto 
 ruled the world shall be displaced, and spirit alone, pure 
 and freed from all sensuous motives, shall take the helm of 
 human affairs. It was in order that this spirit might 
 have freedom to develop and grow to independent 
 existence — it was for this that we poured forth our blood. 
 It is for you to justify and give meaning to our sacrifice, 
 by setting this spirit to fulfil its purpose and to rule the 
 
266 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 world. If this does not come about as the final goal to 
 which the whole previous development of our nation has 
 been tending, then the battles we fought will turn out 
 to be a vain and fleeting farce, and the freedom of 
 conscience and of spirit that we won is a vain word, 
 if from now onwards spirit and conscience are to be no 
 more." 
 
 229. There comes a solemn appeal to you from your 
 descendants not yet born. " You boast of your fore- 
 fathers," they cry to you, " and link yourselves with pride 
 to a noble line. Take care that the chain does not 
 break off with you ; see to it that we, too, may boast of 
 you and use you as an unsullied link to connect ourselves 
 with the same illustrious line. Do not force us to be 
 ashamed of our descent from you as from base and 
 slavish barbarians ; do not compel us to conceal our 
 origin, or to fabricate a strange one and to take a strange 
 name, lest we be at once and without further examina- 
 tion rejected and trodden underfoot. As the next 
 generation that proceeds from you turns out to be, 
 so will your reputation be in history ; honourable, if 
 they bear honourable witness for you, but disgraceful 
 even beyond your due, if your descendants may not speak 
 for you, and the conqueror makes your history. Never 
 yet has a conqueror had sufficient inclination or sufficient 
 knowledge to judge the conquered justly. The more 
 he depreciates them, the more just does he himself stand 
 out. Who can know what great deeds, what excellent 
 institutions, what noble customs of many a people in the 
 ancient world have fallen into oblivion, because their 
 descendants were forced under the yoke, while the 
 conqueror wrote an account of them that suited his 
 purpose, and there was none to contradict him ! " 
 
 230. A solemn appeal comes to you even from foreign 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 267 
 
 countries, in so far as they still understand themselves 
 even to the slightest extent, and still have an eye for 
 their true advantage. Yea, in all nations there are still 
 some souls who cannot even yet believe that the great 
 promises of a realm of justice, reason, and truth for 
 the human race are vain and naught but a baseless delu r 
 sion, and who, therefore, assume that the present age of 
 iron is but a transition to a better state. These souls, 
 and in them the whole of modern humanity, count upon 
 you. A large part of modern humanity is descended 
 from us, and the rest have received from us their religion 
 and all their civilization. The former solemnly appeal 
 to us by the soil of our common fatherland, which was 
 their cradle, too, and which they have left free for us, 
 the latter by the culture they have received from us as 
 the pledge of a loftier bliss — both appeal to us to preserve 
 ourselves for them too and for their sake, just as we have 
 always been, and not to let the whole organism of the new 
 race that has arisen be violently deprived of this member 
 so important to it ; so that, when they come to need our 
 counsel, our example, and our co-operation in striving 
 towards the true goal of earthly life, they will not miss us, 
 to their pain. 
 
 231. All ages, all wise and good men who have ever 
 breathed upon this earth, all their thoughts and intuitions 
 of something loftier, mingle with these voices and sur- 
 round you and lift up imploring hands to you ; even, if 
 one may say so, providence and the divine plan in creat- 
 ing a race of men, a plan which exists only to be thought 
 out by men and to be brought by men into the actual 
 world — the divine plan, I say, solemnly appeals to you 
 to save its honour and its existence. Whether those were 
 right who believed that mankind must always grow 
 better, and that thoughts of a true order and worth of man 
 
268 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION 
 
 were no idle dreams, but the prophecy and pledge of the 
 real world that is to be — whether they are to be proved 
 right, or those who continue to slumber in an animal and 
 vegetable existence and mock at every flight into higher 
 worlds — to give a final and decisive judgment on this 
 point is a work for you. The old world with its glory 
 and its greatness, as well as its defects, has fallen by its 
 own unworthiness and by the violence of your fathers. 
 If there is truth in what has been expounded in these 
 addresses, then are you of all modern peoples the one in 
 whom the seed of human perfection most unmistakably 
 lies, and to whom the lead in its development is committed. 
 If you perish in this your essential nature, then there 
 perishes together with you every hope of the whole 
 human race for salvation from the depths of its miseries. 
 Do not console yourselves with an opinion based on thin 
 air and depending on the mere recurrence of cases that 
 have already happened ; do not hope that when the old 
 civilization has fallen a new one will arise once more 
 out of a semi-barbarous nation on the ruins of the first. 
 In ancient times there was such a people in existence, 
 equipped with every requirement for such a destiny and 
 quite well known to the civilized people, who have left 
 us their description of it ; and they themselves, if they 
 had been able to imagine their own downfall, would have 
 been able to discover in this people the means of recon- 
 struction. To us also the whole surface of the globe is 
 quite well known and all the peoples that dwell thereon. 
 But do we know a people akin to the ancestral stock of 
 the modern world, of whom we may have the same 
 expectation ? I think that everyone who does not merely 
 base his hopes and beliefs on idle dreaming, but investi- 
 gates thoroughly and thinks, will be bound to answer this 
 question with a NO. There is, therefore, no way out ; 
 
CONCLUSION 269 
 
 if you go under, all humanity goes under with you, with- 
 out hope of any future restoration. 
 
 This it was, gentlemen, which at the end of these 
 addresses I wanted and was bound to impress upon you, 
 who to me are the representatives of the nation, and 
 through you upon the whole nation. 
 
 Finis 
 
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