The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The word "modern" is on everyone's lips today. Every moment a "new thing" is discovered in this or that area of human creativity, or at least a promising attempt at it is noticed. Most of these discoveries, however, do not lead the discerning person pursuing the matter to something really new, but simply to the lack of historical education of the discoverers. If those who currently influence public opinion through speech and writing had the same degree of knowledge and discernment as they do hubris and boldness in their claims, ninety-eight times out of a hundred they would use terms that have something to do with the matter itself where the words "new" and "modern" now have to stand in.

I don't want to join in the wild cries of the uneducated and immature standard-bearers of "modernity" when I speak here of a "new" morality in contrast to the old. But I am convinced that our time imperatively demands that we accelerate the change in views and ways of life that has been taking place very slowly for a long time. Some branches of culture are already imbued with the spirit that expresses itself in this demand; a clear awareness of the main characteristics of the change is not often to be found.

I find a simple expression for the basic trait of a truly future-worthy striving in the following sentence: Today we seek to replace all otherworldly and extra-worldly driving forces with those that lie within the world. In the past, transcendental powers were sought to explain the phenomena of existence. Revelation, mystical vision or metaphysical speculation were supposed to lead to knowledge of higher beings. At present, we strive to find the means to explain the world in the world itself.

It is only ever necessary to interpret these propositions in the right way, and one will find that they indicate the characteristic feature of a spiritual revolution that is in full swing. Science is increasingly turning away from the metaphysical approach and seeking its explanatory principles within the realm of reality. Art strives to offer in its creations only that which is derived from nature and renounces the embodiment of supernatural ideas. However, in science as in art, this endeavor is associated with the danger of going astray. Some of our contemporaries have not escaped this danger. Instead of pursuing the traces of the spirit, which they once erroneously sought outside reality, they have now lost sight of everything ideal; and we must see how science is content with a mindless observation and recording of facts, art often with mere imitation of nature.

However, these are excesses that must be overcome by what is healthy in the whole direction. The significance of the movement lies in the rejection of that world view which regarded spirit and nature as two completely separate entities, and in the recognition of the proposition that both are only two sides, two manifestations of one entity. Replacing the two-world theory with the unified worldview is the signature of the new age.

The area where this view seems to encounter the most serious prejudices is that of human action. While some natural scientists are already wholeheartedly committed to it, and some aesthetes and art critics are more or less imbued with it, ethicists want nothing to do with it. Here, the belief in norms that are supposed to govern life like an otherworldly power still prevails, in laws that are not created within human nature, but that are given to our actions as a ready-made guideline. If one goes far enough, one admits that we do not owe these laws to the revelation of a supernatural power, but that they are innate to our soul. They are then not called divine commandments, but categorical imperatives. In any case, the human personality is conceived as consisting of two independent entities: the sensual nature with a sum of instincts and passions, and the spiritual principle that penetrates to the realization of moral ideas, through which the sensual element is to be controlled and restrained. This basic ethical view has found its harshest expression in Kant's philosophy. Just think of the well-known apostrophe to duty! "Duty! thou sublime great name, who dost not grasp in thyself anything popular that leads to ingratiation, but dost demand submission", who dost "merely set up a law that finds its way into the mind of its own accord and yet acquires reverence for itself against its will, before which all inclinations fall silent, even if they secretly work against it". In these words lies an autonomization of the moral commandments into a special power to which everything individual in man simply has to submit. Even if this power announces itself within the human personality, it has its origin outside. The commandments of this power are the moral ideals that can be codified as a system of duties. The followers of this school of thought regard those who base their actions on these ideals as good people. This doctrine can be called the ethics of motives. It has many followers among German philosophers. We encounter it in a very diluted form in the work of the Americans Coit and Salter. Coit says ("The Ethical Movement in Religion", translated by G. von Gizycki, p.7): "Every duty is to be done with the fervor of enthusiasm, with the feeling of its absolute and supreme value"; and Salter ("The Religion of Morals", translated by G. von Gizycki, p. 79): "A moral act must have been done out of principle". In addition to this ethic, there is another that takes into account not so much the motives as the results of our actions. Its followers ask about the greater or lesser benefit that an action brings and accordingly describe it as better or worse. They either look at the benefit for the individual or for the social whole. Accordingly, a distinction is made between individualistic and socialistic utilitarians. If the former refrain from establishing general principles, the observance of which should make the individual happy, they present themselves as one-sided representatives of individualistic ethics. They must be called one-sided because their own benefit is by no means the only goal of the active human individuality. It can also be in their nature to act selflessly. But when these individualistic or socialistic utilitarians derive norms to be followed from the nature of the individual or a group, they make the same mistake as the advocates of the concept of duty: they overlook the fact that all general rules and laws immediately prove to be a worthless phantom when man finds himself within living reality. Laws are abstractions, but actions always take place under very specific concrete conditions. Weighing up the various possibilities and choosing the most practical one in a given case is what we should do when it comes to action. An individual personality is always faced with a very specific situation and will make a decision according to the circumstances. In this case, a selfish action will be the right one, in another a selfless one; sometimes the interests of the individual will have to be taken into account, sometimes those of the whole. Those who unilaterally pay homage to egoism are just as wrong as those who praise compassion. For what is more important than the perception of one's own good or the good of others is the consideration of whether one or the other is more important under the given circumstances. When acting, it is not primarily a matter of feelings, not of selfish, not of selfless ones, but of the right judgment about what is to be done. It can happen that someone sees an action as right and carries it out while suppressing the strongest impulses of his compassion. But since there is no absolutely right judgment, but all truth is only conditionally valid, depending on the point of view of the person who pronounces it, a person's judgment about what to do in a particular case is also conditioned by his particular relationship to the world. In exactly the same situation, two people will act differently because, depending on their character, experience and education, they have different concepts of what their task is in a given case.

Anyone who understands that the judgment of a specific case is the decisive factor in an action can only advocate an individualistic view of ethics. Only the right view in a given situation and no fixed norm helps to form such a judgment. General laws can only be derived from the facts, but facts are only created through the action of man. These are the prerequisites of abstract rules.

If we derive certain general characteristics of individuals, peoples and ages from the common and lawful nature of human action, we obtain ethics, not as a science of moral norms, but as a natural doctrine of morality. The laws derived from this relate to individual human action in exactly the same way as the laws of nature relate to a particular phenomenon in nature.

To present ethics as a normative science is to completely misjudge the nature of a science. Natural science sees its progress in the fact that it has overcome the view that general norms, types, are realized in individual phenomena according to the principle of expediency. It investigates the real foundations of phenomena. Only when ethics has reached the point where it asks not about general moral ideals, but about the real facts of action that lie in the concrete individuality of man, only then can it be regarded as a science on a par with natural science.

In the history of German literary research, Grand Duchess Sophie of Saxony, who died on March 23, 1897, deserves a place of honour. Goethe's last grandson appointed her heiress to his grandfather's entire manuscript estate. He could not have entrusted the valuable treasures to anyone better than her. In April 1885, Goethe's papers passed into her possession. From then on, she regarded the administration of the legacy as a sacred and dear duty. She wanted to make it as fruitful as possible for science. She carefully discussed with men whom she considered to be good Goethe experts, Herman Grimm, Wilhelm Scherer, Gustav von Loeper and Erich Schmidt, how the property entrusted to her should be used for literary-historical research. She founded the "Goethe Archive" and appointed Erich Schmidt as its director. She believed that she could best serve the knowledge of Goethe and his time by publishing a Goethe edition that met all the scholarly requirements of the time. She invited a large number of scholars to collaborate on this edition. It was her heart's desire to see the completion of this monumental work. Unfortunately, it did not come true. Only half of the planned number of volumes have been published to date. The Grand Duchess took the most active part in the work of her archive. The current director of this institution, Bernhard Suphan, could only ever speak in terms of the greatest enthusiasm when he spoke of this interest. She went into all the details of the work.

Goethe's estate acted like a magnet on the papers left behind by other German poets and writers. In May 1889, Schiller's descendants made a gift of their ancestor's manuscripts to the Grand Duchess. The "Goethe Archive" thus expanded to become the "Goethe and Schiller Archive".

The plan emerged to gradually develop this into a German literary archive. Much has already been done to realize this plan. The estates of Otto Ludwig, Friedrich Hebbel, Eduard Mörike and others are already in the Goethe and Schiller Archive. In order to complete her creation, the Grand Duchess decided to build her own house to house the treasures. On June 28, 1896, the magnificent building on the Ilm, near the Residenzschloss, was officially opened. Anyone who was present at the ceremonial opening of this literary archive could observe the seriousness and love with which the Grand Duchess spoke of her creation. You could see how happy she felt to be able to serve science.

The Grand Duchess Sophie had a clear eye and a sure sense of what was great and important. She possessed a sharp power of judgment that allowed her to make the right decisions on the most difficult issues. Her indomitable energy and rare prudence enabled her to devote her attention to even the smallest details connected with her work. What she did for the cultivation of art, for the education of the youth in Weimar, for the material welfare of her country, cannot be overlooked today. It was in her nature to set herself beautiful tasks and to carry them out with a strong will. She is greatly revered in Weimar. She is held in high esteem by the members of the Goethe Society, the Shakespeare Society and the Schiller Foundation, who were able to see at their meetings in Weimar how great the interest this woman took in intellectual endeavors was and how great the understanding she had for cultural tasks. Her wish was that everyone should spend pleasant days in Weimar when they visited this place in order to revive the memory of great times of the past. It has often been said in recent times that people in Weimar live from the past. That is true. But this life of great memories is best understood. And it is hardly to be regretted that there is such a place where people gather from time to time who otherwise live only in the present. It is nice to see the past come alive in front of you from time to time, as if in a dream. The fact that Weimar is such a place today, which many people like to visit again and again to celebrate the great dead, and that they take good impressions home with them from their visits, is something to which the late Grand Duchess contributed a great deal.

The Würzburg professor of theology Dr. Herman Schell published a book entitled "Catholicism as a principle of progress" (Würzburg 1897). This title struck me as a protest against ideas to which I had become accustomed many years before. I remember that in my youth a sentence uttered by the famous Cardinal Rauscher in the Austrian Herrenhaus made a lasting impression on me. He said: "The Church knows no progress". This sentence always seemed to me to be inspired by a truly religious spirit. And it still seems so to me today. If I were a devout Catholic, I would probably take every opportunity to prove and defend this sentence. I would then say, like the Church Father Tertullian, that man no longer needs to be inquisitive after divine truth has been revealed to him through Jesus Christ. I would swear by the words of St. Thomas Aquinas that the doctrine of salvation is contained in Holy Scripture, and that reason can do nothing but use its powers to find human evidence for these eternal truths of Scripture. I would consider the freedom of thought to be a paradoxical idea, for I could hardly associate any meaning with the idea of free thought if I had to assume that reason must ultimately end up in revelation. I must confess that a believing Catholic who does things differently initially appears to me as a problem, as a big question mark. Professor Herman Schell was also such a question mark for me at first. While I was reading his book, the problem took on a more definite form. It became a psychological task. I found that in the professor's mind ideas were in perfect harmony which I had hitherto assumed to be a complete contradiction. Thus our author says: "Freedom of thought is really an ideal in so far as it means freedom from all prejudices, and remains an ideal as long as the greatest danger to judgment and to progress is the bias of prejudice. Freedom of thought means nothing other than the endeavor to break and keep out all those influences on thought which have no right to truth, because they are not facts or not actually founded, because they are only imaginations, habits of thought, false and superficial interpretations of sensory impressions or other communications, such as historical documents or religious source writings." The professor knows quite well what conclusions must be drawn from this sentence of his when it comes to different modern world views. He proves to materialism, to monism, that they are based on judgments that the mind does not examine because it has become accustomed to them, because it has become biased by living in them. "Materialism has no sense for the factual world of inner experience and the spirit; only the tangible is considered a fact. Monism does not want to accept any cause of the world that is distinct from the world and a supramundane personality: that is its dogma."

But I would now like to ask the Catholic professor what he would say if it turned out in the forum of free thought that any of the basic Christian dogmas had to be dropped? It seems to me, recalling the contents of the book, that the author has no sense of such a possibility. It is as if he were of the opinion that thought cannot arrive at anything other than the Christian truths of salvation. He wants to promote knowledge, but he is convinced that this promotion cannot consist in abandoning the essential doctrines of the Church, "beginning with the personality of the Creator and the personal immortality of the soul and ending with the historical revelation of God". If thought is to be truly free, it must also have the opportunity to penetrate to a world view which derives the order of things from powers other than a personal God, and which knows nothing of personal immortality and historical revelation. Whoever presents these doctrines of faith from the outset as goals to which thinking must come, speaks as a Catholic; but he cannot possibly make himself the defender of free thinking. This can only be its own guideline and set its own goal. For even if it is hindered by the recognition of the facts from an arbitrary flight into the fantastic, the interpretation, the explanation of the facts still depends on it. Thought is the ultimate determining factor. For Christian theology, however, it must be important to interpret the phenomena of the world in such a way that the interpretation agrees with the content of revelation. As our author also says: "The ideal that guides theological research is the conviction that the equation between correctly understood revelation and correctly interpreted reality can be established." Free thinking sails out into the unknown when it sets out in search of the truth. It does not know where the boat will drift. It only feels within itself the strength and courage to arrive at a satisfying view on its own. Catholic theology knows exactly what the realization is that thinking must arrive at. Schell knows this, because he says: "The ideal of theological science is to trace faith back to demonstrable facts and to convincing principles and reasons for proof."

The question now arises for me: How is it possible that a logically trained person like Herman Schell can unite the two assertions: thinking must be free, and: this free thinking must provide the proof that the Catholic belief in revelation is unconditionally true? This question seems to me to be a psychological one. I would like to solve it in the following way. The modern theologian is educated in the belief in divine revelation. His upbringing makes it impossible for him to doubt the truth of revelation. But alongside the divine truth of salvation, he also learns about modern science with its fruitful research methods. He gains respect for this fruitfulness. At the same time, he feels weak in the face of the achievements of the modern spirit. Only strong minds will presume to fight against this feeling; and they will also succeed in suppressing it. They will remain faithful to the true faith, to the true sentiments of their fathers, namely the Fathers of the Church, and will speak out courageously: The Church knows no progress. The others will unite black and white and, like Schell, say: "Catholicism means the covenant of peace between reason and faith, between research and revelation, without degrading and humiliating the Logos: For Christianity is the religion of the Spirit and the Logos! The true spirit of religion and holiness is only that spirit which proceeds from the word of truth." This is how those who feel a sense of shame - perhaps dormant in their unconscious - when they are seen as an opponent of progress speak.

The word "progress" has a suggestive effect on today's educated people, be they theologians, scholars, politicians, etc. How rare are the people who are proud to think "anti-progressively". Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the opponents of progress: "Progress is merely a modern idea, that is, a false idea. The European of today remains in his values deeply inferior to the European of the Renaissance; further development is by no means with any necessity increase, intensification, intensification." These sentences are found in one of the most anti-Christian books that has ever been written. But they are in a book written by a truly independent spirit. The book "Catholicism as a Principle of Progress", however, was devised by a mind that is dependent on two sides: on the spirit of true Catholicism and on a false shame that prevents it from denying the claims of anti-Catholic science. It must be described as Catholic in the true sense of the word when the author says: "Catholic is a name that does not merely designate the central church and conservative Christianity in its firmly organized world existence from time-honoured tradition, but a name that expresses a high principle, a God-given task: To realize the kingdom of God in spirit and in truth among all peoples, and indeed through all peoples and national characters, and thus to carry out Christianity in the Church really whole and full,genuine and true. " UnCatholic, however, and only out of reverence for anti-Catholic science, it is said: "The concept of God of arbitrary omnipotence, which manifests its supreme ruling power precisely in the most frequent possible breaking of the laws of nature and the mad chaos of uncontrollable forces, has no basis in reason and cannot be scientifically proven. Only God as the omnipotent realization of the perfect spiritual life, as the eternal omnipotence of infinite wisdom and holiness itself, can be proven to be an indispensable truth in the face of unbelief and makes all superstition unacceptable from the ground up." This sentence strikes me as if it had been spoken by a Haeckelian, not a professor of Catholic theology in Würzburg. A God as the realization of the perfect spiritual life, as the epitome of wisdom and holiness, is something quite different from the personal God of the Catholic, who can, however, break through the laws of nature. This is what the Gospels teach. And a completely anti-Catholic spirit speaks from the words: "Is there any need for a separate principle that everything concerning faith and the goal of life must be mediated by the personal reason and freedom of a reasonable man, by his serious examination of conscience? That is self-evident!" Yes, it is self-evident. But for an unchristian way of thinking. Anyone who takes these words seriously must refuse to bind his thinking with doctrines of faith that are fixed from the outset. But in doing so, he ceases to think catholic.

For the modern thinker, minds like Professor Schell only have a psychological interest. You can learn from them how the most contradictory ideas can live side by side in one head. The example given is particularly instructive because it is typical of a large number of modern theologians and because it shows how little logical training is able to combat the power of human emotions. The mind of the Catholic theologian is certainly trained logically. But what good is all logic if contradictory feelings and emotions develop their power from two sides. Logical thinking then becomes sophistry, which deludes the thinker into believing that things that are eternally hostile to each other can live side by side in the deepest peace.

Not a few intelligent people will find every word spoken about the strange meeting that took place a few days ago in Basel under the name "Zionist Congress" superfluous. The fact that a number of Europe-weary Jews came together to propagate the idea of establishing a new Palestinian empire and to bring about the emigration of Jews to this new "promised land" appears to these clever people to be the mad imagination of a pathologically excited fantasy. They calm down at this judgment. They do not discuss the matter any further. But I believe that these clever people are ten years behind the times in their judgment. And ten years is a small eternity in our time, when events flow so quickly. Ten years ago, one could justifiably consider a Jew to be half-mad if he had the idea of moving his fellow Jews to Palestine. Today he can only be considered oversensitive and vain; in another ten years things may be quite different. In the case of Mr. Herzl and Mr. Nordau, the current leaders of the Zionist movement, however, I believe I perceive more vanity than heightened sensitivity towards the anti-Semitic current. The banal phrases that Herzl put forward in his brochure "Judenstaat" (M. Breitensteins Buchhandlung, Leipzig and Vienna 1896) and the verbal fluff with which the sensationalist Nordau regaled his audience in Basel certainly did not spring from the deepest depths of troubled souls. But they do come from intelligent minds who know what has the strongest effect on those Jews who have a sensitive heart and a highly developed sense of self-respect. These latter members of the Jewish people will, I suspect, form the following of Mr. Herzl and Mr. Nordau. And the number of these members is certainly not small.

What use is it if it is emphasized so often that the Jews who feel this way are in serious error? They turn their eyes away from the great progress which the emancipation of the Jews has made in the last decades, and see only that they are still excluded from so and so many places, abridged in so and so many rights; and besides, they hear that they are insulted by the anti-Semites in the most savage manner. They do so because their offended minds cloud their understanding. They are incapable of recognizing the impotence of anti-Semitism; they only see its dangers and its outrageous excesses. Anyone who tells them: look at how hopeless the machinations of the Jew-haters are, how all their endeavors end in disgrace, they look at them doubtfully. Only those who, like Theodor Herzl, tell them: "Anti-Semitism grows daily, hourly in the population and must continue to grow because the causes persist and cannot be remedied. ... There seems to be something provocative about our welfare, because for many centuries the world has been accustomed to see in us the most despicable of the poor. Yet, out of ignorance or narrow-mindedness, people do not realize that our well-being weakens us as Jews and erases our distinctiveness. Only the pressure presses us back to the old tribe, only the hatred of our surroundings makes us strangers again. So, whether we like it or not, we are and will remain a historical group of recognizable togetherness. We are one people - the enemy makes us one without our will, as has always been the case in history. And those with whom such sentences resonate most powerfully today were, only a very short time ago, passionately prepared to allow their own ethnicity to be absorbed into that of the Western tribes. It is not real anti-Semitism that is the cause of this Jewish hypersensitivity, but the false image that an overwrought imagination forms of the anti-Jewish movement. Anyone who has dealings with Jews knows how deep-seated the tendency to form such a false image is among the best of this people. Distrust of non-Jews has thoroughly taken hold of their souls. Even in people in whom they can detect no trace of conscious anti-Semitism, they suspect an unconscious, instinctive, secret hatred of Jews at the bottom of their souls. I consider it one of the most beautiful fruits that human inclination can bear when it wipes out every trace of suspicion between a Jew and a non-Jew in the direction indicated above. I would almost call such an inclination a victory over human nature.

It is not impossible that in a short time such inclinations will be impossible at all. There may come a time when the emotional sphere of Jewish personalities is so irritated that any understanding with non-Jews becomes impossible. And the so-called Jewish question depends on the pulling of intimate strings from Jew to non-Jew, on the development of emotional inclinations, on a thousand unspeakable things, but not on rational arguments and programs. It would be best if there were as little talk as possible in this matter. Only the mutual effects of individuals should be emphasized. It makes no difference whether someone is Jewish or Germanic: if I find him nice, I like him; if he is disgusting, I avoid him. It's so simple that you're almost stupid if you say it. But how stupid you have to be to say the opposite!

I think the anti-Semites are harmless people. The best of them are like children, they want to have something to blame for an evil they are suffering from. When a child drops a plate, he looks for someone or something he has knocked that is to blame for the accident. They don't look for the cause, the blame, in themselves. That's what the anti-Semites do. Many people are in a bad way. They look for something to blame. Circumstances have brought it about that many currently see this something in Judaism.

Much worse than the anti-Semites are the heartless leaders of the Europe-weary Jews, Mr. Herzl and Mr. Nordau. They turn an unpleasant childishness into a world-historical current; they spend a harmless banter on a terrible cannon fire. They are seducers, tempters of their people. They sacrifice the understanding that all reasonable people should desire to their vanity, which thirsts for programs, because - where deeds are lacking, a program arises at the right time.

As harmless as anti-Semitism is in itself, it becomes dangerous when the Jews see it in the light in which Herzl and Nordau put it.

And they understand the language of the tempters, these gentlemen: "People will pray in the temples for the success of the work. But in the churches too! It is the solution to an old pressure from which everyone suffered. But first there must be light in the minds. The thought must fly out into the last miserable nests where our people live. They will wake up from their dull brooding. For a new content is coming into all our lives. Everyone need only think of himself, and the train will be a mighty one. And what glory awaits the selfless fighters for the cause! That is why I believe that a generation of wonderful Jews will grow out of the earth. The Maccabees will rise again." Thus Mr. Theodor Herzl in his writing "The Jewish State".

I fear that a time will come when the Jews will no longer believe anything we non-Jews tell them about anti-Semitism, and will instead pray to their Jewish seducers. And like so many infatuated people, the sensitive Jews will translate the empty phrases of these seducers into the language of their hearts. The seduced will suffer; but the seducers will triumph over the successes that their vanity has achieved.

In Basel, the question was basically decided: what should be done to make the solution of the Jewish question as impossible as possible? Whether Mr. Herzl and Mr. Nordau really believe that the Palestinian empire can be established, I am not in a position to decide. In honor of their intelligence, I hypothetically assume that they do not believe in it. If I am right in this assumption of mine, then one must reproach these leaders for putting more obstacles in the way of a confrontation between Jews and non-Jews than the anti-Semitic rabble-rousers.

The Zionist movement is an enemy of Judaism. The Jews would do best if they took a good look at the people who are painting ghosts for them.

Report on the 13th General Assembly of the German Goethe Society

On October 8, the members of the German Goethe Society gathered in Weimar for the thirteenth time to celebrate their beloved Goethe Festival. For the first time, they had to celebrate this festival without seeing the personality in their midst to whom the Goethe community owes an immeasurable debt of gratitude: The Grand Duchess Sophie of Saxony. On March 23 of this year, this woman, whose name is forever linked to German literary studies through the founding of the Goethe and Schiller Archive, passed away.

Her presence gave the festival a special glow in past years; the memory of her, the mourning for her, gave it its character this time. Goethe Day was therefore to be celebrated in connection with a memorial service for the deceased woman. The two societies that owe their prosperity to the deceased, the Goethe Society and the Shakespeare Society, decided to do so. And the management of the Goethe and Schiller Archives, the Schiller Foundation and the Grand Ducal Court Theatre joined forces with the aforementioned societies to organize a celebration in memory of their caretaker and protector. Kuno Fischer was called upon to dedicate a memorial speech to the memory of the deceased. He is bound to the Weimar court by ties of friendship. The loyalty and devotion to the Princely House that his relationship with it inspired in him were expressed in his memorial speech on October 8. His view of life and the world, his attitude and feelings enabled him to understand the Grand Duchess's way of thinking like few others. The deceased was a princess in the most genuine sense of the word, a personality who set herself great tasks because she had a high conception of her princely profession and because this task gave her a rare energy. There is greatness in this conception; and Kuno Fischer had taken on the task of describing the nature of this greatness. The speaker wanted to make clear how much of this power, which was her own, was due to her descent from the determined and energetic Orange family. This energy is expressed in the motto of the House of Orange: "Je maintiendrai". The Grand Duchess Sophie also made it her own and translated it into the German words: "Rule over oneself is the prerequisite for any activity and for the serious, conscientious execution of duties assumed." From studying the history of the house, the Princess developed a mastery over herself and a strong sense of duty. The speaker sought to clarify the extent to which the fortunes of this house are particularly suited to creating such an awareness by means of a historical account. He clearly explained what a misguided upbringing and a favorable school of life had contributed to raising this woman to the heights of her views. He described the Dutch nature of her character. He deduced her love for German literature from the fact that she found the deeds of the heroes so close to her celebrated in this literature. Schiller and Goethe made Dutch greatness the reproach of their poetry and works. In German literature, the Grand Duchess found her home again. The history of her fatherland confronted her in German art.

The musical part of this celebration has already been mentioned. It has also been mentioned there that the court theater offered an atmospheric performance of Gluck's opera "Orpheus and Eurydice" on the evening of the same day. We will only add that the performance was highly successful under Bernhard Stavenhagen's excellent direction. Miss Hofmann (Orpheus) and Mrs. Stavenhagen (Eurydice) made a strong impression on the guests.

October 9 was dedicated to the actual Goethe meeting. The participants of this meeting will take home a lasting memory. The director of the Goethe and Schiller Archive, Professor Suphan, shared the part of Grand Duchess Sophie's will in which she secured the future of Goethe's estate for all time. Kuno Fischer's words could not have found a stronger affirmation than they have received through this will. The care of Goethe's estate, which was given to her as a gift by the last grandson of Goethe, was a matter close to this woman's heart and a great duty during her lifetime. She made material sacrifices and devoted a great deal of time and effort to it. She cared for her like a mother. Her beautiful words speak for themselves. The will reads: "I, Sophie of Saxony, Royal Princess of the Netherlands, hereby certify the following: By accepting the legacy of Baron Walter von Goethe, I have also assumed responsibility for the reverent preservation of the treasures from Goethe's estate for all time. I bear the same responsibility towards the legacy of Schiller, as well as all the manuscripts of other outstanding German poets acquired by donation and purchase. At the same time, it gives me particular pleasure not only to have seen to the completion of the Goethe edition and the Goethe biography, but also to have ensured that the treasures in my possession are made usefully accessible and that Weimar is preserved so that it will continue to be the intellectual center of Germany. I have therefore ordered that a family entailed estate be established for the preservation of these treasures, which shall be inalienable. In notarizing this family fideicommissum, I ask my lord husband to give the sovereign's confirmation in the form of a statutory provision." The Goethe and Schiller Archive will be the property of the respective head of the Grand Ducal House. The latter is obliged to ensure the preservation and management of the treasure accordingly.

The chairman, Dr. Ruland, concluded his report on the Goethe National Museum with this important announcement by Suphan. He drew attention to a picture newly acquired by this museum and exhibited in the June Room of the Goethe House. The personality depicted and the painter are unknown. It dates from the end of the last century or the beginning of this century. Anyone who has looked at the picture will have to agree with Ruland's opinion that it depicts Frau Rat in old age. Her and Goethe's features are unmistakable. The picture was formerly owned by William Candidus in Cronberg. Ruland also mentioned another addition to the museum. The Countess Vaudreuil, the wife of the French envoy, was on friendly terms with the Goethe family during her stay in Weimar. Goethe's hand drawings were found in her estate. Her descendants have added these to the Weimar treasures.

In the afternoon, the guests gathered for the usual lunch. The old heads of the Goethe community and the young strikers, who despite naturalism and "modernism" look up to Goethe with admiration, sat side by side. Julius Rodenberg, Karl Frenzel, Marie von Bunsen and Lina Schneider, Freiligrath's daughter, were present. The Minister of Education under the second Auersperg Ministry, Dr. von Stremayr, and Professor Oncken from Giessen were in our midst. One of the "youngest", Otto Erich Hartleben, who has repeatedly appeared in Weimar on this occasion, was also present this time. The festive toasts had a serious character this time. The impression of the loss suffered was felt. Ruland toasted the Grand Ducal House; Stremayr brought greetings from German-Austria. His kind words, which came from a good German-Austrian heart, had a beneficial effect. One could hear from his toast that the German spirit and German sentiments are still alive in Austria. Oncken proposed a toast to the ladies.

The Goethe and Schiller Archive, which opens its rooms to visitors during the Goethe Days, exhibited manuscripts by Freiligrath and Gustav Freytag, among other papers from the classical and post-classical periods.

As they do every year, Goethe's guests gathered in the evening hours at the Weimar Artists' Association. The atmospheric rooms, which the Grand Duke made available to the artists of Weimar for their cozy get-together, are gladly visited by the members of the Goethe Society. A free and unfettered life prevailed there until the early hours of the morning. And artists such as Burmester and Stavenhagen, then the excellent singers Heinrich Zeller and Gmür delighted the guests with many an artistic gift, which was often received with greater enthusiasm than the official performances. What was difficult to find during the course of the day: informal enjoyment, mutual open-heartedness, was enjoyed here for many hours.

The celebration concluded with a performance in the Grand Ducal Court Theater of Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" with Miss Richard as Hermione and Karl Weiser as Leontes.

Since 1885, a circle of Goethe admirers has gathered in Weimar for a few days every year. These are the members of the Goethe Society, which was founded after the death of Goethe's last grandson. Goethe's last scion bequeathed his grandfather's estate to Grand Duchess Sophie. This woman had enough sense and understanding to make the valuable treasure that had been placed in her hands as fruitful as possible for literary studies. She founded the Goethe Archive and made it a place for the cultivation of Goethe scholarship. She later built her own stately home for this precious legacy. The magnificent building, an ornament of Weimar, will always remain a monument to the heyday of the German spirit. Every day, a small number of scholars work quietly and painstakingly in this house on the Goethe edition, which is being produced with the help of the manuscript estate. From time to time, a stranger comes into these rooms to consult Goethe's papers in order to make them useful for his particular scholarly studies. But every year at Whitsun, these rooms come alive. The most harmless connoisseurs of Goethe's works and the most learned Goethe researchers gather in the Ilmstadt to celebrate the memory of the spirit to whom so many lines of modern cultural development can be traced. A festive lecture and a theater performance are the intellectual delights offered to the "Goethe guests". A tour of the Goethe and Schiller Archives and the Goethe National Museum takes these guests back to the great era in which Weimar was the center of German intellectual life. The Grand Duchess Sophie, to whose work the entire festivity was owed, always appeared at the ceremonial lecture. Following the founding of her archive and under her special care, the Goethe Society was established. The guests were grouped around this woman. The relationship she established with German literature by founding the archive found its living expression in the Goethe Assembly.

Since the spring of this year, Sophie of Saxony is no longer among the living. The Goethe Assembly will now have to take place without its first head. For the first time since the death of the Grand Duchess, the Goethe guests gathered again in Weimar yesterday, October 8. They gathered to first celebrate the memory of the deceased.

A picture of this woman's spirit and personality was to be presented to the gathering by a man with a calling. No-one was more qualified than the aged philosopher Kuno Fischer, who had become a loyal admirer of the Weimar court and a warm eulogist of its deeds thanks to his long-standing relationship with the court. Kuno Fischer would undoubtedly have conveyed the warmth with which he is attached to the Weimar royal house to his audience if he could still speak with the power of speech that was once his own. One could hear in every word of the memorial speaker that it came from deep within; but this time one did not feel it within oneself. The most celebrated academic speaker no longer has the power to ignite the audience. And that is why his speech could not put people in the mood that was necessary to celebrate the day. The speaker sought to explain the high spirits of the deceased princess, her generosity, her energy and her sense of purpose from her descent from the House of Orange. He sketched the spiritual physiognomy of the deceased with the strokes available to this witty philosopher who was attached to beautiful words. He sought to place her personal development in the appropriate light. Kuno Fischer tried to explain the pleasure she must have taken in German classical literature from the connections this literature had with the princess's fatherland. Dutch heroes and Dutch life have been artistically portrayed by our intellectual heroes. The Grand Duchess found her own feeling, her own attitude, when she immersed herself in the works of the spirits to whom she erected a monument in Weimar.

A strictly conservative attitude, even something of a belief in the divine grace of God ran through Kuno Fischer's speech. He believes that a special destiny determines the circles of influence of personalities who rule like the Grand Duchess. He imbued the Grand Duchess with an almost mystical force of personality. A religious air permeated the entire speech. The piety of the mourned woman stood in the right light, because Kuno Fischer revealed that he himself had pious feelings. A man was speaking about a princess who is a good supporter of the monarchical principle, an admirer of the ruling powers, a man who wears with love the medal that shone from his breast. What was said by an ancient philosopher: The same can only be recognized by the same, has proven itself again in Kuno Fischer's speech. The world is reflected in the head of this speaker no differently than in that of a prince. He understands the princes. That is why he can speak well about them. He likes to put his mind at the service of princely persons. To a younger person of modern times, these sentences sometimes give the impression that they come from an attitude that belongs to a bygone era. Younger people are at a loss for words when they have to praise princes. And when they do, they are not really believed. The old historian of philosophy is well clothed in his attitude. He formed his views in a time that had no idea of the radicalism of our present day. With these views he is called upon to appreciate the classical epoch of Germany and its present princely caretakers. The other views of the present would probably never have led to an attitude that is necessary to preserve the traditions of Weimar. One must have made peace with certain currents if one wants to be fully involved in the cultivation of these traditions. You can't do it with a heart that is attached to the present and longs for the future. Kuno Fischer allowed a piece of the past to emerge before us. He spoke of past deeds with a past attitude.

There were listeners in the hall who were not satisfied with the speech. I believe these dissatisfied people are wrong. Kuno Fischer's spiritual affinity with the circles to which the deceased belonged enabled him to paint a genuine, credible picture. A little more religious candor and a little less conservatism would have led the speaker to deliver a distorted picture. If the lecture had been at the height of content and spirit: the audience would have left the hall in a solemn mood. The image of the deceased would have stood before their eyes in clear, distinct and true features. Because Kuno Fischer's fire of speech is weaker today, his image also seemed dull and sometimes even tiring. But even if the colors were not bright enough, they were applied correctly. They were used in a way that only a deep and precise connoisseur of the deceased princess can. Many a word came out of intimate connoisseurship that no one else would have found. That is why Kuno Fischer was the right speaker for this day.

His speech will appear in the November issue of "Cosmopolis". It will be a memorial to the departed princess that is worthy of her.

Report on the 13th general meeting of the German Goethe Society

In the previous issue, I spoke about the speech given by Kuno Fischer in memory of Grand Duchess Sophie of Saxony, who died in March. This speaker's remarks were beautifully illustrated the following day at the General Assembly of the Goethe Society. Prof. Bernhard Suphan, the director of the Goethe and Schiller Archive, explained how the deceased had taken care of the future of Goethe's manuscript estate and the other literary treasures that had been added to Goethe's papers in recent years. It has understood the mission in the highest meaning of the word, which has fallen to it through the legacy of Goethe's last descendant. It has been ensured for all time that the Weimar Literary Archive will be preserved in a worthy manner and made available for the purposes of German literary studies. The Grand Duchess has made her archive an inalienable family legacy of the Grand Ducal House of Weimar. In future, the head of the family will always be the respective owner of the legacy. He will have to ensure that science derives the appropriate benefit from it. The next heir to the archive is the present Hereditary Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst. In her will, the Grand Duchess speaks in words that arise from full realization of the obligations she has assumed with the archive. Suphan's messages made a deep impression on the gathering. It is now known what the fate of the literary treasures kept in Weimar will be.

After Suphan's remarks, the chairman of the Goethe Society spoke of the recent growth of the Goethe National Museum. A portrait from the beginning of this century or the end of the previous one deserves special mention. Neither the painter of the picture nor the person portrayed have survived. But anyone who has seen the picture in the Goethe House will have no doubt that Ruland is right in thinking that it depicts Mrs. Rat at an advanced age. The features of Goethe's mother are unmistakable. Another interesting novelty is a number of Goethe's drawings from the estate of the French Countess Vaudreuil, which her grandchildren donated to the Goethe House. The countess once lived in Weimar and was a friend of Goethe's house. She received the drawings from the poet.

The Weimar Court Theater did its utmost to enrich the content of this year's celebration. Before Kuno Fischer's speech, the Adagio from Beethoven's Trio (op. 96), arranged for orchestra by Franz Liszt, was performed by members of the Court Opera under the direction of the aged General Music Director Ed. Lassen, followed by the final movement from the Mass by the same composer (in C, op. 86). On the 8th there was a performance of Gluck's opera "Orpheus and Eurydice" under Bernhard Stavenhagen's excellent direction and with the ladies Fräulein Hofmann (Orpheus) and Frau Stavenhagen (Eurydice), which made a strong impression on the audience. On the 9th, the theater offered visitors Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" staged by Karl Weiser and performed in the leading roles by Miss Richard (Hermione) and Karl Weiser (Leontes).

The following is a reprint of contributions by Rudolf Steiner that were inadvertently not included in the first edition of this volume.

One of the events that brings life to quiet Weimar every year is the Goethe Festival, which has been held there annually since 1885. The members of the community, which bears the name "Deutsche Goethegesellschaft" (German Goethe Society), gather every time the Whitsun days have passed to refresh Goethe's memory. This year, the death of Grand Duchess Sophie of Saxony on March 23rd made it impossible to hold the festival in the spring. This woman had previously been the soul of the Goethe Day. She considered it a serious duty to cultivate the memory of Goethe in a worthy manner since she came into possession of Goethe's estate through the poet's grandson Walter. She built a splendid house for this treasure; she did everything she thought necessary to make the stay of the Goethe friends who came to Weimar more pleasant. Several months had to pass before the management of the Goethe Society could decide to celebrate the Goethe Day without this woman. The first Goethe Day, which she was no longer able to attend, was to be held in connection with a worthy memorial service for the Grand Duchess. The boards of the Goethe Society, the Goethe and Schiller Archive, the Schiller Foundation, the Shakespeare Society and the Weimar Court Theatre joined forces to organize the celebration. It took place on October 8 and 9.

Kuno Fischer, the philosopher of beautiful speech, was called upon to present a picture of the deceased woman to the mourners. He deserved the floor on this day. For he has been on the most friendly terms with the court of Weimar for years. He knows the Grand Duchess's way of thinking like few others. And he has an attitude and a view of life that enable him to appreciate a woman who derived all the strength for her work from her view of the profession of a princess. You have to be as conservative as he was to see into this woman's soul; you have to have as much of a religious view of life as he did if you want to show how the deceased's deeds flowed from a pious, godly emotional life. Something of the belief in the divine grace of God could be felt in Kuno Fischer's speech. In a certain sense, he believes in powers that control the destiny of people who are placed on princely heights. The aged historian of philosophy obviously feels very comfortable in the air of the court, he wears the title of Excellency with satisfaction and he likes to pin on the medals that princely favor has bestowed on him. He derived his character from the traditions of the House of Orange, from which the Princess descends. She is a true member of this house, who has translated the saying of the Oranians: "Je maintiendrai" into the German words: "Dominion over oneself is the prerequisite for any activity and for the serious, conscientious execution of assumed duties." The deceased was Dutch to the core. And the German literature of the classical period was dear to her because she found so much of the Dutch spirit she was familiar with in it. After all, Goethe and Schiller made Dutch heroes and their deeds the reproach of several of their poems. Kuno Fischer explained the Grand Duchess's peculiarity as a result of a misguided upbringing and a good school of life. In childhood she was taught things from which she learned how the world is not and how it cannot be influenced. Her upbringing was largely self-education. Her energy, her sense of purpose grew out of the history of her home.

Kuno Fischer is no longer the great orator he once was. If he still had the oratorical power at his disposal that was once his own, he would have instilled the soul of every listener with the solemn mood from which his speech arose. The tones that were heard only told of the deep affection he had for his deceased wife, but they sounded dull. This time the speech was not in harmony with the sentiment and warmth of feeling.

The speech was preceded by the Adagio from Beethoven's Trio, which Liszt arranged for orchestra (opus 96). It was followed by the final movement of the Mass in C by the same composer (op. 86). These pieces were performed by members of the Court Opera under Lassen's direction.

On October 9, the actual Goethe Assembly took place. The participants were particularly interested in the announcements made by Prof. Bernhard Suphan about Grand Duchess Sophie's decree. She has secured the existence of the Goethe and Schiller Archive, which she founded, for all time and ensured that its treasures will be as fruitful as possible for German literary studies. The valuable manuscripts and the house in which they are kept form an inalienable family fideicommissary of the Grand Ducal House of Weimar. In future, the owner will always be the respective head of the house. Initially, the archive will become the property of Hereditary Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst. The owner is obliged to ensure the worthy preservation and appropriate utilization of the papers. Kuno Fischer's speech was given a significant illustration by these messages from Bernhard Suphan. The Grand Duchess has shown that she has been able to fulfill the mission entrusted to her by Walter von Goethe's will in the most beautiful way imaginable. Dr. Ruland made interesting announcements about additions to the Goethe National Museum. First of all, there is a painting that was created at the end of the last century or at the beginning of the present century. There is no record of who painted the picture or who it depicts. Anyone who has looked at it in Goethe's house will have to agree with Ruland that it probably depicts Mrs. Rath, Goethe's mother, in old age. Her features and those of Goethe speak to us from it. Another piece of news are the hand drawings by Goethe which the grandchildren of the French Countess Vaudreuil have donated to the Goethe National Museum. This woman, who once lived in Weimar, frequented Goethe's house and received the drawings from Goethe.

The usual lunch took place in the afternoon. This time it was quieter than in previous years. People were under the impression of the loss they had suffered. Privy Privy Councillor Dr. Ruland expressed the painful feelings about this loss in his toast to the Grand Ducal House. Karl von Stremayr, the Minister of Education of the Austrian second ministry Auersperg, spoke beautiful words. His speech had a beneficial effect because it flowed from a heart that had preserved the old good German-Austrian spirit in the gloomy times that have now befallen the Germans of Austria. Professor Oncken from Giessen touched on political circumstances in a less than tactful manner in a subsequent toast to the ladies. Julius Rodenberg, Karl Frenzel, Erich Schmidt, Freiligrath's daughter, Lina Schneider, Professor Minor and Otto Erich Hartleben were among us at the banquet.

The Court Theater heightened the significance of the celebration with two performances. On the 8th, Gluck's "Orpheus and Euridice" was performed under Stavenhagen's excellent direction and with the ladies Hofmann (Orpheus) and Agnes Stavenhagen (Euridice); on the 9th, Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" was staged by Karl Weiser and performed by Miss Richard (Hermione) and Weiser (Leontes) in the leading roles.

When the official festivities are over, the "Goethe guests" gather in the magnificent "old smithy", which the Grand Duke gave to the Weimar artists and in which they have set up a comfortable artists' home. The longest Goethe meetings take place here. The oldest gentlemen do not leave these cozy rooms before dawn; and when they have grown tired, the younger Goethe community stays together for a long time. Our dear friend Otto Erich Hartleben then takes matters into his own hands; and he never leads the crowd that joins him out into the darkness of the night.

Professor Theodor Mommsen has just presented to the public an announcement whose significance extends far beyond the realm of mere day-to-day politics. Even those who quickly turn their ears away when they hear talk of practical politics must listen with interest to the sentences addressed by the famous historian to the Germans of Austria. Mommsen speaks of "unheard-of dishonors and acts of violence" done to the Germans of the Danube Empire. He speaks of the fear that every German must feel when he sees that "the apostles of barbarization are at work to bury the German work of half a millennium in the abyss of their lack of culture". The Slavs and Magyars are endangering the mission of the Germans, pushing back German culture. How is it possible, asks Mommsen, that the Germans of Austria are not currently united in the one goal of fighting the enemies of their education with all the means at their disposal? How is it that there are German Austrians for whom the rosary is above the fatherland, and who abandon their national interests because they believe that the rule of non-German elements brings advantages to Catholicism? How is it possible that, "when everything is at stake, a question as relatively trivial as the position of the Semites in the state jeopardizes unity?" Be united and tough, our historian calls out to the brothers in Austria. United in the struggle against the advances of the other nationalities and tough in the choice of means you use in this struggle.

If the members of a community are to be united, then they must be united in the content of their goals, in the thoughts that underlie their effectiveness. Mommsen's exhortation says nothing about the content of these goals, about the ideas from which the Germans of Austria should draw the strength for their actions. This must first of all be noticed. Mommsen's omissions are remarkable for what they do not say. For it is precisely because of this that the Germans of Austria have been pushed out of their favored position within the monarchy in recent times, because they lacked what Mommsen does not talk about: a great politically fruitful thought content. Whoever wants to govern in Austria must be able to set the state a task and bring with him substantive, effective ideas for the solution of this task. To regulate Austria's constitutional system in such a way that the various nations can develop according to their abilities and wishes; to carry out economic reforms that the people are crying out for, and to solve the questions that Austria has been given by its position in the world: this must be understood by those who are to take on the role of leader in Austria.

There is no doubt that the political situation in Austria has developed, as Mommsen suggests, because the Germans have gradually run out of substantive political ideas, and because they have turned more and more to the task of defending their nationality against the claims of the other Austrian peoples and cultivating the "national idea". The power of the Germans in Austria will always grow to the same extent that they develop political ideas that correspond to the living conditions of this state, in which many languages are spoken. And this power will diminish to the extent that they limit themselves to emphasizing and cultivating national sentiments.

Taaffe's strength lay in the fact that he had views on the above-mentioned political tasks. His weakness was that these views were not definite enough, because they did not owe their origin to a deeper political education, but to a dilettantism that failed at the most important moments. Badeni cannot govern because he has no thoughts of his own, but only imitates Taaffe's ideas in an ineffective manner. The day will come when the Germans of Austria will regain a position of power commensurate with the height of their culture, when they will have political leaders who can answer the question: what is to be done in Austria? The Slavic nations want to give the state a certain structure. They want institutions in which national individualities can develop freely. This free development cannot be prevented by force. Why should it not be possible for the Germans to create an Austrian state in which the other nations feel comfortable? The old constitutional party did not succeed. Under its rule, the non-Germans felt violated. It had political ideas. But these did not move in the direction in which the state must develop. This constitutional party has now been replaced by a purely national party. This party initially seems to have no interest in the overall organization of the state. Its members do not speak of specifically Austrian political ideas. They merely want to defend German nationality. This defense will succeed best if it is no longer an end in itself.

Mommsen's rally lacks any reference to what has brought the Germans to their current situation. It will therefore not be able to contribute to the recovery of the Germans' lost sense of purpose in Austria either. The twelve-hour-long speech by the Member of Parliament Lecher, who has achieved European fame through his speaking skills, is a symptom. If you had thoughts, you wouldn't need to talk so much.

We have experienced a rare event these days. Once again, a book has been successful in Germany. The former Reichsgericht official. D. Otto Mittelstädt has put his political wisdom down on paper in his retirement home in Montreux. Today, the whole world is talking about this wisdom, which fills 146 printed pages and has been released to the public under the title "Before the Flood". In just a few days, these 146 pages have gone through several editions. At the moment it is not easy to find a copy in Berlin. In 8 to 10 bookshops you are told: "Currently out of print". In the eleventh, you meet glances from the bookseller that say: Consider yourself lucky that you can still get the booklet here; if you had come a quarter of an hour later, you could have spent a long time looking for the "sensational" brochure. There hasn't been anything like it since the Rembrandt German surprised the public with his immense book on education, and since the pamphlet "Caligula" brought Roman stories to the people with little witty reference to the present, which you can read in any book on Roman history without the failed joke.

"Rembrandt as educator" was a strange spectacle. If you wander through inns for two weeks and sit down near "better" regulars' tables, you can hear the phrase-like science served up by the Rembrandt German. All you have to do is take a piece of paper with you and quickly write down what you have heard. Then write a suitable - or even better, an unsuitable - quote from an important man on each of these pieces of paper at home. Then you send these little pieces of paper to a printer and have them printed one after the other. The result will be a book about the character, nature and significance of "Rembrandt as an educator". After reading this stitched-together book filled with cheap wisdom, I kept asking myself: how could clever people proclaim such a thing to be a European event? But you have to get used to believing in the absurd as reality if you want to ponder the secret of a literary success.

And today we are witnessing the same spectacle with Mr. Mittelstädt's political insignificance. Apart from the fact that Mittelstädt writes in a fairly good style and knows how to express his commonplace wisdom tastefully, there is nothing to be found in his 146 printed pages that can claim any attention. Truths such as the following form the content. "Parliamentarism in particular has become physically disgusting. In Germany, moreover, the unitary needs of the nation must already favor a certain tendency towards autocracy. In the face of all this, countless difficulties and dangers are piling up, especially in the present, which every personal regiment should be able to cope with." "By vigorously developing the idea of empire, we must strive to overcome the dangerous transitional state of today as quickly as possible." "Germany is not on a desert island, but in the heart of old Europe, exposed to all the storms and upheavals that threaten to break loose here and there." If there were no coffee houses in Montreux where one could read such science in the newspapers every day, Mr. Mittelstädt would have to hold one and the other newspaper himself so that he would know how unnecessary it is to say such things in a special publication. Even worse are the self-evident statements that the pamphleteer writes in a tone as if they were the product of unheard-of insight. "The emperor and the empire must either move forward in the sense of state unity or they must develop backwards along the path of multi-statehood - as things stand in Germany, there is absolutely no standing still, no insistence on what already exists."

One could forgive the criticism, which is made up of such self-evident or commonplaces, if the author had something sensible to say about what he would like to replace the conditions of the present, which he so strongly disputes. But he is no happier with his positive suggestions than with his grumblings. "If I look over the conditions of the German present, the general and individual powers on which we are dependent, if I completely disregard everything that is desirable and stick exclusively to what is feasible, then today I know of only one heroic means that would be suitable for tearing the monarchy and the monarchical unitary state out of the democratic mire: that is war. For and against the majesty of war, much effort has been expended with moral indignation and pathetic enthusiasm. ... For my part, I agree with the great Florentine: every war is just and holy that is waged for just and holy ends. All our lives are a struggle against the hostile forces of nature around us and within us. The dull, heavy, animalistic masses of elementary humanity are also part of the forces of nature, the taming or destruction of which is an unavoidable prerequisite for moral development." So in order to tame the dull, heavy, animalistic masses of elementary democratic people, a war should be unleashed voluntarily? It is not a fable, it is written in the book by Mr. Mittelstädt. What do the peace fighters say to such wisdom? You don't need to be a follower of them to find Mittelstadt's war cries more unreasonable than the utopian bickering of the peace congresses.

It would be sad if the success of Mittelstadt's book were due to anything other than curiosity. It is understandable that everyone wants to read what is brought into the world under strange conditions. It would be a bad thing if there were again people who took Mittelstadt's writing for high political wisdom, as there have been those who have presented the phrases of Rembrandt's German as a European event.

It is not easy to form an accurate judgment of an individual person. It can happen that we think we know someone down to the very depths of his soul and yet one day he surprises us with an act that we would never have expected him to do. Much darker than the individual soul, however, is the mysterious power known as the people's soul, the epitome of the people's instincts.

This people's soul can prepare unbelievable surprises. If the events now taking place in France, of which Captain Dreyfus is the unfortunate object, were presented to me as the content of a novel, I would probably describe the author as a fantasist whose imagination distorts, even falsifies, reality in an outrageous way. You have to relearn almost every day if you want to understand reality.

Dry and sober, I will say what I mean. I always thought Captain Dreyfus was innocent. None of the impressions I received from the first day of the negotiations on his case could have made me waver in this conviction for a single moment.

I will deliberately mention only the weakest of the reasons for my conviction. Those who can judge human characters will understand me. I say to myself: whoever really committed what Dreyfus is accused of did not behave before and after the conviction in the same way as the captain did. Everything he said and did had a character that indicates the deepest consciousness of innocence. If someone were to bring me irrefutable proof of this man's guilt today, I would almost be tempted to believe in a miracle.

And yet the instincts of a people have condemned Dreyfus! The driving forces behind these instincts seem unfathomable to me. Anyone who talks about national chauvinism seems to me to be uttering a banality. He wants to get over great puzzles with a single word. How easy it is to use such a word to get over the incomprehensibility of reality!

And what is going on in France today! Read what the best of the nation are saying about the matter, and read what the many others are doing about it. Zola, the profound connoisseur of the human soul, wants to make Dreyfus' cause his own. The subtle Octave Mirbeau thinks the same. And a man like Scheurer-Kestner, whose nobility of spirit it would be an outrage to human nature to doubt, champions the unfortunate captain. And all this is not enough to lose a day in order to gain clarity about the guilt or innocence of the sorely tried man. The wonder of the matter would be the most excellent feeling one could have if it were not completely eclipsed by the sadness of the matter.

Nevertheless, I can only call it marvelous when writers, whose talent I must hold in the highest esteem according to their achievements, speak out about the matter in the way I recently read in the "Zukunft", for example. Of all the marvels that a clever mind can utter against naive human sentiment, the most marvelous seems to me to be when it is said that we Germans have no reason to interfere in the affairs of the French. Indeed, does human compassion end where the penal laws of a state end? Is nationality a tyrant that blunts our feelings towards every foreigner? I cannot understand the wisdom of people who organize their feelings in the manner of diplomats. Thanks to Bismarck's great example, such gagging of sensibilities is outdated even for diplomats.

Nothing can stop us from sympathizing with a person who, in our opinion, is suffering innocently. Of course, this is not denied by those who arrange their expressions of feeling along the lines of the diplomats of old.

But there are people who resent it when we express our feelings sincerely and openly to a Frenchman. Do people speak and write to conceal their feelings? It seems to me almost a duty that in this matter everyone who is able to wield the pen should speak out as clearly as possible against the voice of an entire people. It is a matter which interests the whole of educated mankind. He who feels vividly cannot restrain his feelings even towards a Frenchman; even if he wanted to.

A feeling of insecurity comes over us when we see that in a rather simple and yet momentous matter large masses of people judge differently from ourselves. We are used to such disharmony between the popular instinct and the judgment of the individual in major matters that require deep insight. But the Dreyfus case does not require deep insight. It seems to me that anyone who wants to see can see clearly. Anyone who has the impression that the captain is innocent could only be swayed by things of which not even a glimpse has yet reached the public.

We ask ourselves: How should we organize our lives if our faith in the correct course of world events can be shaken in such a way every day? In order to live, we must have the faith that our insight into the development of humanity cannot be turned into dull uncertainty and insecurity every day.

The treatment of the centurion languishing on Devil's Island must inspire such thoughts in us.

I don't begrudge the people who laugh at me for linking such a single fact with the whole development of humanity. And if it contributes to their health - they say laughter is always good - I am even pleased. At most, I allow myself to remark to such people that nothing is small enough not to provoke questions that shake us to the depths of our souls.