Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/100

 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 worthless and offends against ancient and traditional good usage.

57. In addition to the special consequence just mentioned, 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