Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/149

 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 deductions 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 traditional 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