Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/289

 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 everything 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 made, as far from