Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/195

Rh expressions of pains, the tears, complaints, reproaches, the gestures of rage or of humiliation, but even sanctions them and reckons them among the nobler necessities— whereas the spirit of ancient philosophy scornfully looked down upon them, without admitting this necessity at all. Let us recall to our minds how Plato—not one of the most inhuman philosophers—speaks of the Philoctetus of the tragical stage. Is our modern culture perhaps waiting in philosophy"? Are we, all of us, perhaps only what those ancient philosophers would call a "mob"? —In the present time fawning flatterers must not be sought at the courts of princes, these have all imbibed a military taste, which is opposed to flattery. But it is around bankers and artists that this plant may be found to grow even now. —Vain people value the past more highly as soon as they are able to reproduce it (especially if this be difficult); nay, they wish if possible to raise it from the dead. But as there are always innumerable vain people, the danger of historical studies, if pursued by a whole age, is indeed not small: too much strength is wasted on all possible resuscitations. Perhaps the whole romantic movement is best understood from this point of view.