Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/227

Rh years!—they wear on and soon draw to a close; it matters so little whether the wave knows how and whither it is flowing. Nay, it might be wisdom not to know it. "Granted; but it is not proud not even to inquire into it; our culture does not make people proud." So much the better. —"Really? — Let us consider what the Germans of the earlier portion of our century contributed to the general culture by means of their intellectual work, and take first the German philosophers: they reverted to the first and oldest stage of speculation, for they were satisfied with conceptions instead of explanations, like unto the thinkers of dreamy ages,—thus, & pre-scientific mode of philosophy was resuscitated by them. Secondly, the German historians and romantic poets: their efforts tended towards bringing into vogue old, primitive ideas, and more especially Christianity, folk-thought, folk-lore, folk-speech, mediavality, Oriental asceticism, Indianism. Thirdly, the naturalists: they combated the genius of Newton andl Voltaire, and like Goethe and Schopenhuner attempted to re-establish the idea of a deified or diabolised nature and of its average ethical and symbolical meaning. The chief tendency of the Germans was exclusively directed against enlightenment and social revolutions which were blindly mistaken for the consequences of the former: the