Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/503

 theory has been current among us in usage and practice; that it is by ancient tradition a characteristic feature of the culture of all Germanic peoples.

In the days of Socrates, it was still possible to be indicted for having taught new gods, and Socrates drank the hemlock under such an indictment.

In antiquity all this was natural enough. The genius of antiquity was so utterly identified with the conditions of its political life, and religion was so integral an element in the foundations of the ancient State, that the ancient mind was quite incapable of divesting itself of these convictions, and so getting out of its integument. The spirit of antiquity must stand or fall with its particular political conventions, and, in the event, it fell with them.

Such being the spirit of those times, it follows that any scientific doctrine which carried a denial of any element of the foundations of the State was in effect an attack upon the nation's life and must necessarily be dealt with as such.

All this changes when the ancient world passes away and the Germanic peoples come upon the scene. These latter are peoples gifted with a capacity to change their integument. By virtue of that faculty for development that belongs to the guiding principle of their life, viz.: the principle of the subjective spirit,—by virtue of this, these latter are possessed of a flexibility which enables them to live through the most widely varied metamorphoses. These peoples have passed through many and extreme transformations, and, instead of meeting their death and dissolution in the process, they have by force of it ever emerged on a higher plane of development and into a richer unfolding of life.