Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/121

 Weigand 115 thing of this sort may have been in Heine's mind in writing the passage. Only the great inert mass of common fools, however, voice their rage against 'die Verniinftigen' in such a way as to openly admit the fact that Nature has slighted them in her distribution of the fixed quantity of "wit and judgment." 6 Besides these there are 'Narren' of a higher order who wage the war against the 'Verniinftigen' with a considerable show of ingenuity. These "chieftains of the great army, " who have taken recourse to strata- gems of war, are divided into two distinct camps. The one camp is composed of those who try to conceal their lack of 'Vernunft' by praising 'Vernunft' on every occasion as "die alleinseligmachen- de Quelle der Gedanken." At the same time these throw them- selves with great zeal into the study of mathematics, logic, statist- ics, mechanical improvements etc. On Heine they make the impression of apes, trying to mimic the actions of men. Any one acquainted with the philosophical and literary movements which the last generation of the eighteenth century had witnessed, will have no difficulty in recognizing under this caricature the utilitarian rationalists of the Nicolai type whose conception of philosophy the word taken in its broad meaning was limited to the formal and mechanical sciences. A philosopher of this variety had already been introduced to us in the 'Harzreise.' No one can forget that delicious caricature, Saul Ascher, the writer of many volumes "in which reason constantly brags about its own excellence;" who, appearing after death as a ghost, still persists in logically deducing the impossibility of ghosts, and who ends every conversation with the profound remark: "Die Vernunft ist das hochste Prinzip." We are dealing here, obviously, with a polemic after the manner of Tieck and Hoffmann, but we can't help even now being struck with the fact that Heine's terminology is reversed, as compared with that of the early Romanticists. It is the Rationalists now who are labelled as 'Narren,' while the terms 'Vernunft' and 'verniinftig' are reserved to designate something superior in Heine's valuation. The second coterie of fools of a higher order conduct their cam- paign against 'die Verniinftigen' along entirely different lines. These 'chieftains' are more candid and admit that their own allot- 6 This idea of a "fixed quantity of wit and judgment" was evidently bor- rowed from Sterne. Cf. Tristram Shandy, Bk. Ill, ch. 20, par. 8.