No More Learning

Hence he
wrote David Strauss, the Confessor and Writer
(i873).
The Franco-German War had only just come
to an end, and the keynote of this polemical
pamphlet is," Beware of the intoxication of success. "
When the whole of Germany was delirious with
joy over her victory, at a time when the unques-


## p. xxxi (#69) ############################################

TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XXXI
tioned triumph of her arms tended rather to reflect
unearned glory upon every department of her social
organisation, it required both courage and discern-
ment to raise the warning voice and to apply the
wet blanket. But Nietzsche did both, and with
spirit, because his worst fears were aroused. Smug
content {erbdrmliches Behageii) was threatening to
thwart his one purpose — the elevation of man;
smug content personified in the German scholar
was giving itself airs of omniscience, omnipotence,
and ubiquity, and all the while it was a mere cover
for hidden rottenness and jejune pedantry.
Nietzsche's attack on Hegelian optimism alone
(pp. 46, 53-54), in the first paper, fully reveals the
fundamental idea underlying this essay; and if the
personal attack on Strauss seems sometimes to
throw the main theme into the background, we
must remember the author's own attitude towards
this aspect of the case. Nietzsche, as a matter of
fact, had neither the spite nor the meanness re-
quisite for the purely personal attack. In his Ecce
Homo, he tells us most emphatically: "I have no
desire to attack particular persons—I do but use a
personality as a magnifying glass; I place it over
the subject to which I wish to call attention, merely
that the appeal may be stronger. " David Strauss,
in a letter to a friend, soon after the publication of
the first Thought out of Season, expresses his utter
astonishment that a total stranger should have
made such a dead set at him. The same problem
may possibly face the reader on every page of this
essay: if, however, we realise Nietzsche's purpose,
if we understand his struggle to be one against
c


## p. xxxii (#70) ###########################################

XXX11 TRANSLATORS PREFACE.
"Culture-Philistinism" in general, as a stemming,
stultifying and therefore degenerate factor, and
regard David Strauss—as the author himself did,
that is to say, simply as a glass, focusing the whole
light of our understanding upon the main theme—
then the Strauss paper is seen to be one of such
enormous power, and its aim appears to us so lofty,
that, whatever our views may be concerning the
nature of the person assailed, we are forced to con-
clude that, to Nietzsche at least, he was but the
incarnation and concrete example of the evil and
danger then threatening to overtake his country,
which it was the object of this essay to expose.
When we read that at the time of Strauss's death
(February 7th, 1874) Nietzsche was greatly tor-
mented by the fear that the old scholar might have
been hastened to his end by the use that had been
made of his personality in the first Unzeitgemasse
Betrachtung; when we remember that in the midst
of this torment he ejaculated, "I was indeed not
made to hate and have enemies ! "—we are then in
a better position to judge of the motives which,
throughout his life, led him to engage such formid-
able opponents and to undertake such relentless
attacks. It was merely his ruling principle that
all is true and good that tends to elevate man;
everything is bad and false that keeps man station-
ary or sends him backwards.
Those who may think that his attacks were often
unwarrantable and ill-judged will do well, there-
fore, to bear this in mind, that whatever his value
or merits may have been as an iconoclast, at least
the aim he had was sufficiently lofty and honour-


## p. xxxiii (#71) ##########################################

translator's preface. XXXlii
able, and that he never shirked the duties which
he rightly or wrongly imagined would help him to
achieve it.
In the Wagner paper (1875-1876) we are faced
by a somewhat different problem. Most readers
who will have heard of Nietzsche's subsequent de-
nunciation of Wagner's music will probably stand
aghast before this panegyric of him; those who,
like Professor Saintsbury, will fail to discover the
internal evidence in this essay which points so
infallibly to Nietzsche's real but still subconscious
opinion of his hero, may even be content to regard
his later attitude as the result of a complete volte-
face, and at any rate a flat contradiction of the one
revealed in this paper. Let us, however, examine
the internal evidence we speak of, and let us also
discuss the purpose and spirit of the essay.
We have said that Nietzsche was a man with a
very fixed and powerful ideal, and we have heard
what this ideal was. Can we picture him, then,—a
young and enthusiastic scholar with a cultured
love of music, and particularly of Wagner's music,
eagerly scanning all his circle, the whole city and
country in which he lived—yea, even the whole
continent on which he lived—for something or
some one that would set his doubts at rest concern-
ing the feasibility of his ideal? Can we now picture
this young man coming face to face with probably
one of the greatest geniuses of his age—with a man
whose very presence must have been electric, whose
every word or movement must have imparted some
power to his surroundings—with Richard Wagner?
If we can conceive of what the mere attention,


## p. xxxiv (#72) ###########################################

XXXIV TRANSLATORS PREFACE.
even, of a man like Wagner must have meant to
Nietzsche in his twenties, if we can form any idea
of the intoxicating effect produced upon him when
this attention developed into friendship, we almost
refuse to believe that Nietzsche could have been
critical at all at first. In Wagner, as was but
natural, he soon began to see the ideal, or at least
the means to the ideal, which was his one obsession.
All his hope for the future of Germany and Europe
cleaved, as it were, to this highest manifestation of
their people's life, and gradually he began to invest
his already great friend with all the extra greatness
which he himself drew from the depths of his own
soul.
The friendship which grew between them was of
that rare order in which neither can tell who in-
fluences the other more. Wagner would often
declare that the beautiful music in the third act of
Siegfried was to be ascribed to Nietzsche's influence
over him; he also adopted the young man's ter-
minology in art matters, and the concepts implied
by the words " Dionysian " and " Apollonian " were
borrowed by him from his friend's discourses. How
much Nietzsche owed to Wagner may perhaps
never be definitely known; to those who are suffici-
ently interested to undertake the investigation of
this matter, we would recommend Hans B^lart's
book, Nietzsche's Ethik; in it references will be
found which give some clue as to the probable
sources from which the necessary information may
be derived. In any case, however, the reciprocal
effects of their conversations will never be exactly
known; and although it would be ridiculous to


## p. xxxv (#73) ############################################

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. XXXV
assume that Nietzsche was essentially the same
when he left as when he met him, what the real
nature of the change was it is now difficult to say.
For some years their friendship continued firm,
and grew ever more and more intimate. The Birth
of Tragedy was one of the first public declarations
of it, and after its publication many were led to
consider that Wagner's art was a sort of resurrec-
tion of the Dionysian Grecian art. Enemies of
Nietzsche began to whisper that he was merely
Wagner's " literary lackey "; many friends frowned
upon the promising young philologist, and
questioned the exaggerated importance he was
beginning to ascribe to the art of music and to art
in general, in their influence upon the world; and
all the while Nietzsche's one thought and one aim
was to help the cause and further the prospects of
the man who he earnestly believed was destined
to be the salvation of European culture.
Every great ideal coined in his own brain he
imagined to be the ideal of his hero; all his
sublimest hopes for society were presented gratis,
in his writings, to Wagner, as though products of
the latter's own mind; and just as the prophet
of old never possessed the requisite assurance to
suppose that his noblest ideas were his own, but
attributed them to some higher and supernatural
power, whom he thereby learnt to worship for its
fancied nobility of sentiment, so Nietzsche, still
doubting his own powers, created a fetich out of
his most distinguished friend, and was ultimately
wounded and well-nigh wrecked with disappoint-
ment when he found that the Wagner of the


## p. xxxvi (#74) ###########################################

xxxvi translator's preface.
Gotterdammerung and Parsifal was not the Wagner
of his own mind.
While writing Ecce Homo, he was so well aware
of the extent to which he had gone in idealising
his friend, that he even felt able to say: " Wagner
in Bayreuth is a vision of my own future. . . . Now
that I can look back upon this work, I would not
like to deny that, at bottom, it speaks only of
myself" (p. 74). And on another page of the
same book we read: ". . . What I heard, as a
young man, in Wagnerian music, had absolutely
nothing to do with Wagner: when I described
Dionysian music, I only described what / had
heard, and I thus translated and transfigured all
that I bore in my own soul into the spirit of the
new art. The strongest proof of this is my essay,
Wagner in Bayreuth: in all decidedly psychological
passages of this book the reader may simply read
my name, or the name ' Zarathustra,' wherever the
text contains the name 'Wagner'" (p. 68).
As we have already hinted, there are evidences
of his having subconsciously discerned the real
Wagner, even in the heyday of their friendship,
behind the ideal he had formed of him; for his
eyes were too intelligent to be deceived, even
though his understanding refused at first to heed
the messages they sent it: both the Birth of
Tragedy and Wagner in Bayreuth are with us to
prove this, and not merely when we read these
works between the lines, but when we take such
passages as those found on pp. 115, 149, 150, 151,
156, 158, 159 of this book quite literally.
Nietzsche's infatuation we have explained; the


## p. xxxvii (#75) ##########################################

translator's preface. xxxvii
consequent idealisation of the object of his infatua-
tion he himself has confessed; we have also pointed
to certain passages which we believe show beyond
a doubt that almost everything to be found in The
Case of Wagner and Nietzsche contra Wagner was
already subconscious in our author, long before he
had begun to feel even a coolness towards his hero:
let those who think our interpretation of the
said passages is either strained or unjustified turn
to the literature to which we have referred and
judge for themselves. It seems to us that those
distinguished critics who complain of Nietzsche's
complete volte-face and his uncontrollable recanta-
tions and revulsions of feeling have completely
overlooked this aspect of the question.
It were well for us to bear in mind that we are
not altogether free to dispose of Nietzsche's attitude
to Wagner, at any given period in their relation-
ship, with a single sentence of praise or of blame.
After all, we are faced by a problem which no
objectivity or dispassionate detachment on our
parts can solve. Nietzsche endowed both Schopen-
hauer and Wagner with qualities and aspirations
so utterly foreign to them both, that neither of
them would have recognised himself in the images
he painted of them. His love for them was un-
usual; perhaps it can only be fully understood
emotionally by us: like all men who are capable
of very great love, Nietzsche lent the objects of his
affection anything they might happen to lack in
the way of greatness, and when at last his eyes
were opened, genuine pain, not malice, was the
motive of even the most bitter of his diatribes.


## p. xxxviii (#76) #########################################

xxxviii translator's preface.
Finally, we should, just like to give one more
passage from Ecce Homo bearing upon the subject
under discussion. It is particularly interesting
from an autobiographical standpoint, and will
perhaps afford the best possible conclusion to this
preface.
Nietzsche is writing about Wagner's music, and
he says: "The world must indeed be empty for
him who has never been unhealthy enough for this
'infernal voluptuousness'; it is allowable and yet
almost forbidden to use a mystical expression in
this behalf. I suppose I know better than any one
the prodigies Wagner was capable of, the fifty
worlds of strange raptures to which no one save
him could soar; and as I stand to-day—strong
enough to convert even the most suspicious and
dangerous phenomenon to my own use and be the
stronger for it—I declare Wagner to be the great
benefactor of my life. Something will always keep
our names associated in the minds of men, and
that is, that we are two who have suffered more
excruciatingly—even at each other's hands—than
most men are able to suffer nowadays. And just
as Wagner is merely a misunderstanding among
Germans, so am I and ever will be. You lack two
centuries of psychological and artistic discipline,
my dear countrymen! . . . But it will be im-
possible for you ever to recover the time now
lost" (p. 43).
ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.


## p. 1 (#77) ###############################################

DAVID STRAUSS,
THE CONFESSOR AND THE WRITER.


## p. 2 (#78) ###############################################



## p. 3 (#79) ###############################################

DAVID STRAUSS.
i.
Public opinion in Germany seems strictly to
forbid any allusion to the evil and dangerous con-
sequences of a war, more particularly when the
war in question has been a victorious one. Those
writers, therefore, command a more ready atten-
tion who, regarding this public opinion as final,
proceed to vie with each other in their jubilant
praise of the war, and of the powerful influences
it has brought to bear upon morality, culture, and
art. Yet it must be confessed that a great victory
is a great danger. Human nature bears a triumph
less easily than a defeat; indeed, it might even
be urged that it is simpler to gain a victory of
this sort than to turn it to such account that it
may not ultimately prove a serious rout.
But of all evil results due to the last contest
with France, the most deplorable, perhaps, is that
widespread and even universal error of public
opinion and of all who think publicly, that
German culture was also victorious in the struggle,
and that it should now, therefore, be decked with
garlands, as a fit recognition of such extra-


## p. 4 (#80) ###############################################

4 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
ordinary events and successes. This error is in
the highest degree pernicious: not because it is
an error,—for there are illusions which are both
salutary and blessed,—but because it threatens to
convert our victory into a signal defeat. A defeat?
—I should say rather, into the uprooting of the
"German Mind" for the benefit of the "German
Empire. "
Even supposing that the fight had been between
the two cultures, the standard for the value of the
victor would still be a very relative one, and, in
any case, would certainly not justify such ex-
aggerated triumph or self-glorification. For, in the
first place, it would be necessary to ascertain the
worth of the conquered culture. This might be
very little; in which case, even if the victory had
involved the most glorious display of arms, it
would still offer no warrant for inordinate rapture.
Even so, however, there can be no question, in
our case, of the victory of German culture; and
for the simple reason, that French culture remains
as heretofore, and that we depend upon it as
heretofore. It did not even help towards the
success of our arms. Severe military discipline,
natural bravery and sustaining power, the superior
generalship, unity and obedience in the rank and
file—in short, factors which have nothing to do
with culture, were instrumental in making us
conquer an opponent in whom the most essential
of these factors were absent. The only wonder
is, that precisely what is now called "culture" in
Germany did not prove an obstacle to the military
operations which seemed vitally necessary to a


## p. 5 (#81) ###############################################

DAVID STRAUSS. 5
great victory. Perhaps, though, this was only
owing to the fact that this "thing" which dubs
itself "culture" saw its advantage, for once, in
keeping in the background.
If, however, it be permitted to grow and to
spread, if it be spoilt by the flattering and non-
sensical assurance that ? Vhas been victorious,—then,
as I have said, it will have the power to extirpate
German mind, and, when that is done, who knows
whether there will still be anything to be made
out of the surviving German body!
Provided it were possible to direct that calm and
tenacious bravery which the German opposed to
the pathetic and spontaneous fury of the French-
man, against the inward enemy, against the highly
suspicious and, at all events, unnative "cultivation"
which, owing to a dangerous misunderstanding,
is called "culture" in Germany, then all hope of
a really genuine German "culture " — the reverse
of that "cultivation "—would not be entirely lost.
For the Germans have never known any lack of
clear-sighted and heroic leaders, though these,
often enough, probably, have lacked Germans.
But whether it be possible to turn German bravery
into a new direction seems to me to become ever
more and more doubtful; for I realise how fully
convinced every one is that such a struggle and
such bravery are no longer requisite; on the con-
trary, that most things are regulated as satis-
factorily as they possibly can be—or, at all events,
that everything of moment has long ago been
discovered and accomplished: in a word, that the
best seed of culture is already sown everywhere,


## p. 6 (#82) ###############################################

6 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
and is now either shooting up its fresh green
blades, or, here and there, even bursting forth into
luxuriant blossom. In this sphere, not only
happiness but ecstasy reigns supreme. I am con-
scious of this ecstasy and happiness, in the in-
effable, truculent assurance of German journalists
and manufacturers of novels, tragedies, poems,
and histories (for it must be clear that these
people belong to one category), who seem to have
conspired to improve the leisure and ruminative
hours—that is to say, " the intellectual lapses "—of
the modern man, by bewildering him with their
printed paper. Since the war, all is gladness,
dignity, and self-consciousness in this merry
throng. After the startling successes of German
culture, it regards itself, not only as approved and
sanctioned, but almost as sanctified. It therefore
speaks with gravity, affects to apostrophise the
German People, and issues complete works, after
the manner of the classics; nor does it shrink
from proclaiming in those journals which are open
to it some few of its adherents as new German
classical writers and model authors. It might be
supposed that the dangers of such an abuse of
success would be recognised by the more thought-
ful and enlightened among cultivated Germans;
or, at least, that these would feel how painful is
the comedy that is being enacted around them:
for what in truth could more readily inspire pity
than the sight of a cripple strutting like a cock
before a mirror, and exchanging complacent glances
with his reflection! But the "scholar" caste
willingly allow things to remain as they are, and


## p. 7 (#83) ###############################################

DAVID STRAUSS. 7
are too much concerned with their own affairs
to busy themselves with the care of the German
mind. Moreover, the units of this caste are too
thoroughly convinced that their own scholarship
is the ripest and most perfect fruit of the age—in
fact, of all ages—to see any necessity for a care
of German culture in general; since, in so far
as they and the legion of their brethren are con-
cerned, preoccupations of this order have every-
where been, so to speak, surpassed. The more
conscientious observer, more particularly if he be
a foreigner, cannot help noticing withal that no
great disparity exists between that which the
German scholar regards as his culture and that
other triumphant culture of the new German
classics, save in respect of the quantum of know-
ledge. Everywhere, where knowledge and not
ability, where information and not art, hold the
first rank,—everywhere, therefore, where life bears
testimony to the kind of culture extant, there is now
only one specific German culture—and this is the
culture that is supposed to have conquered France?
The contention appears to be altogether too
preposterous. It was solely to the more extensive
knowledge of German officers, to the superior
training of their soldiers, and to their more
scientific military strategy, that all impartial
judges, and even the French nation, in the end,
ascribed the victory. Hence, if it be intended
to regard German erudition as a thing apart,
in what sense can German culture be said to
have conquered? In none whatsoever; for the
moral qualities of severe discipline, of more placid


## p. 8 (#84) ###############################################

8 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
obedience, have nothing in common with culture:
these were characteristic of the Macedonian army,
for instance, despite the fact that the Greek
soldiers were infinitely more cultivated. To speak
of German scholarship and culture as having con-
quered, therefore, can only be the outcome of a
misapprehension, probably resulting from the cir-
cumstance that every precise notion of culture has
now vanished from Germany.
Culture is, before all things, the unity of
artistic style, in every expression of the life of a
people. Abundant knowledge and learning, how-
ever, are not essential to it, nor are they a sign of
its existence; and, at a pinch, they might coexist
much more harmoniously with the very opposite
of culture—with barbarity: that is to say, with a
complete lack of style, or with a riotous jumble
of all styles. But it is precisely amid this riotous
jumble that the German of to-day subsists; and
the serious problem to be solved is: how, with
all his learning, he can possibly avoid noticing
it; how, into the bargain, he can rejoice with all
his heart in his present "culture"? For every-
thing conduces to open his eyes for him—every
glance he casts at his clothes, his room, his house;
every walk he takes through the streets of his
town; every visit he pays to his art-dealers and
to his trader in the articles of fashion. In his social
intercourse he ought to realise the origin of his
manners and movements; in the heart of our art-
institutions, the pleasures of our concerts, theatres,
and museums, he ought to become apprised of the
super- and juxta-position of all imaginable styles.


## p. 9 (#85) ###############################################


DAVID STRAUSS.
The German heaps up around him the forms,
colours, products, and curiosities of all ages and
zones, and thereby succeeds in producing that
garish newness, as of a country fair, which his
scholars then proceed to contemplate and to
define as "Modernism per se"; and there he re-
mains, squatting peacefully, in the midst of this
conflict of styles. But with this kind of culture,
which is, at bottom, nothing more nor less than
a phlegmatic insensibility to real culture, men
cannot vanquish an enemy, least of all an enemy
like the French, who, whatever their worth may
be, do actually possess a genuine and productive
culture, and whom, up to the present, we have
systematically copied, though in the majority of
cases without skill.
Even supposing we had really ceased copying
them, it would still not mean that we had overcome
them, but merely that we had lifted their yoke from
our necks. Not before we have succeeded in forcing
an original German culture upon them can there
be any question of the triumph of German culture.
Meanwhile, let us not forget that in all matters
of form we are, and must be, just as dependent
upon Paris now as we were before the war; for
up to the present there has been no such thing as
an original German culture.
We all ought to have become aware of this, of
our own accord. Besides, one of the few who had
the right to speak to Germans in terms of reproach
publicly drew attention to the fact. “We Germans
are of yesterday," Goethe once said to Eckermann.
“True, for the last hundred years we have diligently


## p. 10 (#86) ##############################################

THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
obedience, have nothing in common with culture:
these were characteristic of the Macedonian army,
for instance, despite the fact that the Greek
soldiers were infinitely more cultivated. To speak
of German scholarship and culture as having con-
quered, therefore, can only be the outcome of a
misapprehension, probably resulting from the cir-
cumstance that every precise notion of culture has
now vanished from Germany.
Culture is, before all things, the unity of
artistic style, in every expression of the life of a
people. Abundant knowledge and learning, how-
ever, are not essential to it, nor are they a sign of
its existence; and, at a pinch, they might coexist
much more harmoniously with the very opposite
of culture—with barbarity: that is to say, with a
complete lack of style, or with a riotous jumble
of all styles. But it is precisely amid this riotous
jumble that the German of to-day subsists; and
the serious problem to be solved is: how, with
all his learning, he can possibly avoid noticing
it; how, into the bargain, he can rejoice with all
his heart in his present “culture”? For every-
thing conduces to open his eyes for him-every
glance he casts at his clothes, his room, his house;
every walk he takes through the streets of his
town; every visit he pays to his art-dealers and
to his trader in the articles of fashion. In his social
intercourse he ought to realise the origin of his
manners and movements; in the heart of our art-
institutions, the pleasures of our concerts, theatres,
and museums, he ought to become apprised of the
super- and juxta-position of all imaginable styles.


## p. 11 (#87) ##############################################

DAVID STRAUSS.
The German heaps up around him the forms,
colours, products, and curiosities of all ages and
zones, and thereby succeeds in producing that
garish newness, as of a country fair, which his
scholars then proceed to contemplate and to
define as “Modernism per se”; and there he re-
mains, squatting peacefully, in the midst of this
conflict of styles. But with this kind of culture,
which is, at bottom, nothing more nor less than
a phlegmatic insensibility to real culture, men
cannot vanquish an enemy, least of all an enemy
like the French, who, whatever their worth may
be, do actually possess a genuine and productive
culture, and whom, up to the present, we have
systematically copied, though in the majority of
cases without skill.
Even supposing we had really ceased copying
them, it would still not mean that we had overcome
them, but merely that we had lifted their yoke from
our necks. Not before we have succeeded in forcing
an original German culture upon them can there
be any question of the triumph of German culture.
Meanwhile, let us not forget that in all matters
of form we are, and must be, just as dependent
upon Paris now as we were before the war; for
up to the present there has been no such thing as
an original German culture.
We all ought to have become aware of this, of
our own accord. Besides, one of the few who had
the right to speak to Germans in terms of reproach
publicly drew attention to the fact. “We Germans
are of yesterday,” Goethe once said to Eckermann.
“True, for the last hundred years we have diligently


## p. 11 (#88) ##############################################

THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
obedience, have nothing in common with culture :
these were characteristic of the Macedonian army,
for instance, despite the fact that the Greek
soldiers were infinitely more cultivated. To speak
of German scholarship and culture as having con-
quered, therefore, can only be the outcome of a
misapprehension, probably resulting from the cir-
cumstance that every precise notion of culture has
now vanished from Germany.
Culture is, before all things, the unity of
artistic style, in every expression of the life of a
people. Abundant knowledge and learning, how-
ever, are not essential to it, nor are they a sign of
its existence; and, at a pinch, they might coexist
much more harmoniously with the very opposite
of culture—with barbarity: that is to say, with a
complete lack of style, or with a riotous jumble
of all styles. But it is precisely amid this riotous
jumble that the German of to-day subsists; and
the serious problem to be solved is: how, with
all his learning, he can possibly avoid noticing
it; how, into the bargain, he can rejoice with all
his heart in his present “culture"? For every-
thing conduces to open his eyes for him-every
glance he casts at his clothes, his room, his house ;
every walk he takes through the streets of his
town; every visit he pays to his art-dealers and
to his trader in the articles of fashion. In his social
intercourse he ought to realise the origin of his
manners and movements; in the heart of our art-
institutions, the pleasures of our concerts, theatres,
and museums, he ought to become apprised of the
super- and juxta-position of all imaginable styles.



## p. 11 (#89) ##############################################

DAVID STRAUSS.
midst of this
which is at yes. But with thie
The German heaps up around him the forms,
colours, products, and curiosities of all ages and
zones, and thereby succeeds in producing that
garish newness, as of a country fair, which his
scholars then proceed to contemplate and to
define as “Modernism per se"; and there he re-
mains, squatting peacefully, in the midst of this
conflict of styles. But with this kind of culture,
which is, at bottom, nothing more nor less than
a phlegmatic insensibility to real culture, men
cannot vanquish an enemy, least of all an enemy
like the French, who, whatever their worth may
be, do actually possess a genuine and productive
culture, and whom, up to the present, we have
systematically copied, though in the majority of
cases without skill.
Even supposing we had really ceased copying
them, it would still not mean that we had overcome
them, but merely that we had lifted their yoke from
our necks. Not before we have succeeded in forcing
an original German culture upon them can there
be any question of the triumph of German culture.
Meanwhile, let us not forget that in all matters
of form we are, and must be, just as dependent
upon Paris now as we were before the war; for
up to the present there has been no such thing as
an original German culture.
We all ought to have become aware of this, of
our own accord. Besides, one of the few who had
the right to speak to Germans in terms of reproach
publicly drew attention to the fact. “We Germans
are of yesterday,” Goethe once said to Eckermann.
“True, for the last hundred years we have diligently


## p. 11 (#90) ##############################################

THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
obedience, have nothing in common with culture:
these were characteristic of the Macedonian army,
for instance, despite the fact that the Greek
soldiers were infinitely more cultivated. To speak
of German scholarship and culture as having con-
quered, therefore, can only be the outcome of a
misapprehension, probably resulting from the cir-
cumstance that every precise notion of culture has
now vanished from Germany.
Culture is, before all things, the unity of
artistic style, in every expression of the life of a
people. Abundant knowledge and learning, how-
ever, are not essential to it, nor are they a sign of
its existence; and, at a pinch, they might coexist
much more harmoniously with the very opposite
of culture—with barbarity: that is to say, with a
complete lack of style, or with a riotous jumble
of all styles. But it is precisely amid this riotous
jumble that the German of to-day subsists; and
the serious problem to be solved is: how, with
all his learning, he can possibly avoid noticing
it; how, into the bargain, he can rejoice with all
his heart in his present “culture"? For every-
thing conduces to open his eyes for him-every
glance he casts at his clothes, his room, his house;
every walk he takes through the streets of his
town; every visit he pays to his art-dealers and
to his trader in the articles of fashion. In his social
intercourse he ought to realise the origin of his
manners and movements; in the heart of our art-
institutions, the pleasures of our concerts, theatres,
and museums, he ought to become apprised of the
super- and juxta-position of all imaginable styles.
Or with
that thout it is



## p. 11 (#91) ##############################################

DAVID STRAUSS.
The German heaps up around him the forms,
colours, products, and curiosities of all ages and
zones, and thereby succeeds in producing that
garish newness, as of a country fair, which his
scholars then proceed to contemplate and to
define as “Modernism per se”; and there he re-
mains, squatting peacefully, in the midst of this
conflict of styles.
But with this kind of culture,
which is, at bottom, nothing more nor less than
a phlegmatic insensibility to real culture, men
cannot vanquish an enemy, least of all an enemy
like the French, who, whatever their worth may
be, do actually possess a genuine and productive
culture, and whom, up to the present, we have
systematically copied, though in the majority of
cases without skill.
Even supposing we had really ceased copying
them, it would still not mean that we had overcome
them, but merely that we had lifted their yoke from
our necks. Not before we have succeeded in forcing
an original German culture upon them can there
be any question of the triumph of German culture.
Meanwhile, let us not forget that in all matters
of form we are, and must be, just as dependent
upon Paris now as we were before the war; for
up to the present there has been no such thing as
an original German culture.
We all ought to have become aware of this, of
our own accord. Besides, one of the few who had
the right to speak to Germans in terms of reproach
publicly drew attention to the fact. “We Germans
are of yesterday,” Goethe once said to Eckermann.
“True, for the last hundred years we have diligently


## p. 11 (#92) ##############################################

THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
obedience, have nothing in common with culture:
these were characteristic of the Macedonian army,
for instance, despite the fact that the Greek
soldiers were infinitely more cultivated. To speak
of German scholarship and culture as having con-
quered, therefore, can only be the outcome of a
misapprehension, probably resulting from the cir-
cumstance that every precise notion of culture has
now vanished from Germany.
Culture is, before all things, the unity of
artistic style, in every expression of the life of a
people. Abundant knowledge and learning, how-
ever, are not essential to it, nor are they a sign of
its existence; and, at a pinch, they might coexist
much more harmoniously with the very opposite
of culture—with barbarity: that is to say, with a
complete lack of style, or with a riotous jumble
of all styles. But it is precisely amid this riotous
jumble that the German of to-day subsists; and
the serious problem to be solved is: how, with
all his learning, he can possibly avoid noticing
it; how, into the bargain, he can rejoice with all
his heart in his present “culture”? For every-
thing conduces to open his eyes for him-every
glance he casts at his clothes, his room, his house;
every walk he takes through the streets of his
town; every visit he pays to his art-dealers and
to his trader in the articles of fashion. In his social
intercourse he ought to realise the origin of his
manners and movements; in the heart of our art-
institutions, the pleasures of our concerts, theatres,
and museums, he ought to become apprised of the
super- and juxta-position of all imaginable styles.



## p. 11 (#93) ##############################################

DAVID STRAUSS. 9
The German heaps up around him the forms,
colours, products, and curiosities of all ages and
zones, and thereby succeeds in producing that
garish newness, as of a country fair, which his
scholars then proceed to contemplate and to
define as "Modernism per se"; and there he re-
mains, squatting peacefully, in the midst of this
conflict of styles. But with this kind of culture,
which is, at bottom, nothing more nor less than
a phlegmatic insensibility to real culture, men
cannot vanquish an eneniy, least of all an enemy
like the French, who, whatever their worth may
be, do actually possess a genuine and productive
culture, and whom, up to the present, we have
systematically copied, though in the majority of
cases without skill.
Even supposing we had really ceased copying
them, it would still not mean that we had overcome
them, but merely that we had lifted their yoke from
our necks. Not before we have succeeded in forcing
an original German culture upon them can there
be any question of the triumph of German culture.
Meanwhile, let us not forget that in all matters
of form we are, and must be, just as dependent
upon Paris now as we were before the war; for
up to the present there has been no such thing as
an original German culture.
We all ought to have become aware of this, of
our own accord. Besides, one of the few who had
the right to speak to Germans in terms of reproach
publicly drew attention to the fact. "We Germans
are of yesterday," Goethe once said to Eckermann.
"True, for the last hundred years we have diligently


## p. 11 (#94) ##############################################

THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
obedience, have nothing in common with culture:
these were characteristic of the Macedonian army,
for instance, despite the fact that the Greek
soldiers were infinitely more cultivated. To speak
of German scholarship and culture as having con-
quered, therefore, can only be the outcome of a
misapprehension, probably resulting from the cir-
cumstance that every precise notion of culture has
now vanished from Germany.
Culture is, before all things, the unity of
artistic style, in every expression of the life of a
people. Abundant knowledge and learning, how-
ever, are not essential to it, nor are they a sign of
its existence; and, at a pinch, they might coexist
much more harmoniously with the very opposite
of culture—with barbarity: that is to say, with a
complete lack of style, or with a riotous jumble
of all styles. But it is precisely amid this riotous
jumble that the German of to-day subsists; and
the serious problem to be solved is: how, with
all his learning, he can possibly avoid noticing
it; how, into the bargain, he can rejoice with all
his heart in his present “culture"? For every-
thing conduces to open his eyes for him-every
glance he casts at his clothes, his room, his house ;
every walk he takes through the streets of his
town; every visit he pays to his art-dealers and
to his trader in the articles of fashion. In his social
intercourse he ought to realise the origin of his
manners and movements; in the heart of our art-
institutions, the pleasures of our concerts, theatres,
and museums, he ought to become apprised of the
super- and juxta-position of all imaginable styles.



## p. 11 (#95) ##############################################

DAVID STRAUSS.
The German heaps up around him the forms,
colours, products, and curiosities of all ages and
zones, and thereby succeeds in producing that
garish newness, as of a country fair, which his
scholars then proceed to contemplate and to
define as “Modernism per se”; and there he re-
mains, squatting peacefully, in the midst of this
conflict of styles. But with this kind of culture,
which is, at bottom, nothing more nor less than
a phlegmatic insensibility to real culture, men
cannot vanquish an enemy, least of all an enemy
like the French, who, whatever their worth may
be, do actually possess a genuine and productive
culture, and whom, up to the present, we have
systematically copied, though in the majority of
cases without skill.
Even supposing we had really ceased copying
them, it would still not mean that we had overcome
them, but merely that we had lifted their yoke from
our necks. Not before we have succeeded in forcing
an original German culture upon them can there
be any question of the triumph of German culture.
Meanwhile, let us not forget that in all matters
of form we are, and must be, just as dependent
upon Paris now as we were before the war; for
up to the present there has been no such thing as
an original German culture.
We all ought to have become aware of this, of
our own accord. Besides, one of the few who had
the right to speak to Germans in terms of reproach
publicly drew attention to the fact. “We Germans
are of yesterday," Goethe once said to Eckermann.
“True, for the last hundred years we have diligently


## p. 11 (#96) ##############################################

THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
obedience, have nothing in common with culture:
these were characteristic of the Macedonian army,
for instance, despite the fact that the Greek
soldiers were infinitely more cultivated. To speak
of German scholarship and culture as having con-
quered, therefore, can only be the outcome of a
misapprehension, probably resulting from the cir-
cumstance that every precise notion of culture has
now vanished from Germany.
Culture is, before all things, the unity of
artistic style, in every expression of the life of a
people. Abundant knowledge and learning, how-
ever, are not essential to it, nor are they a sign of
its existence; and, at a pinch, they might coexist
much more harmoniously with the very opposite
of culture—with barbarity: that is to say, with a
complete lack of style, or with a riotous jumble
of all styles. But it is precisely amid this riotous
jumble that the German of to-day subsists; and
the serious problem to be solved is: how, with
all his learning, he can possibly avoid noticing
it; how, into the bargain, he can rejoice with all
his heart in his present “culture”? For every-
thing conduces to open his eyes for him-every
glance he casts at his clothes, his room, his house ;
every walk he takes through the streets of his
town; every visit he pays to his art-dealers and
to his trader in the articles of fashion. In his social
intercourse he ought to realise the origin of his
manners and movements; in the heart of our art-
institutions, the pleasures of our concerts, theatres,
and museums, he ought to become apprised of the
super- and juxta-position of all imaginable styles.



## p. 11 (#97) ##############################################

DAVID STRAUSS.
9
The German heaps up around him the forms,
colours, products, and curiosities of all ages and
zones, and thereby succeeds in producing that
garish newness, as of a country fair, which his
scholars then proceed to contemplate and to
define as “Modernism per se”; and there he re-
mains, squatting peacefully, in the midst of this
conflict of styles. But with this kind of culture,
which is, at bottom, nothing more nor less than
a phlegmatic insensibility to real culture, men
cannot vanquish an enemy, least of all an enemy
like the French, who, whatever their worth may
be, do actually possess a genuine and productive
culture, and whom, up to the present, we have
systematically copied, though in the majority of
cases without skill.
Even supposing we had really ceased copying
them, it would still not mean that we had overcome
them, but merely that we had lifted their yoke from
our necks. Not before we have succeeded in forcing
an original German culture upon them can there
be any question of the triumph of German culture.
Meanwhile, let us not forget that in all matters
of form we are, and must be, just as dependent
upon Paris now as we were before the war; for
up to the present there has been no such thing as
an original German culture.
We all ought to have become aware of this, of
our own accord. Besides, one of the few who had
the right to speak to Germans in terms of reproach
publicly drew attention to the fact. “We Germans
up to the predow as we werbe, just as the matters
are of yesterday," Goethe once said to Eckermann.
“True, for the last hundred years we have diligently


## p. 11 (#98) ##############################################

THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
obedience, have nothing in common with culture:
these were characteristic of the Macedonian army,
for instance, despite the fact that the Greek
soldiers were infinitely more cultivated. To speak
of German scholarship and culture as having con-
quered, therefore, can only be the outcome of a
misapprehension, probably resulting from the cir-
cumstance that every precise notion of culture has
now vanished from Germany.
Culture is, before all things, the unity of
artistic style, in every expression of the life of a
people. Abundant knowledge and learning, how-
ever, are not essential to it, nor are they a sign of
its existence; and, at a pinch, they might coexist
much more harmoniously with the very opposite
of culture—with barbarity: that is to say, with a
complete lack of style, or with a riotous jumble
of all styles. But it is precisely amid this riotous
jumble that the German of to-day subsists; and
the serious problem to be solved is: how, with
all his learning, he can possibly avoid noticing
it; how, into the bargain, he can rejoice with all
his heart in his present “culture”? For every-
thing conduces to open his eyes for him-every
glance he casts at his clothes, his room, his house;
every walk he takes through the streets of his
town; every visit he pays to his art-dealers and
to his trader in the articles of fashion. In his social
intercourse he ought to realise the origin of his
manners and movements; in the heart of our art-
institutions, the pleasures of our concerts, theatres,
and museums, he ought to become apprised of the
super- and juxta-position of all imaginable styles.



## p. 11 (#99) ##############################################

DAVID STRAUSS.
The German heaps up around him the forms,
colours, products, and curiosities of all ages and
zones, and thereby succeeds in producing that
garish newness, as of a country fair, which his
scholars then proceed to contemplate and to
define as “Modernism per se"; and there he re-
mains, squatting peacefully, in the midst of this
conflict of styles. But with this kind of culture,
which is, at bottom, nothing more nor less than
a phlegmatic insensibility to real culture, men
cannot vanquish an enemy, least of all an enemy
like the French, who, whatever their worth may
be, do actually possess a genuine and productive
culture, and whom, up to the present, we have
systematically copied, though in the majority of
cases without skill.
Even supposing we had really ceased copying
them, it would still not mean that we had overcome
them, but merely that we had lifted their yoke from
our necks. Not before we have succeeded in forcing
an original German culture upon them can there
be any question of the triumph of German culture.
Meanwhile, let us not forget that in all matters
of form we are, and must be, just as dependent
upon Paris now as we were before the war; for
up to the present there has been no such thing as
an original German culture.
We all ought to have become aware of this, of
our own accord. Besides, one of the few who had
the right to speak to Germans in terms of reproach
publicly drew attention to the fact. “We Germans
are of yesterday,” Goethe once said to Eckermann.
“True, for the last hundred years we have diligently


## p. 11 (#100) #############################################

IO THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
cultivated ourselves, but a few centuries may yet
have to run their course before our fellow-country-
men become permeated with sufficient intellectu-
ality and higher culture to have it said of them,
it is a long time since they were barbarians"
II.
If, however, our public and private life is so
manifestly devoid of all signs of a productive
and characteristic culture; if, moreover, our great
artists, with that earnest vehemence and honesty
which is peculiar to greatness admit, and have
admitted, this monstrous fact—so very humiliating
to a gifted nation; how can it still be possible for
contentment to reign to such an astonishing extent
among German scholars? And since the last war
this complacent spirit has seemed ever more and
more ready to break forth into exultant cries and
demonstrations of triumph. At all events, the
belief seems to be rife that we are in possession of
a genuine culture, and the enormous incongruity
of this triumphant satisfaction in the face of the
inferiority which should be patent to all, seems only
to be noticed by the few and the select. For all
those who think with the public mind have blind-
folded their eyes and closed their ears. The in-
congruity is not even acknowledged to exist. How
is this possible? What power is sufficiently in-
fluential to deny this existence? What species of
men must have attained to supremacy in Germany
that feelings which are so strong and simple should


## p. 11 (#101) #############################################

DAVID STRAUSS. II
be denied or prevented from obtaining expression?
This power, this species of men, I will name—they
are the Philistines of Culture.
As every one knows, the word "Philistine" is
borrowed from the vernacular of student-life, and,
in its widest and most popular sense, it signifies
the reverse of a son of the Muses, of an artist, and
of the genuine man of culture. The Philistine of
culture, however, the study of whose type and the
hearing of whose confessions (when he makes them)
have now become tiresome duties, distinguishes
himself from the general notion of the order
"Philistine" by means of a superstition: he fancies
that he is himself a son of the Muses and a man of
culture. This incomprehensible error clearly shows
that he does not even know the difference between
a Philistine and his opposite. We must not be
surprised, therefore, if we find him, for the most
part, solemnly protesting that he is no Philistine.
Owing to this lack of self-knowledge, he is con-
vinced that his "culture" is the consummate mani-
festation of real German culture; and, since he
everywhere meets with scholars of his own type,
since all public institutions, whether schools, uni-
versities, or academies, are so organised as to be in
complete harmony with his education and needs,
wherever he goes he bears with him the triumphant
feeling that he is the worthy champion of prevailing
German culture, and he frames his pretensions and
claims accordingly.
If, however, real culture takes unity of style for
granted (and even an inferior and degenerate
culture cannot be imagined in which a certain


## p. 12 (#102) #############################################

12 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
coalescence of the profusion of forms has not taken
place), it is just possible that the confusion under-
lying the Culture-Philistine's error may arise from
the fact that, since he comes into contact every-
where with creatures cast in the same mould as
himself, he concludes that this uniformity among
all " scholars " must point to a certain uniformity
in German education—hence to culture. All round
him, he sees only needs and views similar to his
own; wherever he goes, he finds himself embraced
by a ring of tacit conventions concerning almost
everything, but more especially matters of religion
and art. This imposing sameness, this tutti unisono
which, though it responds to no word of command,
is yet ever ready to burst forth, cozens him
into the belief that here a culture must be estab-
lished and flourishing. But Philistinism, despite its
systematic organisation and power, does not
constitute a culture by virtue of its system alone;
it does not even constitute an inferior culture, but
invariably the reverse—namely, firmly established
barbarity. For the uniformity of character which is
so apparent in the German scholars of to-day is only
the result of a conscious or unconscious exclusion and
negation of all the artistically productive forms and
requirements of a genuine style. The mind of the
cultured Philistine must have become sadly un-
hinged; for precisely what culture repudiates he
regards as culture itself; and, since he proceeds
logically, he succeeds in creating a connected
group of these repudiations—a system of non-
culture, to which one might at a pinch grant a
certain "unity of style," provided of course it were


## p. 13 (#103) #############################################

DAVID STRAUSS. 13
not nonsense to attribute style to barbarity.
If he have to choose between a stylish act and
its opposite, he will invariably adopt the latter,
and, since this rule holds good throughout, every
one of his acts bears the same negative stamp.
Now, it is by means of this stamp that he is able
to identify the character of the " German culture,"
which is his own patent; and all things that do not
bear it are so many enemies and obstacles drawn
up against him. In the presence of these arrayed
forces the Culture-Philistine either does no more
than ward off the blows, or else he denies, holds his
tongue, stops his ears, and refuses to face facts.
He is a negative creature—even in his hatred and
animosity. Nobody, however, is more disliked by
him than the man who regards him as a Philistine,
and tells him what he is — namely, the barrier
in the way of all powerful men and creators,
the labyrinth for all who doubt and go astray,
the swamp for all the weak and the weary, the
fetters of those who would run towards lofty goals,
the poisonous mist that chokes all germinating
hopes, the scorching sand to all those German
thinkers who seek for, and thirst after, a new life.
For the mind of Germany is seeking; and ye hate
it because it is seeking, and because it will not
accept your word, when ye declare that ye have
found what it is seeking. How could it have
been possible for a type like that of the Culture-
Philistine to develop? and even granting its de-
velopment, how was it able to rise to the powerful
position of supreme judge concerning all questions
of German culture? How could this have been


## p. 14 (#104) #############################################

14 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
possible, seeing that a whole procession of grand
and heroic figures has already filed past us, whose
every movement, the expression of whose every
feature, whose questioning voice and burning eye
betrayed the one fact, that tfiey were seekers, and
that they sought that which the Culture-Philistine
had long fancied he had found—to wit, a genuine
original German culture? Is there a soil—thus
they seemed to ask—a soil that is pure enough,
unhandselled enough, of sufficient virgin sanctity, to
allow the mind of Germany to build its house
upon it? Questioning thus, they wandered through
the wilderness, and the woods of wretched ages and
narrow conditions, and as seekers they disappeared
from our vision; one of them, at an advanced age,
was even able to say, in the name of all: "For
half a century my life has been hard and bitter
enough; I have allowed myself no rest, but have
ever striven, sought and done, to the best and to
the utmost of my ability. "
What does our Culture-Philistinism say of these
seekers? It regards them simply as discoverers,
and seems to forget that they themselves only
claimed to be seekers. We have our culture, say
her sons; for have we not our "classics"? Not
only is the foundation there, but the building
already stands upon it—we ourselves constitute that
building. And, so saying, the Philistine raises his
hand to his brow.
But, in order to be able thus to misjudge, and
thus to grant left-handed veneration to our classics,
people must have ceased to know them. This,
generally speaking, is precisely what has happened.


## p. 15 (#105) #############################################

DAVID STRAUSS. 15
For, otherwise, one ought to know that there is
only one way of honouring them, and that is to
continue seeking with the same spirit and with the
same courage, and not to weary of the search.
But to foist the doubtful title of "classics" upon
them, and to "edify" oneself from time to time
by reading their works, means to yield to those
feeble and selfish emotions which all the paying
public may purchase at concert-halls and theatres.
Even the raising of monuments to their memory,
and the christening of feasts and societies with their
names—all these things are but so many ringing
cash payments by means of which the Culture-
Philistine discharges his indebtedness to them,
so that in all other respects he may be rid of them,
and, above all, not bound to follow in their wake
and prosecute his search further. For henceforth
inquiry is to cease: that is the Philistine watchword.
This watchword once had some meaning. In
Germany, during the first decade of the nineteenth
century, for instance, when the heyday and con-
fusion of seeking, experimenting, destroying, pro-
mising, surmising, and hoping was sweeping in
currents and cross-currents over the land, the
thinking middle-classes were right in their concern
for their own security. It was then quite right of
them to dismiss from their minds with a shrug of
their shoulders the omnium gatherum of fantastic
and language-maiming philosophies, and of rabid
special-pleading historical studies, the carnival of
all gods and myths, and the poetical affectations
and fooleries which a drunken spirit may be re-
sponsible for. In this respect they were quite


## p. 16 (#106) #############################################

16 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
right; for the Philistine has not even the privilege
of licence. With the cunning proper to base
natures, however, he availed himself of the oppor-
tunity, in order to throw suspicion even upon the
seeking spirit, and to invite people to join in the
more comfortable pastime of finding. His eye
opened to the joy of Philistinism; he saved him-
self from wild experimenting by clinging to the
idyllic, and opposed the restless creative spirit that
animates the artist, by means of a certain smug
ease—the ease of self-conscious narrowness, tran-
quillity, and self-sufficiency. His tapering finger
pointed, without any affectation of modesty, to all
the hidden and intimate incidents of his life, to the
many touching and ingenuous joys which sprang
into existence in the wretched depths of his unculti-
vated existence, and which modestly blossomed
forth on the bog-land of Philistinism.
There were, naturally, a few gifted narrators who,
with a nice touch, drew vivid pictures of the happi-
ness, the prosaic simplicity, the bucolic robustness,
and all the well-being which floods the quarters of
children, scholars, and peasants. With picture-
books of this class in their hands, these smug ones
now once and for all sought to escape from the
yoke of these dubious classics and the command
which they contained—to seek further and to find.
They only started the notion of an epigone-age in
order to secure peace for themselves, and to be able
to reject all the efforts of disturbing innovators
summarily as the work of epigones. With the view
of ensuring their own tranquillity, these smug ones
even appropriated history, and sought to transform


## p. 17 (#107) #############################################

DAVID STRAUSS. If
all sciences that threatened to disturb their wretched
ease into branches of history—more particularly
philosophy and classical philology. Through his-
torical consciousness, they saved themselves from
enthusiasm; for, in opposition to Goethe, it was
maintained that history would no longer kindle
enthusiasm. No, in their desire to acquire an
historical grasp of everything, stultification became
the sole aim of these philosophical admirers of "nil
admirari" While professing to hate every form of
fanaticism and intolerance, what they really hated,
at bottom, was the dominating genius and the
tyranny of the real claims of culture. They there-
fore concentrated and utilised all their forces in
those quarters where a fresh and vigorous move-
ment was to be expected, and then paralysed,
stupefied, and tore it to shreds. In this way, a
philosophy which veiled the Philistine confessions
of its founder beneath neat twists and flourishes of
language proceeded further to discover a formula
for the canonisation of the commonplace. It ex-
patiated upon the rationalism of all reality, and
thus ingratiated itself with the Culture-Philistine,
who also loves neat twists and flourishes, and who,
above all, considers himself real, and regards his
reality as the standard of reason for the world.
From this time forward he began to allow every
one, and even himself, to reflect, to investigate, to
aestheticise, and, more particularly, to make poetry,
music, and even pictures—not to mention systems
of philosophy; provided, of course, that everything
were done according to the old pattern, and that
no assault were made upon the "reasonable" and
B


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18 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
the " real"—that is to say, upon the Philistine. The
latter really does not at all mind giving himself up,
from time to time, to the delightful and daring
transgressions of art or of sceptical historical studies,
and he does not underestimate the charm of such
recreations and entertainments; but he strictly
separates "the earnestness of life" (under which
term he understands his calling, his business, and
his wife and child) from such trivialities, and among
the latter he includes all things which have any
relation to culture. Therefore, woe to the art that
takes itself seriously, that has a notion of what it
may exact, and that dares to endanger his income,
his business, and his habits! Upon such an art he
turns his back, as though it were something dis-
solute; and, affecting the attitude of a guardian of
chastity, he cautions every unprotected virtue on
no account to look.
Being such an adept at cautioning people, he is
always grateful to any artist who heeds him and
listens to caution. He then assures his protege
that things are to be made more easy for him;
that, as a kindred spirit, he will no longer
be expected to make sublime masterpieces, but
that his work must be one of two kinds—either
the imitation of reality to the point of simian
mimicry, in idylls or gentle and humorous satires,
or the free copying of the best-known and most
famous classical works, albeit with shamefast con-
cessions to the taste of the age. For, although he
may only be able to appreciate slavish copying or
accurate portraiture of the present, still he knows
that the latter will but glorify him, and increase


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DAVID STRAUSS. 10.
the well-being of " reality "; while the former, far
from doing him any harm, rather helps to establish
his reputation as a classical judge of taste, and is
not otherwise troublesome; for he has, once and
for all, come to terms with the classics. Finally,
he discovers the general and effective formula
"Health" for his habits, methods of observation,
judgments, and the objects of his patronage; while
he dismisses the importunate disturber of the peace
with the epithets "hysterical" and "morbid. " It
is thus that David Strauss—a genuine example of
the satisfait in regard to our scholastic institutions,
and a typical Philistine—it is thus that he speaks
of "the philosophy of Schopenhauer" as being
"thoroughly intellectual, yet often unhealthy and
unprofitable. " It is indeed a deplorable fact that
intellect should show such a decided preference for
the " unhealthy" and the " unprofitable "; and even
the Philistine, if he be true to himself, will admit
that, in regard to the philosophies which men of
his stamp produce, he is conscious of a frequent
lack of intellectuality, although of course they are
always thoroughly healthy and profitable.
Now and again, the Philistines, provided they are
by themselves, indulge in a bottle of wine, and then
they grow reminiscent, and speak of the great deeds
of the war, honestly and ingenuously. On such
occasions it often happens that a great deal comes to
light which would otherwise have been most stead-
fastly concealed, and one of them may even be
heard to blurt out the most precious secrets of the
whole brotherhood. Indeed, a lapse of this sort
occurred but a short while ago, to a well-known


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20 THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON.
aesthete of the Hegelian school of reasoning. It
must, however, be admitted that the provocation
thereto was of an unusual character. A company
of Philistines were feasting together, in celebration
of the memory of a genuine anti-Philistine—one
who, moreover, had been, in the strictest sense of
the words, wrecked by Philistinism. This man
was Holderlin, and the afore-mentioned aesthete
was therefore justified, under the circumstances, in
speaking of the tragic souls who had foundered on
"reality "—reality being understood, here, to mean
Philistine reason. But the " reality " is now different,
and it might well be asked whether Holderlin would
be able to find his way at all in the present great
age. "I doubt," says Dr. Vischer, "whether his
delicate soul could have borne all the roughness
which is inseparable from war, and whether it had
survived the amount of perversity which, since the
war, we now see flourishing in every quarter. Per-
haps he would have succumbed to despair. His
was one of the unarmed souls; he was the Werther
of Greece, a hopeless lover; his life was full of soft-
ness and yearning, but there was strength and sub-
stance in his will, and in his style, greatness, riches
and life; here and there it is even reminiscent of
iEschylus. His spirit, however, lacked hardness.
He lacked the weapon humour; he could not
grant that one may be a Philistine and still be no
barbarian. " Not the sugary condolence of the
post-prandial speaker, but this last sentence con-
cerns us. Yes, it is admitted that one is a Philis-
tine; but, a barbarian? — No, not at any price!
Unfortunately, poor Holderlin could not make such


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DAVID STRAUSS. 21
fine distinctions. If one reads the reverse of civili-
sation, or perhaps sea-pirating, or cannibalism, into
the word " barbarian," then the distinction is justi-
fiable enough. But what the aesthete obviously
wishes to prove to us is, that we may be Philistines
and at the same time men of culture. Therein
lies the humour which poor Holderlin lacked and
the need of which ultimately wrecked him. *
On this occasion a second admission was made
by the speaker: "It is not always strength of will,
but weakness, which makes us superior to those
tragic souls which are so passionately responsive
to the attractions of beauty," or words to this
effect. And this was said in the name of the
assembled "We "; that is to say, the "superiors,"
the " superiors through weakness. " Let us content
ourselves with these admissions. We are now in
possession of information concerning two matters
from one of the initiated: first, that these "We"
stand beyond the passion for beauty; secondly,
that their position was reached by means of weak-
ness.