No More Learning

Mill now tries to draw the permissible limits
of the operation of society with the sentence:
The interference of society with personal liberty
is only justified, when it is necessary, in order to
protect the community itself, or to hinder injury
by others. We shall not contradict this saying
if only it were not so entirely futile! How small
is the effect of such abstract maxims of natural
law in an historical science! For is not the "self-
protection of the Community" historically capable
of change? Is it not the duty of a theocratic
State, for the sake of self -protection, to tyran-
nously interfere, even with the thoughts of its
citizens? And do not those common labours,
which are "necessary for the community," which
the citizen must be compelled to discharge, vary
essentially according to time and place? There
is no absolute limit to the State-power, and it is
the greatest merit of modern science, that it has
taught politicians to reckon only with relative
ideas. Every advance of civilization, every widen-
ing of national culture, necessarily makes the
State's activity more varied. North America,
too, is experiencing that truth; the State and
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? 326 Treitschke
society in the big towns there are also being
obliged to develop a manifold activity, which is
not needed in a primeval forest.
The much-vaunted voluntarism, the activity
of free private associations, is not by any means
sufficient in all cases tb satisfy the needs of our
society. The net of our intercourse has such small
meshes, that a thousand collisions between rights
and interests necessarily occur; it is the duty of
the State in both instances to intervene conciliat-
ingly as an impartial power. In the same way
there exist in every highly-civilized nation, big
private powers which actually exclude free com-
petition ; the State has to restrain their selfishness,
even if they do not injure any rights of third parties.
The English Parliament some years ago ordered
the railway companies, not only to attend to the
safety of the passengers, but also to allow a certain
number of so-called Parliamentary trains, to run
at the usual rates for all classes of carriages.
Nobody can say that there is an exceeding of the
sensible limits of the State-power in this law, which
makes travelling possible for the lower classes.
But if you see in the State merely an institution
for safety, you can defend the measure only by
means of very artificial and unconvincing argu-
ment. For who has a right to demand that he
should be carried from A to B for three shillings?
The railway company has certainly no monopoly
by law, and it is free to anyone to construct a
parallel line! No, the modern State cannot do
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? Freedom 327
without an extensive positive activity for the
people's benefit. In every nation there are spirit-
ual and material properties, without which the
State cannot exist. A constitutional State as-
sumes a high average of national culture; it may
never leave it to the pleasure of parents, whether
they want to give their children the most needful
education; it requires compulsory education.
The sphere of these benefits, which are requisite
for the community's existence, is inevitably
widened by the growth of civilization. Who would
seriously propose to shut up the precious art
institutions in our States? We old cultured
nations shall certainly not relapse into the crude
conception which sees a luxury in art; it is like
our daily bread to us. In point of fact, the de-
mand for the extremest limitation of State-activity
is the more loudly urged in theory to-day, the
more it is contradicted by practice, even in free
countries. The school of Tocqueville, Labou-
laye, Charles Dollfus, grew up in combat with an
all-embracing State-power which wanted, not to
guide, but to replace society, under the Second
Empire; a school which goes beyond its mark,
and discerns in the State simply an obstacle, an
oppressing force. Even Mill is dominated by the
opinion that the greater the power of the State,
the smaller the freedom. The State however is
not the citizen's foe. England is free, and yet the
English police have a very great discretionary
power and is bound to have it; it is enough if a
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? 328 Treitschkc
citizen may make any official answerable in a
law-court.
Luckily, another historical law is operating in
opposition to the increasing growth of State-power.
In proportion as the citizens become riper for
self-government, the State is under obligation,
nay, is physically obliged, to operate in a more
varied way so far as comprehensiveness is con-
cerned, but more moderately so far as method is
concerned. If the immature State was a guarantee
for individual branches of national activity, the
guardianship of the highly-developed State em-
braces the sum total of national life, but it operates
as far as possible, only as a force that spurs on,
instructs, clears away impediments. A mature
people must therefore demand these things of the
State for the assurance of its personal liberty:
The most fruitful outcome of the metaphysical
fights for freedom during the past century, namely,
the truth that the citizen must never be utilized
by the State merely as a means, should be recog-
nized as a true fundamental principle. Next:
all activity on the part of the government is
beneficial which brings forth, furthers, purifies,
the individual activity of the citizens; all govern-
ment activity which suppresses the activity of indi-
viduals is evil. For the whole dignity of the State
rests ultimately on the personal worth of its citi-
zens, and that State is the most moral, which
combines the powers of the citizens for the purpose
of accomplishing the greatest number of works
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? Freedom 329
beneficial to the society, and yet permits each
one, honestly and independently, to pursue his
personal development untouched by compulsion
on the part of the State and public opinion. Thus
we agree with Mill and Laboulaye in the final
result: in the desire for the highest possible degree
of personal liberty, although we do not share
their view of the State as an obstacle to freedom.
And what significance do these reflections on
personal liberty possess for us? The presentiment
of a great and decisive movement is permeating
the world, and imposing on every nation the
question, what value it puts on personal freedom,
on the personal independence of its citizens. We
Germans in particular cannot evade the question;
we, whose whole future rests, not on the established
power of all our States, but on the personal thor-
oughness of our people. The historical facts are
dominant, that only a nation which is imbued with
a strong sense of personal freedom can win and
keep political freedom, and that the well-being
or real personal freedom is only possible under the
protection of political freedom, since despotism,
in whatever shape it may appear, is able to give
rein only to the lower passions, to commerce, and
commonplace ambition.
The most precious and especial possession of
our nation, which will yet constitute the German
State a new phenomenon in political history, is
the Germans' invincible love of personal freedom.
Many will smile at this, and put the bitter question :
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? 33 Treitschke
Where are the fruits of this7love? And indeed
we redden as we confront that stately line of
legislative measures which the Anglo-Saxon race
has passed for its personal freedom. Mill is far
from deifying our nation ; as has been said of him
with some justice, he inwardly feels his near kin-
ship with the German genius, but he is afraid of
the weaknesses of our temperament, he deliber-
ately avoids penetrating too deeply into German
literature, and holds to French novels. And the
same man confesses that in no country except Ger-
many alone, are people capable of understanding
and aspiring to the highest and purest personal
liberty, the all-sided evolution of the human
spirit !
Our science is the freest on earth; it tolerates
no compulsion, either from without or within;
it aims at the truth, nothing but the truth, with-
out any prejudice. The opinionativeness of our
learned men became a by-word, yet it goes very
well together with a frank acknowledgment of an
adversary's scientific importance. A free mind,
which goes its own way, and not the well-worn
way of the schools, and reaches important results,
may, with certainty, finally count upon cordial
agreement. The most stupid police tutelage did
not succeed in breaking down the Germans'
ardour for personal idiosyncrasy. It is a convic-
tion, which has taken firm root in the lowest
strata of our nation, that in all questions of con-
science every man must decide for himself alone.
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? Freedom 331
In the tiniest States, which would entirely distort
the character of any other people, the ideal of free
human development is preached to the youth,
namely, the fearless seeking after truth, the evolu-
tion of character from within outwards, the har-
monious growth of all human gifts. And, as
freedom and toleration necessarily go hand in
hand, nowhere is the tolerance of different opinions
so much at home as with us ; we learned it in the
hard school of those religious wars, which this
nation fought for the salvation of the whole of
humanity. Ours, too, is the noblest blessing of
inward freedom : beautiful moderation. The most
daring thoughts about the highest problems which
trouble mankind are uttered by Germans. Hu-
man respect for everything human became second
nature to the German.
Let nobody believe that the free scientific ac-
tivity of the Germans is a welcome lightning-
conductor to the existing State authorities. All
intellectual gains, of which a nation can be proud,
influence the State-life as one pledge more for its
political greatness. We are slowly proceeding
from intellectual to political work, as Germany's
recent history clearly shows, and we may expect
with certainty that the independent courage of
German learned men in the search for truth will
react on the whole nation. Inclination, and ca-
pacity for self-government are abundant among
us. Towns like Berlin and Leipzig are at least
on level terms with the great English communities
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? 33 2 Treitschke
in the excellence of their administration, in the
common feeling dominating their inhabitants.
And how much natural talent and inclination for
genuine personal liberty dwell in our Fourth Estate
is revealed more clearly every year in the trade
unions.
The last and supreme requisite of personal
freedom is that the State and public opinion must
allow the individual to develop in his individual
character, both in thought and in act. What
Mill announces to his fellow-countrymen as a
new thing, has long been common property in
Germany, namely Humboldt's doctrine of the
" individuality of capacity and culture," of the
" highest and harmonious evolution of all capaci-
ties," which thrives by means of freedom and
multiplicity of situations, that unique combination
of the Platonic sense of beauty and Kant's severity,
which marks the zenith of German humanity.
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? Jl Selection from the
Catalogue of
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Complete Catalogue Sent
on application
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? The Real
"Truth About Germany"
From the English Point of View
By Douglas Sladen
Author of " Egypt and the English," etc.
With an Appendix
Great Britain and the War
By A. Maurice Low, M. A.
Author of " The American People," etc.
300 pages, 12, Cloth, $100
Mr. Sladen has taken as his text a pamphlet which, while not
formally published, has been widely circulated in the United States,
entitled The Truth About Germany. This pamphlet was prepared
in Germany under the supervision of a Committee of Repre-
sentative Germans, and may fairly be described as the "official
justification of the War. " Care has been taken to prevent copies
from finding their way into England, which has caused Mr. Sladen
to describe the pamphlet as The Secret White Paper, He has taken
up one by one the statements of the German writers, and has
shown how little foundation most of these statements have and
how misleading are others which contain some element of truth.
In answering the German statements, Mr. Sladen has naturally
taken the opportunity to state clearly the case of England. England
claims that it was impossible to avoid going into this struggle if
it was to keep faith with and fulfill its obligations to Belgium
and Luxemburg. Apart from this duty, it is the conviction of
England, that it is fighting not only in fulfillment of obligations
and to prevent France from being crushed for a second time, but
for self-preservation. The German threat has been made openly
" first Paris, then London. "
In order that the case for England may be complete, the pub-
lishers have added an essay by the well-known historian, A. Maurice
Low. As the title, Great Britain and the War, indicates, England's
attitude toward the great conflict is clearly portrayed, and her
reasons for joining therein are ably presented.
New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London
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? WHO IS
RESPONSIBLE?
Armageddon and After!
Cloudesley Brereton
16mo. Cloth. 50 cents
A monograph by one of the educational
leaders of England, which undertakes to
show how Prussian tradition, starting
with Frederick the Great, has succeeded
in corrupting the Germany of to-day.
The author takes the ground that the
issue of the present struggle may be a
great spiritual renascence or it may be
the domination of the Huns.
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York London
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? France Herself Again
By the Abbe Ernest Dimnet
5. About 400 pages. $250
This is an authoritative work by an author
who has gained well-earned fame as a historian.
The purpose and generrJ character of the book,
which compares the demoralized France of 1870
with the united France of to-day, may be seen
by the chapter headings.
Introductory : The Object of the Book
Part I. The Deterioration of France
1. Under the Second. Empire
2. Under the Third Republic
Part II. Tho Return of the Light
1. Immediate Consequences of the Tan-
gier Incident
2. Intellectual Preparation of the New
Spirit
3.
Evidences of the New Spirit
Part III. The Political Problems and the
Future
Part IV. France and the War of 1914
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York London
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? The Evidence in
the Case
In the Supreme Court of
Civilization
The Case of The Dual Alliance vs, The Triple Entente
By
James M. Beck
Late Assistant Attorney-General of the U. S.
72. $1. 00
In this volume the scholarly author sums up,
speaking as a judge in a world's court of abso-
lute impartiality, the causation of the present
European War and the relative responsibilities
of the nations that are parties to the War. The
author's verdict is based upon the official docu-
ments in the case, and these documents are
presented in the original text as an appendix to
the argument.
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York London
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? UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA
30112071779851
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