Both are inspired with an invincible belief in the society of the future, in the coming brotherhood of man, and in their own vocation to bring it about. But must it not be said that this society to come, as conceived by Tolstoi or Ibsen, is an utterly fantastic fata morgana, a purely subjective day-dream? Can it be assumed that modern society, with its highly complex and variegated occupations, with its thousand and one gradations of national activity, will revert to the dead level of the stolid, long-suffering, uninitiative Russian peasant whom Tolstoi would have us consider as the type of the unselfish, loving, truly Christian life of the future? Or, on the other hand, is it possible to imagine that the brotherhood of man can be brought about by the over-individualized, tempestuous, Viking-like race of fighters and visionaries whom Ibsen makes the representatives of his own ideal of human development? And even if either of these conditions were really to come to pass, is it not clear that neither of them could be brought about without a violent disruption of the existing order of things, that both Ibsen and Tolstoi, therefore, are fundamentally subversive, and only with regard to possible distant effects of their thought may be called constructive? What they lack is Schiller's conception of beauty as mediator between the sensuous and the spiritual; what they lack is Schiller's appeal to the best, the most normal, the most human in man: his natural desire for equipoise, for oneness with himself, for totality of character. Schiller's art does not point backward, as Tolstoi's glorification of primitiveness of existence does. It does not point into a dim, shadowy future, as Ibsen's fantastic Uebermenschen do. It guides us with firm hand toward a well-defined and attainable ideal, the ideal of free, noble, progressive, self-restrained manhood: Der Menschheit Würde ist in eure Hand gegeben; Sie sinkt mit euch! Mit euch wird sie sich heben. Der freisten Mutter freiste Söhne, Schwingt euch mit festem Angesicht Zum Strahlensitz der höchsten Schöne ! Um andre Kronen buhlet nicht. Erhebet euch mit kühnem Flügel Hoch über euren Zeitenlauf! Das kommende Jahrhundert auf! III. EMERSON AND GERMAN PERSONALITY' EMERSON was, above all, an American; the love of his people was the controlling motive of his whole life; and if we were to express the great variety of his interests and sympathies by one central ideal, we could probably find no better name for it than American culture. Next to his own country, England occupied the foremost place in his affections. The history of the English people was to him not only the history of the life of his forefathers, and as such surrounded by the halo of romance, but it stood to him also for a most impressive object lesson, demonstrating the truth of the practical side of his own message, the teachings of self-reliance, tenacity of purpose, and common sense. It was through his delicate sense of artistic form that Emerson was drawn toward Italy and France; and no one who has read his estimates of Mon 1 An address delivered in 1903, at the Emerson centennial celebration in Concord. taigne or Michelangelo can fail to see that, Puritan as he was, he had a keen appreciation of the genius of the Latin race. Germany was the only large country of western Europe which he never visited; the only distinguished German with whom he entertained a friendly correspondence, Herman Grimm, crossed his path too late in life to add much to his range of vision. For the greatest German of his time, Goethe, Emerson, in spite of sincere admiration, had after all only a limited understanding; whereas, against the manners of the ordinary Teuton he even seems to have had a natural aversion. Wherein, then, lies the justification for emphasizing, nevertheless, Emerson's relation to Germany? What side of his nature was akin to German ways of thought and feeling? What particular inspiration did he receive from the great masters of German literature and philosophy? What part of his own life-work has a special significance for the Germany of to-day? These are the questions which I shall attempt briefly to answer. I There is a widely spread notion that Germany is a land trodden down by militarism and bureaucracy. Independence of character and personal initiative, are, we are told, necessarily crushed out by governmental methods which force the individual, from boyhood on, into a system of complicated routine and make him a part of a huge, soulless mechanism. It would be futile to deny that the pressure exerted upon the individual by official authority is greater in Germany than in America, England, France, or Italy. Indeed, there is good reason for thinking that this very subordination of the individual to superior ordinances has had a large share in the extraordinary achievements of German statecraft, strategy, industry, and science of the last fifty years. What I maintain is this: In spite of the intense supervision of personal conduct, of the supremacy of drill and regulation, of the overwhelming sway of historical tradition and class rule, in spite of all this there is to be found in Germany a decidedly greater variety of individual views, convictions, principles, modes of life, ideals, in other words, of individual character, than in America. I do not wish here to analyze the causes of this remarkable phenomenon, beyond stating that one of these causes. seems to me to lie in the very existence of |