Welsh Journals

THE EUROPEAN SPIRIT GERMANY'S GREATEST SACRIFICE By LOUIS DUMONT-WILDEN Louis Dumont-Wilden is a leading Belgian art and literary critic. A fortnight before the declaration of war he published "L'Esprit European," the first edition of which was immediately sold out. A second edition will be published in Paris by Figuiire and Co., and printed, thanks to the war, by The Welsh Outlook Press. A few weeks ago the work was awarded the "Prix Lasserre" by the French Government. We print below a translation of a chapter dealing with Germany, which, in the light of subsequent events, is a remarkably penetrating analysis of Pmssianism. FOR nations, as for individuals, good fortune is more difficult to bear than bad. A great victory is often a great danger and that irrepressible tendency which urges men to push success too far carries within itself the revenge of the vanquished, the punishment of the strong. The intellectual history of Germany during these last thirty-five years demonstrates this with a cruel clearness to anyone who knows how to read the signs of the times. At the first glance how splendid the development of this nation appears-a formidable military power, prosperous industrially, its trade world-wide, with enormous new sources of wealth, possessed of an unprecedented political prestige and with the firmest, most deeply-rooted national discipline. Who would not admire such a sight ? Who would not consider it quite legitimate for such a people to aspire to the hegemony of Europe ? Nevertheless Germany does not wield this hegemony. She cannot, because she has sacrificed her civilization, her culture, the intellectual predominance of centuries in European thought to the power and riches she enjoys to-day with such superb self-satisfaction. For in our Europe, whatever may be the respect for physical force, only superiority in culture can give a nation the title to control thought and civilization. Certainly, as a whole, the German nation is unconscious of this sacrifice. We have the best artillery in the world, our commerce encircles the globe, our towns are rich and fine," say the positive young Germans of this generation. In fact we are the best educated people in the universe. What should prevent us from being in the vanguard of civilization and culture ? The men who lived before 1870 would never even have put this question to themselves, a question which marks the ebb-tide of German intellectuality. They at least knew what culture was they did not confuse it with science, nor with elementary educa- tion. We Germans are of yesterday," said Goethe one day to Eckermann. It is true that for a century we have seriously cultivated our minds, but some more centuries must probably pass before our fellow- countrymen are sufficiently steeped in knowledge and the wider culture for it to be said of them that their age of barbarism lies far behind." An illuminating remark which reveals in the clearest light the attitude of old Germany towards real culture. She had invented the word, and from the depths of her frank barbarism she aspired with all her strength towards this flower of an ancient and centralized civilization. She knew that a nation cannot speak of its culture, its civilization, when it has not manifested in all its activities that peculiar aesthetic sense, that notion of honour or morality which it has itself discovered, which no mere educa- tion can give, and which Time alone bestows on certain privileged nations. She directed all her efforts towards this goal, and she certainly seemed destined to attain it. Seeing the persistence of Hegelian theory in France and its influence on all French thought, considering the command of German music over the emotions of Europe, one might have wondered whether Goethe did not think too lightly of his own race, and whether German culture, young, vigorous, and rich in the treasures of an immense past, were not really about to wrest from France the leadership of European thought. At the close of the war of 1870, no one doubted it. The military and political triumph of Germany seemed the vindication of German methods and education. Everybody said that the real victor of Sedan was the German teacher, who had produced the best educated soldier it was the German pro- fessor who had created the most intelligent officer it was German culture as a whole. (This was the time when culture and mere erudition, civilization and mere science began to be confused). Had not the great political realists, from Stein and Hardenberg