Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art

I hold that political economy should go hand in hand with philosophy, religion, and especially with morality; but as I cannot myself rise to these elevated spheres of thought, I am only too happy when a philosopher throws me out a bit of cord by which I may pull myself a little higher, above our workaday world. Ludwig Noiré has written a book, which is exactly what I needed in this respect, and which I hope to be able to speak of at greater length a little later. It is entitled “Das Werkzeug” (“The Tool”). It shows the truth of Franklin’s saying: Man is a tool-making creature. Noiré says that the origin of tools dates from the origin of Reason and Language. At the commencement, as far back as one can conceive, man was forced to act on matter to obtain food. This action on Nature for the purpose of satisfying wants is labor. As men were living together in families and in tribes, labor was carried on in common. A person making a muscular effort very naturally pronounces certain sounds in connection with the effort he is making. These sounds, repeated and heard by the entire group, were after a time understood to signify the action of which they were the spontaneous accompaniment. Thus was language born from natural activity in view of supplying imperious needs, and the verb representing the action preceded all their words. The effort to procure the necessary and useful develops the reasoning powers, and tools soon became necessary. Wherever traces of prehistoric men are found, there is also to be found the flint implement. Thus reason, language, labor, and implements, all manifestations of an intelligence capable of progress, appeared almost simultaneously.

Noiré has developed this theory fully in another book, entitled, “Ursprung der Sprache” (“Origin of Speech”). When it was published, Max Müller stated in the Contemporary Review, that, although he considered this system too exclusive, yet it was far superior to either the onomatopœia or the interjection theory, and that it was certainly the best and the most probable one brought forward at present. I can but bow before this appreciation.

Noiré is a fanatical Kantian, and an enthusiastic admirer of Schopenhauer. He has succeeded in forming a committee for the purpose of erecting a statue in honor of the modern Heraclites. The committee, he says, must be international, for if as a writer Schopenhauer be German, as a philosopher he belongs to the entire world, and he asked me to join it. “I am exceedingly flattered by the proposal,” said I; “but I offer two objections.” In the first place, a humble economist has not the right to place his name side by side with such as are already on the list. Secondly, being an incurable disciple of Platonism, I fear that Schopenhauer did not remain in the Cartesian line of spiritualism. I feel persuaded that two notions, which, it appears, are at the present day very old-fashioned – I speak of a belief in God and in the soul’s immortality – should form the basis of all social science. He who believes in nothing but matter cannot rise to a notion of what ‘ought to be’ —i. e., to an ideal of right and justice. This ideal can only be conceived as a divine order of things imposing itself morally on mankind. The ‘Revue Philosophique’ of October, 1882, says, ‘Positive Science, as understood at the present day, considers not what should be, but only what is. It searches merely the formula of facts. All idea of obligation, or of imperative prohibition, is completely foreign to its code. Such a creed is a death-stroke to all notion of duty. I believe that faith in a future life is indispensable for the accomplishment of good works. Materialism weakens the moral sense, and naturally leads to general decay.’

“Yes,” replied Noiré, “this is just the problem. How, side by side with the dire necessities of Nature, or with Divine omnipotence, can there be place for human personality and liberty? Nobody, neither Christian nor Naturalist, has yet been able satisfactorily to answer this. Hence has sprung, on the one hand, the predestination of the Calvinists and Luther’s De servo arbitrio, and, on the other, determinism and materialism. Kant is the first mortal who fearlessly studied this problem and studied it satisfactorily. He plunged into the abyss, like the diver of Schiller, and returned, having vanquished the monsters he found there, and holding in his hand the golden cup from which henceforward Humanity may drink the Divine beverage of Truth. As nothing can be of greater interest to us than the solution of this problem, so our gratitude, be it ever so considerable, can never possibly equal the service rendered by this really prodigious effort of the human mind. Kant has provided us with the only arm which can combat materialism. It is full time we should make use of it, for this detestable doctrine is everywhere undermining the foundations of human society. I venerate the memory of Schopenhauer, because he has inspired the truths revealed by Kant with more real life and penetrating vigor. Schopenhauer is not well known in either France or England. Some of his works have been translated, but no one has really understood him thoroughly, because to understand a philosopher it is necessary not only to admire but to be passionately attached to him. ‘The folly of the Cross’ is an admirable expression.

“Schopenhauer maintains that the will is the great source of all; it means both personality and liberty. We are here at once planted at the antipodes of naturalistic determinism. Free intelligence creates matter. Spiritus in nobis qui viget, ille facit. God is the great ideal. He does not make us move, but moves Himself in us. The more we appropriate to ourselves this Ideal, the freer we become; we are the reasonable and conscious authors of our actions, and liberty consists in this. Schopenhauer’s moral law is precisely that of Christianity – a law of abnegation, of resignation and asceticism. What Christians call Charity, he designates as ‘Pity.’ He exhorts his followers to struggle against self-will; not to let their eyes dwell on the passing delusions of the outside world, but to seek their soul’s peace by sacrificing all pursuits and interests which should fix their attentions solely on the changing scenes of this life. Are not these also the Gospel principles? Must they be rejected because Buddha also preached them? ‘The sovereign proof of the truth of my doctrines,’ says Schopenhauer, ‘is the number of Christian persons who have abandoned all their earthly treasure, position and riches, and have embraced voluntary poverty, devoting themselves wholly to the service of the poor and the sick and needy, undaunted in their work of charity by the most frightful wounds, the most revolting complaints. Their happiness consists in self-abnegation, in their indifference to the pleasures of this life, in their living faith, in the immortality of their being, and in a future of endless bliss.’

“The chief aim of Kant’s metaphysics,” proceeds Noiré, “is to fix a limit to the circle that can be embraced by man’s reason. ‘We resemble,’ he says, ‘fish in a pond, who can see, just to the edge of the water, the banks that imprison them, but are perfectly ignorant of all that is beyond.’ Schopenhauer goes farther than Kant. ‘True,’ he says, ‘we can only see the world from outside, and as a phenomenon, but there is one little loophole left open to us by which we can get a peep at substantial realities, and this loophole is each individual “Myself,” revealed to us as “Will,” which gives us the key to the “Transcendent.” You say, dear colleague, that you are incurably Platonic; are you not then aware Schopenhauer constantly refers to the ‘divine’ Plato, and to the incomparable, the prodigious, der erstaunliche Kant. His great merit is to have defended idealism against all the wild beasts which Dante met with in the dark forest, nella selva oscura’ into which he had strayed – materialism and sensualism, and their worthy offspring selfishness and bestiality. Nothing can be more false or dangerous than physics without metaphysics, and yet this truth proclaimed at the present day by great men merely provokes a laugh. The notion of duty is based on metaphysics. Nothing in Nature teaches it, and physics are silent on the subject. Nature is pitiless; brute force triumphs there. The better armed destroys and devours his less favored brother. Where then is right and justice? Materialists adopt as their motto the words which Frenchmen falsely accuse our Chancellor of having uttered, ‘Might is Right.’ Schopenhauer’s ‘Pity,’ Christian ‘Charity,’ the philosopher’s and jurist’s ‘Justice,’ are diametrically opposed to instinct and the voice of Nature, which urge us to sacrifice everything to the satisfaction of animal appetites. Read the eloquent conclusion of the book of Lange, ‘Geschichte des Materialismus.’ If materialism be not vanquished while it is yet time, all the law courts, prisons, bayonets and grape-shot in the world will not suffice to prevent the downfall of the social edifice. This pernicious doctrine must be banished from the brains of learned men, where it now reigns supreme. It has started from thence, and has gradually obtained a hold on the public mind. It is the duty of true philosophy to save the world.”

“But,” I replied, “Schopenhauer’s philosophy will never be comprehended but by a small minority; for myself, I humbly confess I have never read but fragments translated.”

“It is a pity you have never perused the original,” answered Noiré, “the style is exceedingly clear and simple. He is one of our best writers. He has exposed the most abstruse problems in the best possible terms. No one has more thoroughly justified the truth of what our Jean Paul said of Plato, Bacon and Leibnitz, the most learned reflection need not exclude a brilliant setting to show it off in relief, any more than a learned brain excludes a fine forehead and a fine face. Unfortunately, M. de Hartmann, who popularized Schopenhauer, has too frequently rendered his ideas unintelligible by his Hegelian Jargon. Schopenhauer could not endure Hegelianism. Like an Iconoclast, he smashed to shivers its idols with a heavy club. He approved of violent expressions, and indulged in very strong terms. So, for instance, he liked what he calls die göttliche Grobheit, ‘divine coarseness.’ At the same time, he praises elegance and good manners, and even, strange to say, has translated a little manual on ‘The Way to Behave in Society,’ ‘El Oraculo Manual,’ published in 1658, by the Jesuit, Baltasar Gracian. ‘There was a time,’ he writes, ‘when Germany’s three great sophists, Fichte, Schelling, and especially Hegel, that seller of senselessness, der freche unsinnige Schmierer, that impertinent scribbler, imagined they would appear learned by becoming obscure. This shameless humbug succeeded in winning the adulations of the multitude. He reigned at the Universities, where his style was imitated. Hegelianism became a religion, and a most intolerant one. Whosoever was not Hegelian was suspected even by the Prussian State. All these good gentlemen were in quest of the Absolute, and pretended that they had found it, and brought it home in their carpet-bags.’

“Kant maintainedthat human reason can only grasp the relative. ‘Error,’ cry in chorus Hegel, Schelling, Jacobi and Schleiermacher, and tutti quanti. ‘The Absolute! Why, I know it intimately; it has no secrets from me,’ and the different universities became the scenes of revolutions of the Absolute which stirred all Germany. If it were proposed to attempt to recall these illustrious maniacs to their right reason, the question was asked, ‘Do you adequately comprehend the Absolute?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then hold your tongue; you are a bad Christian and a dangerous subject. Beware of the stronghold.’ The unfortunate Beneke was so startled by this treatment that he went mad and drowned himself. Finally these great authorities quarrelled between themselves. They informed each other that they knew nothing of the Absolute. A quarrel on this subject was very often deadly. These battles resemble the discussion at Toledo between the Rabbi and the Monk in Heine’s ‘Romancero.’ After they had both lengthily discussed and quarrelled, the king said to the queen: ‘Which of the two do you think is right?’ ‘I think,’ replied the queen, ‘that they both smell equally unpleasantly.’

“This nebulous system of the Hegelian Absolute-seekers, reminding one of Nephclokokkygia, ‘the town in the clouds,’ in Aristophanes’ ‘Birds,’ has become a proverb with our French neighbors, who very rightly are fond of clearness. When anything seems to them unintelligible, they dub it as German metaphysics. Cousin did his best to clarify all this indigestible stuff, and serve it up in a palatable form. But in so doing he lost, not his Latin, but his German and his French. I am sure you never understood that ‘pure Being’ was identical with ‘no Being.’ Do you recollect Grimm’s story, ‘The Emperor’s Robe?’ A tailor condemned to death promised, in order to obtain his pardon, to make the Emperor the finest robe ever seen. He stitched, and stitched, and stitched ceaselessly, and finally announced that the robe was ready, but that it was invisible to all, save to wise people. All the servants, officers, and chamberlains of the court came to examine this work of art with the ministers and high dignitaries, and one and all pronounced it magnificent. On the coronation day the Emperor is supposed to put on the costume, and rides through the town in procession. The streets and windows are crowded; no one will admit that he has less wisdom than his neighbor, and all repeat; ‘How magnificent! Was ever anything seen so lovely?’ At last a little child calls out, ‘But the Emperor is naked,’ and it was then admitted that the robe had never existed, and the tailor was hanged.

“Schopenhauer is the child revealing the misery, or rather the non-existence of Hegelianism, and his writings were consequently unappreciated for upwards of thirty years. The first edition of his most important work found its way to the grocer’s shop and thence to the rubbish heap. It is our duty to-day to make amends for such injustice, and to render him the honor which is his due; his pessimism need not stay you. ‘The world,’ he says, ‘is full of evil, and all suffer here below. Man’s will is by nature perverse.’ Is not this doctrine the very essence of Christianity? Ingemui tomnis creatura. He maintains that our natural will is selfish and bad, but that, by an effort over itself, it may become purified and rise above its natural state to a state of grace, of holiness, of which the Church speaks, δευτἑρος πλὁυς. This is the deliverance, the Redemption, for which pious souls long, and it is to be attained by an indifference to and condemnation of the world and of self. Spernere mundum, spernere se, spernere se sperni.”54

Before leaving Würzburg I visit the Palace, formerly the residence of the Prince-Bishops, and also several churches. The Palace, die Residenz, is immense, and seems the more so when one reflects that it was destined to ornament the chief town of a small bishopric. Built between the years 1720 and 1744, after the plan of the palace of Versailles, it is very nearly as large. There is not such another staircase to be found anywhere. This, and the hall which precedes it, occupy the entire width of the building and a third of its length, and the effect is really of imperial magnificence. The trains of crowds of cassocked prelates and fine ladies could sweep here with ease. The cut stone balustrades are ornamented with statues. There is a suite of 350 reception-rooms – all for show, none for use. A certain number of these were decorated at the time of the French Empire. How mean the paintings on the ceilings, the pseudo-classic walls, and the mahogany furniture with brass ornaments, appear when compared to the apartments completed at the beginning of the eighteenth century, where the “chicorée” ornamentation exhibits all its seductions. I have never seen, all over Europe, anything in this style so perfect or better preserved. The curtains are in material of the period, and the chairs, sofas, and arm-chairs are covered to match. Each room is of a dominant color. There is a green one with metallic shades, like the wings of a Brazilian beetle. The broché silk on the furniture is to correspond. The effect is magical. In another, splendid Gobelin tapestry, after Lebrun, represents the triumph and the clemency of Alexander. Another, again, is all mirrors, even to the door-panels, but groups of flowers in oil-painting on the glass temper the excessive brilliancy. The stoves are really marvels of inventive genius and good taste, all in white and gold Saxony china. The blacksmith’s art never produced anything finer than the immense wrought-iron gates which enclose the pleasure-grounds, with their terraces, lawns, grass-plots, fountains, and rustic retreats. This princely residence, which has been almost invariably vacant since the suppression of episcopal sovereignty, has remained perfectly intact. It has been deteriorated neither by popular insurrections nor by changes in taste. What finished models of the style of the Regency architects and furniture makers could find here to copy from!

The contemplation of all these grandeurs suggests two questions to my mind. Where did these Sovereigns of tiny States find the money to furnish themselves with splendors and luxuries which Louis XIV. might have envied? My colleague, George Schanz, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Würzburg, informs me that these bishops had scarcely any troops to maintain. “Make,” he says, “builders, joiners, upholsterers, and carpenters of all our soldiers all over the land at the present day, and Germany might soon be covered with such palaces.”

Second question: How could these bishops, disciples of Him “who had not where to lay His head,” spend the money raised by taxation of the poor, on pomps and luxury worthy of a Darius or a Heliogabalus? Had they not read the Gospel condemnation of Dives, and the commentaries of the Church’s Fathers? Was the Christian doctrine of humility and of charity, even to voluntary property, only understood in monasteries and convents? Those grandees of the Church must have been completely blinded by the mistaken sophism which leads to the belief that extravagance and waste benefits the working man, the real producer. This unfortunate error is only too harmful at the present day.

During the eighteenth century the majority of the churches of Würzburg were completely spoilt by being ornamented in that Louis XV. style, suited only to the interior of palaces. As Boileau says, “ce ne sont que festons, ce ne sont qu’astragales,” gothic arches disappear beneath garlands of flowers, clouds with angel’s draperies in relief and interlacings of “chicorée,” the whole in plaster and covered with gilding. The altars are frequently entirely gilt. It is a perfect profusion of make-believe riches. In the towns the façades of some houses here and there are finished examples of this florid architecture. Doubtless the radiance of Versailles magnificence urged Germany to decorate her monuments and dwellings “à la Française,” even after the Sun there had set.

From my windows, which look out on to the square before the palace, I see a battalion of troops march past to exercise. Even the guards at Berlin could not march more automatically. The legs and the left arm move exactly together, while the guns are held precisely at the same angle by each soldier. Their steel barrels form a perfectly straight line as they glisten in the sunshine. The ranks of soldiers are absolutely rectilinear. The whole move in a body as if they were fastened on to a rail. It is perfection. What care and pains must have been bestowed before such a result could be attained! The Bavarians have naturally done their very best to equal and even to surpass the Prussians. They do not choose to be esteemed any longer as mere beer-drinkers, heavy, and somewhat dense. I wonder if this exceedingly severe drill, so effective on parade, is of use on a battle-field of the present day, where it is usual to disperse to attack. I am not competent to answer this question, but it is certain that rigid discipline accustoms the soldier to order and obedience; two very necessary virtues, especially in a democratic age. Obedience is still more wanted when the iron hand of despotism gives place to the authority of magistrates and laws. The mission of schools and military service is to teach this lesson to the citizens of Republics. The more the chief power loosens its hold, the more should free man bend at once to the exigencies necessary for the maintenance of order in the State. If this be not so, anarchy will result, and a return to despotism is then inevitable, for anarchy cannot be tolerated.

In the evening the sound of bugles is heard. It is the retreat sounding for the garrison troops. It is a melancholy farewell to the day passing away, and, religious, like a call to rest, from the night, which is fast falling. Alas! how sad it is to think that these trumpets thus harmoniously sounding the curfew will one day give the signal for battle and bloodshed! Men are still as savage as wild beasts, and with less motive, for they no longer devour their slaughtered enemy. I am a member of at least four societies whose object is to preach peace and recommend arbitration. No one listens to us. Even free nations prefer to fight. I admit perfectly that when the security or the existence of a country is at stake, it is impossible to have recourse to arbitration, although its decisions would be at least as just as those of violence and chance; but there are cases which I call “Jenkins’s ears,” since reading Carlyle’s “Frederic the Great.”55 In such as these, where the question is one of amour propre, of obstinacy, and frequently, I may say, also, of stupidity, arbitration might often prevent conflicts.

But if man is still hard on his fellow, he has become more tender towards animals. He has forbidden their being uselessly tortured. I take note of a touching example of this. I walk up to the Citadel, whence there is a splendid view over all Franconia. I cross the bridge over the Maine. In a street where the quaint pinions of the houses and gaudy sign-posts over the doors would delight the eye of a painter, I see a sort of sentry-box, on which is written in large characters, Theirschutz-Verein (“Society for the Protection of Animals”). A horse is standing there. Why? To be at the disposal of waggoners with a heavy load who are going up the slope to the bridge, and thus to prevent them ill-treating their horses. This seems to me far more ingenious and efficacious than the infliction of a fine.

Würzburg is not an industrial town. There appears to be no special reason why the population and the wealth of the city should increase rapidly, and yet the old town is surrounded with fine new quarters, fashionable squares, pretty walks and fine wide streets, handsome houses and villas. Here, as elsewhere, that singular phenomenon of our age, the immense increase in the number of well-to-do families, is distinctly apparent. If this continue in the same proportions, the “masses” of the future will not be composed of those who live on wages and salaries, but of those living on profit, interest, or revenue. Revolutions will become impossible, for the established order of things would have more protectors than assailants. These countless comfortable residences, these edifices of all kinds which spring up in every direction, with their luxurious and opulent appointments, all this wealth and well-being, is the result of the employment of machinery. Machinery increases production and economizes labor, and as the wages of labor have not diminished, the number of those who could live without working has increased.

Würzburg possesses an ancient University. It is a very old sixteenth-century building, situated in the centre of the town. As they recently did me the honor to confer on me the degree of Doctor honoris causa, I wished to see the Rector to offer him my thanks, but I had not the good fortune to meet him. On the Boulevard, special institutes have been constructed for each separate science, for chemistry, physics, and physiology. Immense sums have been spent in Germany to add a number of those separate institutes to the different Universities. The eminent professor of chemistry at Bonn, M. Kekulé, recently took me over the building constructed for his branch of science. With its Greek columns, and its palatial façade, it is considerably more extensive than the whole of the old University. The subsoil devoted to experimental and metallurgical chemistry resembles immense works or foundries. The professor’s apartments are far more sumptuous than those of the first authorities. Neither the Governor, the Bishop, nor even the General himself, can boast of anything to be compared with them. In the drawing-rooms and dancing saloons the whole town might be assembled. This Institute has cost more than a million francs. In Germany it is very rightly considered that a professor who has experiments to make ought to live in the same building where are the laboratories and lecture-rooms. It is only thus that he is able to follow analyses which need his supervision, at times even at night. Comparative anatomy and physiology have also each their palace. Several professors of natural sciences complain that it is really an excess. They say they are crushed by the extent and complications of their appurtenances, and especially by the cares and responsibilities they involve; nevertheless, if exaggeration there be, it is on the right side. Bacon’s motto, “Knowledge is Power,” becomes truer every day. The proper application of science is the chief source of wealth, and, consequently, of power. Nations, do you wish to be powerful and rich? Then encourage to the utmost your learned men.