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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



THE SOCIAL OEIGIN OF NIHILISM AND PESSIMISM IN 



GERMANY. 1 



By CHARLES WALDSTEIN. 



rpHE present paper is not meant to contain 

 -L anything derogatory to German character 

 or institutions as compared with institutions of 

 other countries. It strives to solve objectively 

 and sympathetically a question which must arise 

 in the mind of every person interested in phi- 

 losophy, and of every person interested in social 

 matters. The writer has taken for his motto 

 those grand words of Spinoza, " neque flere, 

 neque ridere, sed intelligere " — words which 

 ought to be the regulating principle of every true 

 inquirer. This paper, moreover, treats of the 

 social causes to which the existing pessimistic 

 tendency of the German mind may be traced, 

 rather than of those causes which are strictly in- 

 tellectual — of the environment which helps to 

 form the pessimistic organism, rather than of the 

 organism itself. 



There are subjects in life which are so fa- 

 miliar that we are often tempted to look on them 

 with contempt, to pass them over as unworthy 

 of an inquiry which is occupied with weighty 

 matters, to say : " We are scientific, and these 

 facts are popular : what have we to do with 

 them ? " A closer insight makes answer : " Sci- 

 ence has to deal with every truth, however small, 

 however familiar : let us make sure only that 

 these are facts, and then they will be none the 

 less useful to us because they happen to lie on 

 the surface, close under our eyes. It may, as a 

 rule, be true that gold lies deep, and must be 

 won by digging, but the test of gold is its sub- 

 stance, not its position in the earth ; and when 

 we can get it by merely washing sand, let us do 

 so, not throw it away as worthless." Of all the 

 sciences, perhaps sociology has most direct con- 

 cern with 60-called trivial facts. The gold of 

 sociology is found wherever human beings live 

 and act. In the camp as in the city, in the 

 church or ballroom as in the study, in the nur- 

 sery as at the European Conference, the data for 

 sociology lie thick. Our duty is not to pick and 

 choose our facts according to our fancy, but to 

 bend our fancy to take in, and find the proper 

 place for, everything which can be truly called a 

 social fact. 



1 The literature on pessimism has recently received 

 an exhaustive treatment in the excellent work of Mr- 

 James Sully. 



Keeping this in view, the -writer has raised 

 the question: "How is it that pessimism has 

 found such a fertile soil in Germany ? Why has 

 it so many adherents there, especially among the 

 young men of the educated classes ? Why has it 

 even found such expression in philosophy, poet- 

 ry, the music-drama, and painting, as has been 

 given to it by (e. g.) Schopenhauer, Hartmann, 

 Hamerling, Wagner, and Makart ? " And this, 

 too, following closely on a series of brilliant po- 

 litical achievements ! The causes — other than 

 strictly intellectual — seem to be conveniently di- 

 visible into three main groups, according to the 

 sources from which they flow. These may be 

 called physical, social, and political. By physi- 

 cal sources we mean those which, through their 

 intimate connection with the physical state of 

 the individual, bear upon his mind and predis- 

 pose him to receive a pessimistic tint. By 

 social sources (in the restricted sense) we mean 

 those which are distinguished on the one hand 

 from the physical, inasmuch as they are not per- 

 ceived by our examination of man as a separately 

 existing individual, but only in his social connec- 

 tion with other men as his equals ; while, on the 

 other band, they are distinguished from the po- 

 litical sources, which are discerned when we look 

 at man in his individual connection with the 

 state. 



1. The first and most obvious cause lies in 

 the existing state of school education. From his 

 earliest years the German schoolboy is over- 

 worked at the gymnasiums and lyceums, and his 

 work increases as he advances, until he is about 

 to enter the university. 1 Besides being in school 

 from eight in winter and seven in summer until 

 three or four in the afternoon, he is so busily oc- 

 cupied in preparing his lessons that the. writer 

 has known boys of the unter secunda (the fourth 

 from the highest class) at work till twelve at 

 night, with but very little time for recreation. 2 

 Then the German boy has not those exhilarating 

 out-door sports which drive away pale faces and 



1 The Minister for Public Instruction at Berlin has 

 issued circulars requesting information from parents 

 concerning the number of hours devoted by their chil- 

 dren to the learning of their lessons. Measures have 

 been taken to remedy the evil of overwork. 



2 The author of "German Home-Life" has re- 

 marked similar facts in regard to girls. 



