GERMAN SCIENCE 121 



I do not know. Certainly it is felt by some people. I gave 

 you at the outset of this address some quotation from the 

 writings of Liebig when in 1840 he lamented the national 

 disregard of science. To this it is only fair to set in contrast 

 some modern utterances made sixty years later by men not 

 less devoted to the interest of their country : 1 



* Two souls dwell in the German nation ', writes Professor 

 Paulsen ; ' the German nation has been called the nation of 

 poets and thinkers, and it may be proud of the name. To-day 

 it may again be called the nation of masterful combatants, as 

 which it originally appeared in history.' 2 That is true, but 

 an addition is needful, for the struggle to which Germany has 

 since 1860 devoted its undivided strength is not a struggle 

 waged consciously in the name and for the sake of civilization, 

 is not a struggle for intellectual or political ideas, or ideals of 

 any kind, but a struggle for sheer mastery in the realm of 

 matter and for political ascendancy amongst the nations. Yet 

 if Germany should ultimately gain all the material success 

 and political power it aspires after, no one will dare to say 

 that it will mean more for civilization and the world than the 

 weak and disjointed Germany of a century ago, which gave to 

 mankind the Goethe and Schiller, the Kant and Fichte whose 

 teachings have for the time been cast aside. 



' One recognizes with anxious apprehension ', says another 

 writer, 3 * that the active interest for natural science and 

 technical improvements is not balanced by a deeper concern for 

 the problems of the mental sciences and the arts, which, in 

 truth, can alone beneficially appropriate the achievements of 

 technical culture ; that in every department of German life 

 a tendency to be satisfied with externals is visible, and the 



1 I make these quotations from the well-known work ' The Evolution 

 of Modern Germany', by Mr. W. H. Dawson (Fisher Unwin, 1908). 



2 Zur Ethik und Politik, p. 59. 



3 Unser Kaiser und sein Volk, by a * Schwarzseher' (' Pessimist '), 

 p. 155. 



