Influence of Science Upon German Literature. 
67 
but perverted in each case. This powerful Russian was a simple 
believer; he had his Christianity, like Schopenhauer, but with all his 
Christianity and his strict morals he remained a simple nature, and 
became a religious mystic. He was also a social reformer of no small 
moment. Hardly any literary representative of our time has striven 
in such fierce encounters for the palm of that higher harmony of na- 
ture and the fixed idea. Hardly any writer unites in the same meas- 
ure those qualities which are called realism on the one hand and ideal- 
ism on the other. All that Tolstoi describes is nature, true, una- 
dulterated nature, but not all is idealistically portrayed. 
In Germany the influence of these three great authors is felt in every 
great work. The disintegration of moral and social forces began 
with the appearance of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. In lyric poetry men 
like Dehmel vie with one another in songs to Venus, in which the ani- 
mal nature is exploited and described. The looser and more unre- 
strained the verses were the more esteemed the poet was as a genial 
individualist. In the short story and novel, Maupassant became the 
model, soon, however, surpassed in his own special line. Savage bru- 
tality seemed to have seized the reins and to be leading German liter- 
ature a sorry race until some wiser heads succeeded in checking the 
headlong pace, and the storm is now apparently abating, nay, even 
dying out altogether. Of the innumreable writers of this period, the 
names of Hauptmann and Sudermann have gained the greatest fame, 
and will remain longest in the world of literature. They, too, were 
swept away by the whirlpool which had engulfed morality, religion, 
civil government and conventional life under the battle cry of revalu- 
ation of all values, called forth by the advanced investigations on the 
field of science and philosophy. Hauptmann became the color ser- 
geant of realism by exposing the ugly shades of life under the bright 
footlights. Pieces like' “Vor Sonnenauf gang, ’ ’ “Die Weber,” 
“Fuhrmann Henschel,” etc., all show realism and naturalism in their 
naked form. The first is a story of a noble heroine in a drunken vil- 
lage, in a drunken family, all reeking in alcohol, with only one ray 
of hope for escaping her environment and breathing the pure air of 
heaven again. But this hope is founded on a lover, who has man- 
hood, ability, intelligence, and apparently love. He finds out, how- 
ever, that the heroine’s family are all drunkards, and, being a sci- 
entist, and knowing the law of heredity, he packs his grip and leaves 
the girl to her fate, on the plea that he does not wish to be the father 
of drunkards. Only one thing now remains for her, death at her 
own hands. Cold, stern, unrelenting, soulless science takes the place 
of feeling, emotion, sentiment. The others are about the same. Even 
“Hanele’s Himmelfahrt” makes no exception. For we have only 
