IV.—Treitschke as a Clear and Original Thinker.
But all those artistic gifts would not have given him his commanding influence in the world of practical politics if he had not added the gifts of clear thinking and luminous exposition, which are so very rare in Germany. Treitschke is essentially an honest and systematic thinker. As Professor of History in the University of Berlin, he was accustomed to make intricate and abstract subjects interesting and intelligible to vast audiences of students. We are never left in any doubt as to his inner meaning. He always goes straight to the point. There are no equivocations or mental reservations. He has the brevity but none of the ambiguity of the lawgiver. There are no gaps in his reasoning. He moves from one point to another in orderly sequence. Our intellectual and artistic joy in following the severe and simple outline of his political system is only marred by the thought of the appalling practical consequences of those doctrines.
And not only is he a clear thinker. He is also an original and independent thinker. He has not the professional taint of the German pedant. He has the German professor’s minute knowledge of concrete facts, and his doctrinaire love of abstract principles, but he is not a mere scholar and teacher. He always remains the man of the world, and he brings to the consideration of historical problems the practical experience which he gained as a journalist and as a member of the Reichstag. He does not apply any conventional standards to his judgments of men and events. He looks at everything from his own angle. There is a delightful freshness about everything he writes. He believes that the first duty of an historian is to be partial. He always follows a bias, but it is his own bias. In his German history he has not been content with digging up thousands of new facts from the recesses of German records; he gives his own interpretation to the facts. He has no respect for established fame, for existing theories. He delights in shocking his readers. In his “Götzendämmerung,” or “Twilight of the Gods,” Nietzsche has shown us how to “philosophize with a hammer.” Treitschke has written history with a hammer, and all his writings are strewn with the fragments of broken idols and shattered reputations.