“Ah,” sighed Goethe, “those were, indeed, happy times. But we will drive them from our minds, that the dark foggy days of the present may not become quite insupportable.”
“A second Redeemer,” said I, “would be required to remove from us the seriousness, the discomfort, and the monstrous oppressiveness of the present state of things.”
“If he came,” answered Goethe, “he would be crucified a second time. Still, we by no means need anything so great. If we could only alter the Germans after the model of the English, if we could only have less philosophy and more power of action, less theory and more practice, we might obtain a good share of redemption, without waiting for the personal majesty of a second Christ. Much may be done from below by the people by means of schools and domestic education; much from above by the rulers and those in immediate connection with them.
“Thus, for instance, I can not approve the requisition, in the studies of future statesmen, of so much theoretically-learned knowledge, by which young people are ruined before their time, both in mind and body. When they enter into practical service, they possess, indeed, an immense stock of philosophical and learned matters; but in the narrow circle of their calling, this can not be practically applied, and must therefore be forgotten as useless. On the other hand, what they most needed they have lost; they are deficient in the necessary mental and bodily energy, which is quite indispensable when one would enter properly into practical life.
“And then, are not love and benevolence also needed in the life of a statesman—in the management of men? And how can any one feel and exercise benevolence toward another, when he is ill at ease with himself?
“But all these people are in a dreadfully bad case. The third part of the learned men and statesmen, shackled to the desk, are ruined in body, and consigned to the demon of hypochondria. Here there should be action from above that future generations may at least be preserved from a like destruction.
“In the meantime,” continued Goethe, smiling, “let us remain in a state of hopeful expectation as to the condition of us Germans a century hence, and whether we shall then have advanced so far as to be no longer savants and philosophers, but men.”
Now, it has occurred to me, when I recollect, that we love our children, and call them our second selves, merely because we have begotten them, that there is another kind of progeny springing from us, not less worthy of our esteem; for what we engender by the mind, the offspring of our understanding, diligence, and genius, emanates from nobler parts of us than what springs from the body, and is much more our own. We are both father and mother in this act of generation. They cost us more and bring us more honor if they have any good in them. For the value of our other children depends much more on themselves than on us; the share we have in them is very little, but of these all the beauty, grace, and excellence is ours. For in this way they are a more complete representation and copy of ourselves than the others. Plato adds that these are immortal children which truly immortalize and deify their fathers, as Lycurgus, Solon, and Mino.—Montaigne.
So Spencer, “F. Q.,” v. 1: