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Education is in the first place instruction in what is necessary, and then in what is changing and in-constant. The youth is introduced to nature, and the sway of laws is everywhere pointed out to him; followed by an explanation of the laws of ordinary society. Even at this early stage the question will arise: was it absolutely necessary that this should have been so? He gradually comes to need history to ascertain how these things have been brought about. He learns at the same time, however, that they may be changed into something else. What is the extent of man's power over things? This is the question in connection with all education. To show how things may become other than what they are we may, for example, point to the Greeks. We need the Romans to show how things became what they were.
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If, then, the Romans had spurned the Greek culture, they would perhaps have gone to pieces completely. When could this culture have once again arisen? Christianity and Romans and barbarians: this would have been an onslaught: it would have entirely wiped out culture. We see the danger amid which genius lives. Cicero was one of the greatest benefactors of humanity, even in his own time.
There is no "Providence" for genius; it is only for the ordinary run of people and their wants that such a thing exists: they find their satisfaction, and later on their justification.
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Thesis: the death of ancient culture inevitable. Greek culture must be distinguished as the archetype; and it must be shown how all culture rests upon shaky conceptions.
The dangerous meaning of art: as the protectress and galvanisation of dead and dying conceptions; history, in so far as it wishes to restore to us feelings which we have overcome. To feel "historically" or "just" towards what is already past, is only possible when we have risen above it. But the danger in the adoption of the feelings necessary for this is very great: let the dead bury their dead, so that we ourselves may not come under the influence of the smell of the corpses.
THE DEATH OF THE OLD CULTURE.
1. The signification of the studies of antiquity hitherto pursued: obscure; mendacious.