In the chapter devoted especially to Food and Drinks (Speise und Trank) Struve warns those whom it most concerns that:—
“The monstrous evils and abuses, which gradually and stealthily have invaded our daily foods and drinks, have now reached to such a pitch that they can no longer be winked at. He who desires to work for the improvement of the human species, for the elevation of the human soul, and for the invigoration of the human body, dares not leave uncontested the general dominant unnaturalness of living.
“With a people struggling for Freedom the Kitchen must be no murderous den (Mördergrube); the Larder no den of corruption; the Meal no occasion for stupefaction. In despotic states the oppressors of the People may intoxicate themselves with spirituous drink, and bring disease and feebleness upon themselves with unlawful and unwholesome meats. The sooner such men perish (zu grunde gehen) the better. But in free states (or in such as are striving for Freedom), Simplicity, Temperance, Soberness must be the first principles of citizen-life. No people can be free whose individual members are still slaves to their own passions.[277] Man must first free himself from these before he can, with any success, make war upon those of his fellow-men.”
Weighty words coming from a student of Science and of Human Life. Still weightier coming from one who had devoted so large a part of his existence to assist, and had taken so active a part in, the struggles of the people for Justice and Freedom.
XLIX.
DAUMER. 1800–1875.
ONE of the earliest pioneers of the New Reformation in Germany, chiefly from what may be termed the religious-philosophical standpoint, and one whose useful learning was equalled only by his true conception of the significance of the religious sentiment, was born at Nürnberg, in the last year of the eighteenth century.
Of a naturally feeble constitution, unable to mix in the ordinary amusements of school-life, he found ample leisure for literature and for music, to which especially he was devoted. Much of his time, also, was given to theological, and, in particular, biblical reading, so that his mother unhesitatingly fixed upon the clerical profession as his future career. He attended the Gymnasium of his native town, at that time under the direction of Hegel, who exercised a permanent influence upon his mental development. In the eighteenth year of his age he proceeded to the University of Erlangen for the study of theology. Doubts, however, began to disturb his contentment with orthodoxy; and, more and more dissatisfied with its systems, the young student relinquished the course of life for which he had believed himself destined; and, after attending the lectures of Schelling, he went to Leipsic to apply himself wholly to philology. Having completed the usual course of study, he was appointed teacher, and afterwards Professor of Latin in the Nürnberg Gymnasium (1827). Unpleasant relations with the Rector of the schools (whose orthodoxy seems to have been less questionable than his amiability), and also, in part, his feeble health, obliged him to resign this post, and from that time he gave himself up exclusively to literary occupations, which were, for the most part, in the domain of philosophic theology.
During his professoriate Daumer had written his Urgeschichte des Menschengeistes (“Primitive History of the Human Mind”), which was succeeded, at an interval of some years, by his Andeutungen eines Systems Speculativer Philosophie (“Intimations of a System of Speculative Philosophy”), in which he attempted to found and formulate a philosophic Theism. The unreality of the professions and trifling of those who had most reputation in the “religious” world, estranged him more and more from the prevalent interpretations of Christianity.
His Philosophie, Religion, und Alterthum appeared in 1833. Two years later his Züge zu einer neuen Philosophie der Religion and Religionsgeschichte (“Indications for a New Philosophy of Religion and History of Religion”). In 1842 was published Der Feuer-und-Moloch-Dienst der Hebräer (“The Fire and Moloch-Worship of the Hebrews”), and (1847) Die Geheimnisse des Christlichen Alterthums (“The Mysteries of Christian Antiquity”), in which he pointed out that human sacrifice, and even cannibalism, were connected with the old Baal-worship of the Jews, and maintained the newer religion to be, in one important respect, not so much a purification of Judaism, as an apparently retrograde movement to the still older religionism. Besides these and other philosophic writings, Daumer published a free translation of the Persian poet Hafiz. Hafiz was followed by Mahomed und seine Werke: eine Sammlung Orientalischer Geschichte (“Mahommed and his Actions: a Résumé of Oriental History”) 1848; and in 1855 by Polydora: ein Weltpoetisches Liederbuch (“Polydora: A Book of Lays from the World’s Poetry”).