German philosophy and politics

by John Dewey

immortality in order to find a place for faith"—faith being a moral act.

Then he proceeds to reinterpret in terms of the sensuous natural principle and the ideal rational principle the main doctrines of Lutheran Protestantism. The doctrines of incarnation, original sin, atonement, justification by faith and sanctification, while baseless literally and historically, are symbols of the dual nature of man, as phenomenal and noumenal. And while Kant scourges ecclesiastical religions so far as they have relied upon ceremonies and external authority, upon external rewards and punishments, yet he ascribes transitional value to them in that they have symbolized ultimate moral truths. Although dogmas are but the external vesture of inner truths, yet it may be good for us "to continue to pay reverence to the outward vesture since that has served to bring to general acceptance a doctrine which really rests upon an authority within the soul of man, and which, therefore, needs no miracle to commend it."

It is a precarious undertaking to single out some one thing in German philosophy as of typical importance in understanding German national life. Yet I am committed to the venture. My conviction

is that we have its root idea in the doctrine of Kant concerning the two realms, one outer, physical and necessary, the other inner, ideal and free. To this we must add that, in spite of their separateness and independence, the primacy always lies with the inner. As compared with this, the philosophy of a Nietzsche, to which so many resort at the present time for explanation of what seems to them otherwise inexplicable, is but a superficial and transitory wave of opinion. Surely the chief mark of distinctively German civilization is its combination of self-conscious idealism with unsurpassed technical efficiency and organization in the varied fields of action. If this is not a realization in fact of what is found in Kant, I am totally at loss for a name by which to characterize it. I do not mean that conscious adherence to the philosophy of Kant has been the cause of the marvelous advances made in Germany in the natural sciences and in the systematic application of the fruits of intelligence to industry, trade, commerce, military affairs, education, civic administration and industrial organization. Such a claim would be absurd. But I do mean, primarily, that Kant detected and formulated the direction in which the German

genius was moving, so that his philosophy is of immense prophetic significance; and, secondarily, that his formulation has furnished a banner and a conscious creed which in solid and definite fashion has intensified and deepened the work actually undertaken.

In bringing to an imaginative synthesis what might have remained an immense diversity of enterprises, Kantianism has helped formulate a sense of a national mission and destiny. Over and above this, his formulation and its influence aids us to understand why the German consciousness has never been swamped by its technical efficiency and devotion, but has remained self-consciously, not to say self-righteously, idealistic. Such a work as Germany has undertaken might well seem calculated to generate attachment to a positivistic or even materialistic philosophy and to a utilitarian ethics. But no; the teaching of Kant had put mechanism forever in its subordinate place at the very time it inculcated devotion to mechanism in its place. Above and beyond as an end, for the sake of which all technical achievements, all promotion of health, wealth and happiness, exist, lies the realm of inner freedom, of the

ideal and the supersensible. The more the Germans accomplish in the way of material conquest, the more they are conscious of fulfilling an ideal mission; every external conquest affords the greater warrant for dwelling in an inner region where mechanism does not intrude. Thus it turns out that while the Germans have been, to employ a catchword of recent thought, the most technically pragmatic of all peoples in their actual conduct of affairs, there is no people so hostile to the spirit of a pragmatic philosophy.

The combination of devotion to mechanism and organization in outward affairs and of loyalty to freedom and consciousness in the inner realm has its obvious attractions. Realized in the common temper of a people it might well seem invincible. Ended is the paralysis of action arising from the split between science and useful achievements on one side and spiritual and ideal aspirations on the other. Each feeds and reinforces the other. Freedom of soul and subordination of action dwell in harmony. Obedience, definite subjection and control, detailed organization is the lesson enforced by the rule of causal necessity in the outer world of space and time in which action takes

place. Unlimited freedom, the heightening of consciousness for its own sake, sheer reveling in noble ideals, the law of the inner world. What more can mortal man ask?

It would not be difficult, I imagine, to fill the three hours devoted to these lectures with quotations from representative German authors to the effect that supreme regard for the inner meaning of things, reverence for inner truth in disregard of external consequences of advantage or disadvantage, is the distinguishing mark of the German spirit as against, say, the externality of the Latin spirit or the utilitarianism of Anglo-Saxondom. I content myself with one quotation, a quotation which also indicates the same inclination to treat historic facts as symbolic of great truths which is found in Kant's treatment of church dogmas. Speaking of the Germanic languages, an historian of German civilization says: