§ 201. The system of active education was to find its solution in a nation which wandered from the coast of the Red Sea to the foot of the Lebanon mountains on the Mediterranean, and ventured forth upon the sea which before that time all nations had avoided as a dangerous and destructive element. The Phœnician was industrial, and needed markets where he could dispose of the products of his skill. But while he sought for them he disdained neither force nor deceit; he planted colonies; he stipulated that he should have in the cities of other nations a portion for himself; he urged the nations to adopt his pleasures, and insensibly introduced among them his culture and even his religion. The education of such a nation must have seemed profane, because it fostered indifference towards family and one's native land, and made the restless and passionate activity subservient to gain. The understanding and usefulness rose to a higher dignity.
§ 202. Of the education of the Phœnicians we know only so much as to enable us to conclude that it was certainly various and extensive: among the Carthaginians, at least, that their children were practised in reading, writing, and arithmetic, in religious duties; secondly, in a trade; and, finally, in the use of arms, is not improbable. Commerce became with the Phœnicians a trade, the egotism of which makes men dare to plough the inhospitable sea, and to penetrate eagerly the horror of its vast distances, but yet to conceal from other nations their discoveries and to wrap them in a veil of fable.
—It is a beautiful testimony to the disposition of the Greeks, that Plato and others assign as a cause of the low state of Arithmetic and Mathematics among the Phœnicians and Egyptians the want of a free and disinterested seizing of them.—
THE SYSTEM OF INDIVIDUAL EDUCATION.
§ 203. One-sided passivity as well as one-sided activity is subsumed under Individuality, which makes itself into its own end and aim. The Phœnician made gain his aim; his activity was of a utilistic character. Individuality as a pedagogical principle is indeed egotistic in so far as it endeavors to achieve its own peculiarity, but it is at the same time noble. It desires not to have but to be. Individuality also begins as natural, but it elevates nature by means of art to ideality. The solution of beauty is found in culture, since this renounces the charm of appearance for the knowledge of the True. The æsthetic individuality is followed by the practical, which has indeed no natural basis, but proceeds from an artificial basis as a state formed for a place of refuge. In order internally to create a unity in this, is framed a definite code of laws; in order externally to assure it, the invincible warrior is demanded. Education is therefore, more exactly speaking, juristic and military practice. The morality of the state is loosened as it reduces into its mechanism one nation after another, until the individuality, become dæmonic, makes its war-hardened legions tremble with weakness. We characterize this individuality as dæmonic because it desires recognition simply for its own sake. Not for its beauty and culture, not for its knowledge of business and its bravery, only for its peculiarity as such does it claim value, and in the effort to secure this it is ready to hazard life itself. In its naturally-growing existence this individuality is deep, but at the same time without self-limit. The nations educate themselves to this individuality when they destroy the world of Roman world—that of self-limit and balance—which they find.
§ 204. The system of individual education begins with the transfiguration of the immediate individuality into beauty. On the side of nature this system is passion, for individuality is given through nature; but on the side of spirit it is active, for spirit must determine itself to restrain its measure as the essence of beauty.