I might, of course, content myself with the answer that the substance of an address, and therefore its scientific character, is in no way affected by the place in which it happens to have been delivered, whether it is in the Academy of Science, before the cream of the learned world, or in a hall in the suburbs before an audience of machinists.
But I owe you, Gentlemen, a somewhat fuller answer. To begin with, let me express my amazement at the fact that here in Berlin, in the city where Fichte delivered his immortal popular lectures on philosophy, his speeches on the fundamental features of the modern epoch and his speeches on the German nation before the general public, that in this place and day it should occur to any one to fancy that the place in which an address is delivered has anything whatever to do with its scientific character.
The great destiny of our age is precisely this—which the dark ages had been unable to conceive, much less to achieve—the dissemination of scientific knowledge among the body of the people. The difficulties of this task may be serious enough, and we may magnify them as we like,—still, our endeavors are ready to wrestle with them and our nightly vigils will be given to overcoming them.
In the general decay which, as all those who know the profounder realities of history appreciate, has overtaken European history in all its bearings, there are but two things that have retained their vigor and their propagating force in the midst of all that shriveling blight of self-seeking that pervades European life. These two things are science and the people, science and the workingman. And the union of these two is alone capable of invigorating European culture with a new life.
The union of these two polar opposites of modern society, science and the workingman,—when these two join forces they will crush all obstacles to cultural advance with an iron hand, and it is to this union that I have resolved to devote my life so long as there is breath in my body.
But, Gentlemen, is this view something new and entirely unheard-of in the realm of science? Let us see what Fichte himself, in his Addresses to the German People, has to say to the cultured classes, to whom he addresses these words: "It is particularly to the cultured classes of Germany that I wish to direct my remarks in the present address, for it is to these classes I hope in the first place to make myself intelligible. And I implore these classes, then, as the first step to be taken, to take the initiative in the work of reconstruction, and so, on the one hand, atone for their past deeds, and, on the other hand, earn the right to continued life in the future.
[Illustration: FLAX BARN IN LAREN From the Painting by Max
Liebermann]
It will appear in the course of this address that hitherto all the advance in the German nation has originated with the common people, and that hitherto all the great national interests have, in the first instance, been the affair of the people, have been taken in hand and pushed forward by the body of the people; so that today for the first time does it happen that the initiative in the cultural advance of the nation is committed to the hands of the cultured classes, and if they will but accept the commission it will be the first time when such has been the case. It will presently appear that it is quite impossible for these classes to determine how long the matter will yet rest in their discretion, how long the choice will yet be open to them whether to take the initiative in this matter or not, for the whole matter is nearly ripe to be taken in hand by the people, and it will be carried out by men sprung from the body of the people, who will presently be able to help themselves without assistance from us."
Fichte, then, knew and proclaimed this fact, that the realization of all the great national interests in the past has been the work of the common people and has never been carried out at the hands of the cultured classes. That, in spite of this knowledge, he turned to the cultured classes is due, as he himself says, to the hope he had of first and most readily making himself understood by them. It is because, in his apprehension, for the presentment of the matter to the people, the whole was, so he says, "only approaching readiness and maturity," but not yet ready and mature.
That it is possible today to do what in Fichte's time was recognized as the only fruitful thing to do, but, at the same time, as not then ready to be done, and therefore too serious to be undertaken,—this expresses the whole short step in advance that has been accomplished in Germany during the past fifty years; for you will seek in vain for the slightest progress on the part of the German government.