Part 18 (2/2)

[Footnote 8: In this the Jews essentially aided: Borne more in an anti-German, Heine more in an anti-Christian, spirit, and were highly applauded by the simple and infatuated German youth.]

[Footnote 9: Gorres even advised against it, although, in 1817, he had acted the princ.i.p.al part on the presentation of the Cologne address.]

CCLXXIII. The Progress of Science, Art, and Practical Knowledge in Germany

In the midst of the misery entailed by war and amid the pa.s.sions roused by party strife the sciences had attained to a height hitherto unknown. The schools had never been neglected, and immense improvements, equally affecting the lowest of the popular schools and the colleges, had been constantly introduced. Pestalozzi chiefly encouraged the proper education of the lower cla.s.ses and improved the method of instruction. The humanism of the learned academies (the study of the dead languages) went hand in hand with the realism of the professional inst.i.tutions. The universities, although often subjected to an overrigid system of surveillance and compelled to adopt a partial, servile bias, were, nevertheless, generally free from a political tendency and incredibly promoted the study of all the sciences. The ma.s.s of celebrated savants and of their works is too great to permit of more than a sketch of the princ.i.p.al features of modern German science.

The study of the cla.s.sics, predominant since the time of the Reformation, has been cast into the shade by the German studies, by the deeper investigation of the language, the law, the history of our forefathers and of the romantic Middle Age, by the great Catholic reaction, and, at the same time, by the immense advance made in natural history, geography, and universal history. The human mind, hitherto enclosed within a narrow sphere, has burst its trammels to revel in immeasurable s.p.a.ce. The philosophy and empty speculations of the foregoing century have also disappeared before the ma.s.s of practical knowledge, and arrogant man, convinced by science, once more bends his reasoning faculties in humble adoration of their Creator.

The aristocracy of talent and learned professional pride have been overbalanced by a democratic press. The whole nation writes, and the individual writer is either swallowed up in the ma.s.s or gains but ephemeral fame. Every writer, almost without exception, affects a popular style. But, in this rich literary field, all springs up freely without connection or guidance. No party is concentrated or represented by any reigning journal, but each individual writes for himself, and the immense number of journals published destroy each other's efficiency. Many questions of paramount importance are consequently lost in heaps of paper, and the interest they at first excited speedily becomes weakened by endless recurrence.

Theology shared in the movement above mentioned in the church. The Rationalists were most profuse in their publications, Paulus at Heidelberg, and, more particularly, the Saxon authors, Tschirner, Bretschneider, etc. Ancient Lutheran vigor degenerated to shallow subtleties and a sort of coquettish tattling upon morality, in which Zschokke's ”Hours of Devotion” carried away the palm. Neander, Gieseler, Gfrorer and others greatly promoted the study of the history of the church. The propounders of the Gospels, however, s.n.a.t.c.hed them, after a lamentable fas.h.i.+on, out of each other's hands, now doubting the authenticity of the whole, now that of most or of some of the chapters, and were unable to agree upon the number that ought to be retained. They, at the same time, outvied one another in political servility, while the Lutherans who, true to their ancient faith, protested against the Prussian liturgy, were too few in number for remark. This frivolous cla.s.s of theologians at length entirely rejected the Gospels, embraced the doctrine of Hegel and Judaism, and renounced Christianity. Still, although the Supernaturalists, the orthodox party, and the Pietists triumphantly repelled these attacks, and the majority of the elder Rationalists timidly seceded from the anti-christian party, the Protestant literary world was reduced to a state of enervation and confusion, affording but too good occasion for an energetic demonstration on the part of the Catholics.

Philosophy also a.s.sumed the character of the age. Fichte of Berlin still upheld, in 1814, the pa.s.sion for liberty and right in their n.o.bler sense that had been roused by the French Revolution, but, as he went yet further than Kant in setting limits to the sources of perception and denied the existence of conscience, his system proved merely of short duration. To him succeeded Sch.e.l.ling, with whom the return of philosophy to religion and that of abstract studies to nature and history commenced, and in whom the renovated spirit of the nineteenth century became manifest. His pupils were partly natural philosophers, who, like Oken, sought to comprehend all nature, her breathing unity, her hidden mysteries, in religion; partly mystics, who, like Eschenmaier, Schubert, Steffens, in a Protestant spirit, or, like Gorres and Baader, in a Catholic one, sought also to comprehend everything bearing reference to both nature and history in religion.

It was a revival of the ancient mysticism of Hugo de St. Victoire, of Honorius, and of Rupert in another and a scientific age; nor was it unopposed: in the place of the foreign scholasticism formerly so repugnant to its doctrines, those of Sch.e.l.ling were opposed by a reaction of the superficial mock-enlightenment and sophistical scepticism predominant in the foregoing century, more particularly of the sympathy with France, which had been rendered more than ever powerful in Germany by the forcible suppression of patriotism.

Abstract philosophy, despising nature and history, mocking Christianity, once more revived and set itself up as an absolute principle in Hegel. None of the other philosophers attained the notoriety gained by Sch.e.l.ling and Hegel, the representatives of the ant.i.theses of the age.

An incredible advance, of which we shall merely record the most important facts, took place in the study of the physical sciences.

Three new planets were discovered, Pallas, in 1802, and Vesta, in 1807, by Gibers; Juno, in 1824, by Harding. Enke and Biela first fixed the regular return and brief revolution of the two comets named after them. Schroter and Madler minutely examined the moon and planets; Struve, the fixed stars. Fraunhofer improved the telescope. Chladni first investigated the nature of fiery meteors and brought the study of acoustics to perfection. Alexander von Humboldt immensely promoted the observation of the changes of the atmosphere and the general knowledge of the nature of the earth. Werner and Leopold von Buch also distinguished themselves among the investigators of the construction of the earth and mountains. Scheele, Gmelin, Liebig, etc., were noted chemists. Oken, upon the whole, chiefly promoted the study of natural history, and numberless researches were made separately in mineralogy, the study of fossils, botany, and zoology by the most celebrated scientific men of the day. While travellers visited every quarter of the globe in search of plants and animals as yet unknown and regulated them by cla.s.ses, other men of science were engaged at home in the investigation of their internal construction, their uses and habits, in which they were greatly a.s.sisted by the improved microscope, by means of which Ehrenberg discovered a completely new cla.s.s of animalculae. The discoveries of science were also zealously applied for practical uses. Agriculture, cattle-breeding, manufactures received a fresh impulse and immense improvements as knowledge advanced. Commerce by water and by land experienced a thorough revolution on the discovery of the properties of steam, by the use of steamers and railroads. Medical science also progressed, notwithstanding the number of contradictory and extravagant theories.

The medical pract.i.tioners of Germany took precedence throughout Europe. Animal magnetism was practiced by Eschenmaier, Kieser, and Justin Kerner, by means of whose female seer, von Prevorst, the seeing of visions and the belief in ghosts were once more brought forward.

Hahnemann excited the greatest opposition by his system of h.o.m.oeopathy, which cured diseases by the administration of h.o.m.ogeneous substances in the minutest doses. He was superseded by the cold-water cure. During the last twenty years the naturalists and medical men of Germany have held an annual meeting in one or other of their native cities.

The philologists and savants have for some years past also been in the habit of holding a similar meeting. The cla.s.sics no longer form the predominant study among philologists. Even literati, whose tastes, like that of Creuzer, are decidedly cla.s.sic, have acknowledged that the knowledge of the Oriental tongues is requisite for the attainment of a thorough acquaintance with cla.s.sic antiquity. A great school for the study of the Eastern languages has been especially established under the precedence of the brothers Schlegel, Bopp, and others. The study of the ancient language of Germany and of her venerable monuments has, finally, been promoted by Jacob Grimm and by his widely diffused school.

The study of history became more profound and was extended over a wider field. A ma.s.s of archives. .h.i.therto secret were rendered public and spread new light on many of the remarkable characters and events in the history of Germany. Historians also learned to compile with less party spirit and on more solid grounds. History, at first compiled in a Protestant spirit, afterward inclined as partially to Catholicism, and the majority of the higher order of historical writers were consequently rendered the more careful in their search after truth. Among the universal historians, Rotteck gained the greatest popularity on account of the extreme liberality of his opinions, and Heeren and Schlosser acquired great note for depth of learning. Von Hammer, who rendered us acquainted with the history of the Mahometan East, takes precedence among the historical writers upon foreign nations. Niebuhr's Roman History, Wilken's History of the Crusades, Leo's History of Italy, Ranke's History of the Popes, etc., have attained well-merited fame.--The history of Germany as a whole, which Germany neither was nor is, was little studied, but an immense ma.s.s of facts connected with or referring to Germany was furnished by the numberless and excellent single histories and biographies that poured through the press. All the more ancient collections of _script.

rerum_ were, according to the plan of Stein, the celebrated Prussian minister, to be surpa.s.sed by a critical work on the sources of German history, conducted by Pertz, which could, however, be but slowly carried out. Grimm, Mone, and Barth threw immense light upon German heathen antiquity, Zeusz upon the genealogy of nations. The best account of the Ostrogoths was written by Manso, of the Visigoths by Aschbach, of the Anglo-Saxons by Lappenberg, of the more ancient Franks by Mannert, Pertz, and Lobell, of Charlemagne by Diebold and Ideler, of Louis the Pious by Funk, of the Saxon emperors by Ranke and his friends, Wachter and Leutsch, of the Salic emperors by Stenzel, of the German popes of those times by Hofler, of the Hohenstaufen by Raumer, Kortum, and Hurter, of the emperor Richard by Gebauer, of Henry VII. of Luxemburg by Barthold, of King John by Lenz, of Charles IV. by Pelzel and Schottky, of Wenzel by Pelzel, of Sigismund by Aschbach, of the Habsburgs by Kurz, Prince Lichnowsky, and Hormayr, of Louis the Bavarian by Mannert, of Ferdinand I. by Buchholz, of the Reformation by C. A. Menzel and Ranke, of the Peasant War by Sartorius, Oechsle, and Bensen, of the Thirty Years' War by Barthold, of Gustavus Adolphus by Gfrorer, of Wallenstein by Forster, of Bernhard of Weimar by Rose, of George of Luneburg by von der Decken.

Of the ensuing period by Forster and Guhrauer, of the Eighteenth Century by Schlosser, of the Wars with France by Clausewitz, of Modern Times by Hormayr.

c.o.xe, Schneller, Mailath, Chmel, and Gervay also wrote histories of Austria, Schottky and Palacky of Bohemia, Beda, Weber, and Hormayr of the Tyrol, Voigt of the Teutonic Order, Manso, Stenzel, Forster, Dolum, Ma.s.senbach, Colln, Preusz, etc., of the Kingdom of Prussia, Stenzel of Anhalt, Kobbe of Lauenburg, Lutzow of Mecklenburg, Barthold of Pomerania, Kobbe of Holstein, Wimpfen of Schleswig, Sartorius and Lappenberg of the Hansa, Hanssen of the Ditma.r.s.es, Spittler, Havemann, and Strombeck of Brunswick and Hanover, van Kampen of Holland, Warnkonig of Flanders, Rommel of Hesse, Lang of Eastern Franconia, Wachter and Langenn of Thuringia and Saxony, Lang, Wolf, Mannert, Zschokke, Volderndorf of Bavaria, Pfister, Pfaff, and Stalin of Swabia, Glutz-Blotzheim, Hottinger, Meyer von Knonau, Zschokke, Haller, Schuler, etc., of Switzerland. The most remarkable among the histories of celebrated cities are those of St. Gall by Arx, of Vienna by Mailath, of Frankfort on the Maine by Kirchner, of Ulm and Heilbronn by Jaeger, of Rotenburg on the Tauber by Bensen, etc.

Ritter, and, next to him, Berghaus, greatly extended the knowledge of geography. Maps were drawn out on a greatly improved scale. Alexander von Humboldt, who ruled the world with his scientific as Napoleon with his eagle glance, attained the highest repute among travellers of every nation. Krusenstern, Langsdorf, and Kotzebue, Germans in the service of Russia, circ.u.mnavigated the globe. Meyen, the noted botanist, did the same in a Prussian s.h.i.+p. Baron von Hugel explored India. Gutzlaff acted as a missionary in China. Ermann and Ledebur explored Siberia; Klaproth, Kupfer, Parrot, and Eichwald, the Caucasian provinces; Burckhardt, Ruppell, Ehrenberg, and Russegger, Syria and Egypt; the Prince von Neuwied and Paul William, duke of Wurtemberg, North America; Becher, Mexico; Schomburg, Guiana; the Prince von Neuwied and Martius, the Brazils; Poppig, the banks of the Amazon; Rengger, Paraguay. The Missionary Society for the conversion of the heathen in distant parts and that for the propagation of the gospel, founded at Basel, 1816, have gained well-merited repute.

At the commencement of the present century, amid the storms of war, German taste took a fresh bias. French frivolity had increased immorality to a degree hitherto unknown. Licentiousness reigned unrestrained on the stage and pervaded the lighter productions of the day. If Iffland had, not unsuccessfully, represented the honest citizens and peasantry of Germany struggling against the unnatural customs of modern public life, Augustus von Kotzebue, who, after him, ruled the German stage, sought, on the contrary, to render honor despicable and to encourage the license of the day. In the numerous romances, a tone of lewd sentimentality took the place of the strict propriety for which they had formerly been remarkable, and the general diffusion of these immoral productions, among which the romances of Lafontaine may be more particularly mentioned, contributed in no slight degree to the moral perversion of the age.

Jean Paul Friedrich Richter stands completely alone. He shared the weaknesses of his times, which, like Goethe and Kotzebue, he both admired and ridiculed, pa.s.sing with extraordinary versatility, almost in the same breath, from the most moving pathos to the bitterest satire. His clever but too deeply metaphysical romances are not only full of domestic sentimentality and domestic scenes, but they also imitate the over-refinement and effeminacy of Goethe, and yet his sound understanding and warm patriotic feelings led him to condemn all the artificial follies of fas.h.i.+on, all that was unnatural as well as all that was unjust.

Modern philosophy had no sooner triumphed over ancient religion and France over Germany than an extraordinary reaction, inaptly termed the romantic, took place in poetry. Although Ultramontanism might be traced even in Friedrich Schlegel, this school of poetry nevertheless solely owes its immense importance to its resuscitation of the older poetry of Germany, and to the success with which it opposed Germanism to Gallicism. Ludwig Tieck exclusively devoted himself to the German and romantic Middle Ages, to the Minnesingers, to Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Calderon, and modelled his own on their immortal works.

The eyes of his contemporaries were by him first completely opened to the long-misunderstood beauties of the Middle Ages. His kindred spirit, Novalis (Hardenberg), destined to a too brief career, gave proofs of signal talent. Heinrich von Kleist, who committed suicide, left the finest-spirited and most delightful dramas. Ludwig Achim von Arnim, like Tieck, cultivated the older German Saga; his only fault was that, led away by the richness of his imagination, he overcolored his descriptions. Aided by Brentano, he collected the finest of the popular ballads of Germany in ”des Enaben Wunderhorn.” At Berlin, Fouque, with true old German taste, revived the romances of chivalry and, shortly before 1813, met the military spirit once more rising in Prussia with a number of romances in which figured battle-steeds and coats of mail, German faith and bravery, valiant knights and chaste dames, intermixed, it must be confessed, with a good deal of affectation. On the discovery being made that many of the ancient German ballads were still preserved among the lower cla.s.ses, chiefly among the mountaineers, they were also sought for, and some poets tuned their lyres on the naive popular tone, etc., first, Hebel, in the partly extremely natural, partly extremely affected, Alemannic songs, which have found frequent imitators. Zacharia Werner and Hoffiman, on the other hand, exclusively devoted themselves to the darker side of days of yore, to their magic and superst.i.tion, and filled the world, already terror-stricken by the war, with supernatural stories. Still, throughout one and all of these productions, curiously as they contrasted, the same inclination to return to and to revive a purely German style was evident. At that moment the great crisis suddenly took place. Before even the poets could predict the event, Germany cast off the yoke of Napoleon, and the German ”Sturm and Freiheitslieder” of Theodor Korner, Arndt, Schenkendorf, etc., chimed in like a fearfully beautiful Allegro with the Adagio of their predecessors.

This was in a manner also the finale of the German notes that so strangely resounded in that Gallic time; the restoration suppressed every further outburst of patriotism, and the patriotic spirit that had begun to breathe forth in verse once more gave place to cosmopolitism and Gallicism. The lyric school, founded by Ludwig Uhland, alone preserved a German spirit and a connection with the ancient _Minnelieder_ of Swabia.

The new cosmopolitic tendency of the poetry of these times is chiefly due to the influence exercised by Goethe. The quick comprehension and ready adoption of every novelty is a faculty of, not a fault in, the German character, and alone becomes reprehensible when the German, forgetful of himself and of his own peculiar characteristics, adopts a medley of foreign incongruities and falsifies whatever ought to be preserved special and true. Goethe and his school, however, not content with imitating singly the style of every nation and of every period, have interwoven the most diverse strains, antique and romantic, old German and modern French, Grecian and Chinese, in one and the same poem. This unnatural style, itself destructive of the very peculiarity at which it aims, has infected both modern poetry and modern art; the architect intermixes the Grecian and the Gothic in his creations, while the painter seeks to unite the styles of the Flemish and Italian schools in his productions, and the poet those of Persia, Scandinavia, and Spain, in his strains.--Those are indeed deserving of grat.i.tude who have comprehended and preserved the character peculiar to the productions of foreign art, in which the brothers Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel have been so eminently successful. Hammer and, after him, Ruckert have also opened the Eastern world to our view.

Count Platen, on the other hand, hung fluctuating between the antique Persian and German.--Cosmopolitism was greatly strengthened by the historical romances in vogue in England, descriptive of olden time, and which found innumerable imitators in Germany. They were, at all events, thus far beneficial; they led us from the parlor into the world.

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