In the Germany
of the past, the Germany of small States, to which all non-Germans look
back with such sympathy and such regret, their thinkers and poets were
inspired by grandiose intellectual abstractions. They saw ideas, like gods,
moving the world, and actual men and women, actual events and things, were
but the passing symbols of these supernatural powers; 1866 and 1870 ended
all that. The unification of Germany, in the way we have discussed,
diverted all their interest from speculation about the universe, life, and
mankind, to the material interests of their new country. Germany became the
preoccupation of all Germans. From abstractions they turned with a new
intoxication to what they conceived to be the concrete. Entering thus late
upon the stage of national politics, they devoted themselves, with their
accustomed thoroughness, to learning and bettering what they conceived
to be the principles and the practice which had given success to other
nations. In this quest no scruples should deter them, no sentimentality
hamper, no universal ideals distract. Yet this, after all, was but German
romanticism assuming another form. The objects, it is true, were different.
"Actuality" had taken the place of ideals, Germany of Humanity. But by
the German vision the new objects were no less distorted than the old.
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