destroyed German unity. Thcv knew how to present each of these separate States that had thus arisen in the lap of the one nation — which had no enemy except those foreign countries themselves, and no concern except the common one of setting itself with united strength against their seductive craft and cunning — foreign countries, I say, knew how to present each of these States to the others as a natural enemy, against which each State must be perpetu- ally on its guard. On the other hand, they knew how to make themselves appear to the German States as natural allies against the danger threatening them from their own countrymen — as allies with whom alone they would themselves stand or fall, and whose enterprises they must in turn support with all their might. It was only be- cause of this artificial bond that all the disputes which might arise about any matter whatever in the Old World or the New became disputes of the German races in their relation to each other. Every war, no matter what its cause, had to be fought out on German soil and with German blood; every disturbance of the balance had to be adjusted in that nation to which the whole fountain- head of such relationships was unknown; and the German States, whose separate existence was in itself contrary to all nature and reason, were compelled, in order that they might count for something, to act as make-weights to the chief forces in the scale of the European equili- brium, whose movement they followed blindly and with- out any will of their own. Just as in many States abroad the citizens are designated as belonging to this or that foreign party, or voting for this or that foreign alliance, but no name is found for those who belong to the party of their own country, so it was with the Germans; for long enough they belonged only to some foreign party or other, and one seldom came across a man who sup- SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 229 ported the party of the Germans and was of the opinion that this country ought to make an alliance with itself.
202. This, then, is the true origin and meaning, this the result for Germany and for the world, of that notorious doctrine of a balance of power to be artificially main- tained between the European States. If Christian Europe had remained one, as it ought to be and as it originally was, there would never have been any occasion to think of such a thing. That which is one rests upon itself and supports itself, and does not split up into conflicting forces which must be brought to an equilibrium. Only when Europe became divided and without a law did the thought of a balance acquire a meaning from necessity. To this Europe, divided and without a law, Germany did not belong. If only Germany at any rate had remained one, it would have rested on itself in the centre of the civilized world like the sun in the centre of the universe; it would have kept itself at peace, and with itself the adjacent countries; and without any artificial measures it would have kept everything in equilibrium by the mere fact of its natural existence. It was only the deceit of foreign countries that dragged Germany into their own lawless- ness and their own disputes; it was they who taught Germany the treacherous notion of the balance of power, for they knew it to be one of the most effective means of deluding Germany as to its own true advantage and of keeping it in that state of delusion. This aim is now sufficiently attained, and the result that was intended is now complete before our eyes. Even if we cannot do away with this result, why should we not at any rate extirpate the source of it in our own understanding, which is now almost the only thing over which we still have sovereign power? Why should the old dream still be placed before our eyes, now that disaster has awakened us from 230 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION sleep? Why should we not now at any rate see the truth and perceive the only means that could have saved us? Perhaps our descendants may do what we see ought to be done, just as we now suffer because our fathers dreamed. Let us understand that the conception of an equilibrium to be artificially maintained might have been a consoling dream for foreign countries amid the guilt and evil that oppressed them; but that this conception, being an entirely foreign product, ought never to have taken root in the mind of a German, and that the Germans ought never to have been so situated that it could take root among them. Let us understand that now at any rate we must perceive the utter worthlessness of such a conception, and must see that the salvation of all is to be found, not in it, but solely in the unity of the Germans among themselves.
203. Just as foreign to the German is the freedom of the seas, which is so frequently preached in our days, whether what is intended be real freedom or merely the power to exclude everyone else from it. Throughout the course of centuries, while all other nations were in rivalry, the German showed little desire to participate in this freedom to any great extent, and he will never do so. Moreover, he is not in need of it. The abundant supplies of his own land, together with his own diligence, afford him all that is needed in the life of a civilized man; nor does he lack skill in the art of making his resources serve that purpose. As for acquiring the only true advantage that world-trade brings in its train, viz., the increase in scientific knowledge of the earth and its inhabitants, his own scientific spirit will not let him lack a means of exchange. O, if only his kindly fortune had preserved the German from indirect participation in the booty of other worlds, as it preserved him from direct participa- tion! If only we had not been led by our credulity, SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 231 and by the craving for a life as fine and as distinguished as that of other peoples, to make necessaries of the wares produced in foreign parts which we could do without; if only we had made conditions tolerable for our free fellow-citizen in regard to the wares we can less easily do without, instead of wishing to draw a profit from the sweat and blood of a poor slave across the seas! Then, at anv rate, we should not ourselves have furnished the pretext for our present fate; war would not have been waged against us as purchasers, nor would we have been ruined because we are a market-place. Almost ten years ago, before anyone could foresee what has since happened, the Germans were advised 1 to make themselves inde- pendent of world-trade, and 'to turn themselves into a closed commercial State. This proposal ran counter to our habits, and especially to our idolatrous veneration of coined metals; it was passionately attacked and thrust aside. Since then we have been learning, in dishonour and under the compulsion of a foreign power, to do without those things, and far more than those things, which we then protested we could not do with- out, though we might have done so then in freedom and with the greatest honour to ourselves. O, that we might seize this opportunity, since enjoyment at least is not corrupting us, to correct our ideas once for all! O, that we might at last see that all those swindling theories about world-trade and manufacturing for the world-market, though they suit the foreigner and form part of the weapons with which he has always made war on us, have no application to the Germans; and that, next to the unity of the Germans among themselves, their internal autonomy and commercial independence 1 [In 1800 by Fichte himself, in Der geschlossene Handelsstaat (The Closed Commercial State).]
232 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION form the second means for their salvation, and through them for the salvation of Europe!
204. Now, at last, let us be bold enough to look at the deceptive vision of a universal monarchy, which people are beginning to hold up for public veneration in place of that equilibrium which for some time has been growing more and more preposterous, and let us perceive how hateful and contrary to reason that vision is. Spiri- tual nature was able to present the essence of humanity in extremely diverse gradations in individuals and in individuality as a whole, in peoples. Only when each people, left to itself, develops and forms itself in accord- ance with its own peculiar quality, and only when in every people each individual develops himself in accord- ance with that common quality, as well as in accordance with his own peculiar quality — then, and then only, does the manifestation of divinity appear in its true mirror as it ought to be; and only a man who either entirely lacks the notion of the rule of law and divine order, or else is an obdurate enemy thereto, could take upon himself to want to interfere with that law, which is the highest law in the spiritual world. Only in the invisible qualities of nations, which are hidden from their own eyes — qualities as the means whereby these nations remain in touch with the source of original life — only therein is to be found the guarantee of their present and future worth, virtue, and merit.. If these qualities are dulled by admixture and worn away by friction, the flatness that results will bring about a separation from spiritual nature, and this in its turn will cause all men to be fused together to their uniform and conjoint destruction. As for the writers who console us for all our ills with the prospect that we, too, shall be subjects of the new universal monarchy that is beginning SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 233 — are we to believe them when they say that someone or other has decided upon such a grinding together of all the germs of what is human in humanity, in order to press the unresisting dough into some new form, and that so monstrous an act of brutality or enmity against the human race is possible in this age of ours? Even if, in the first place, we were willing to make up our minds to believe such an utterly incredible thing, the further question arises: By what instrument is such a plan to be carried out? What sort of people is it to be which, in the present state of European culture, shall conquer the world for some new universal monarch? For many centuries now the peoples of Europe have ceased to be savages or to rejoice in' destructive activity for its own sake. All men seek behind war a final peace, behind exertion rest, behind confusion order; and all men want to see their career crowned with the peace of a quiet and domestic life. For a time they may be made enthu- siastic for war even by the mere prospect of advantage to the nation; but when the call comes again and again in the same fashion, the delusion vanishes and with it the feverish strength it produced. The longing for peace and order returns, and the question arises: For what purpose am I doing and bearing all this? All these feelings a world-conqueror in our time would first have to stamp out; and, as the present age by its nature does not produce a race of savages, he would have to create one with deliberate art. But more would remain to be done. A man who has been -accustomed from youth upwards to cultivated and settled countries, to prosperity and order, finds pleasure in these things wherever he sees them, if he is but permitted to be at peace for a little while; for they represent to him the background of his own longing, which after all can never 234 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION be quite rooted out; and it is a source of pain to himself when he is obliged to destroy them. To offset this kindly feeling, so deeply implanted in man as a social being, and this grief and sorrow at the evils which the soldier brings upon the countries he conquers, a counterpoise must be found. There is no other than the lust for booty. If it becomes the soldier's dominating motive to acquire a fortune for himself, and if he becomes accus- tomed, when devastating flourishing countries, to think of nothing but what he may gain for himself from the general wretchedness, then it is to be expected that the feelings of sympathy and pity will become silent in him. In addition to that barbarous brutality, a world-con- queror of our time would have to train his people to coldblooded and deliberate lust for booty; he would not have to punish extortions, but rather to encourage them. Moreover, the disgrace that naturally adheres to such a thing would first of all have to be cleared away, and robbery would have to be looked upon as the honour- able sign of a superior mind; it would have to be reckoned among great deeds and pave the way to all dignities and honours. Where is there in modern Europe a nation so lacking in honour that it could be trained up in this way? Even supposing that a world-conqueror succeeded in reshaping a nation in this fashion; the very means he takes to do it will frustrate the attainment of his object. Such a people will thenceforward regard the human beings, the countries, and the works of art that they have acquired by conquest, as nothing more than a means of making money with all speed, so that they may move on and make more money. They will extort rapidly, and when they have sucked the juice out of a thing they will throw it away, regardless of what may happen to it; they will cut down the tree whose fruits they want to reach. For SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 235 a man who works with such tools as these all the arts of seduction, persuasion, and deception will be in vain. Only from a distance can such men deceive anyone; as soon as they are seen at close quarters, their brutal roughness and their shameless and insolent lust for booty will be obvious even to the feeblest mind; and the detestation of the whole human race will cry aloud upon them. With such tools as these one can indeed plunder and lay waste the earth, and grind it down to stupor and chaos, but one can never establish it as a universal monarchy.
205. The ideas we have mentioned, and all ideas of this kind, are products of a form of thinking which merely plays a game with itself and Sometimes, too, gets caught in its own cobwebs — a form of thinking which is unworthy of German thoroughness and earnestness. At best, some of these ideas, as, for example, that of a political equilibrium, are serviceable guiding-lines to enable one to find one's way about in the extensive and confused multiplicity of phenomena and to set it in order; but to believe that these things exist in nature, or to strive to realize them, is the same as to expect to find the poles, the meridians, and the tropics, by which our survey of the earth is guided, actually marked and indicated on the surface of the globe. May it become the custom in our nation, not merely to think idly and as it were experi- mentally, just to see what will come of it, but to think in such a way that what we think shall be true and have a real effect in life! Then it will be superfluous to warn people against such phantoms of a political wisdom whose origin is foreign and which only deludes the Germans.
This thoroughness, earnestness, and weightiness in our way of thinking, once we have made it our own, will show itself in our life as well. We are defeated; whether 236 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION we are now to be despised as well, and rightly despised, whether in addition to all other losses we are to lose our honour also — that will still depend on ourselves. The fight with weapons has ended; there arises now, if we so will it, the new fight of principles, of morals, of character.
206. Let us give our guests a picture of faithful devo- tion to friends and fatherland, of incorruptible uprightness and love of duty, of all civic and domestic virtues, to take home with them as a friendly gift from their hosts; for they will return home at last some time or other. Let us be careful not to invite them to despise us; there would, however, be no surer way for us to do this than if we either feared them beyond measure or gave up our own way of life and strove to resemble them in theirs. Be it far from us as individuals to be so unmannerly as to provoke or irritate individuals; but, as to the rest, our safest measure will be to go our own way in all things, as if we were alone with ourselves, and not to establish any relation that is not laid upon us by absolute neces- sity; and the surest means to this will be for each one to content himself with what the old national conditions are able to afford him, to take up his share of the common burden according to his powers, but to look upon any favour from foreigners as a disgrace and a dishonour. Unfortunately, it has become an almost general European custom, and therefore a German custom too, for people to prefer to descend to the level of others, rather than to appear what is called singular or noticeable, when the choice is open to them; indeed, the whole system of what are esteemed good manners may perhaps be regarded as based upon that one principle. Let us Germans at the present juncture offend rather against this code of manners than against something higher. Let us remain SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 237 as we are, even though that may be an offence of this kind; nay, let us become, if we can, even stronger and more determined, as we ought to be. It is the custom to tell us that we are sorely lacking in quickness and ease and grace, and that we grow too serious, too heavy, and too ponderous over everything. Let us not be in the least ashamed of this, but rather strive to deserve the accusa- tion more and more fully and to an ever greater extent. Let us connrm^ourselves in this resolve by the conviction, which is easily to be attained, that in spite of all the trouble we take, we shall never do right in the eyes of our accusers, unless we cease entirely to be ourselves, which is the same thing as ceasing to exist at all. There are certain peoples who, while preserving their own special characteristics and wishing to have them respected by others, yet recognize the special characteristics of other peoples, and permit and encourage their retention. To such peoples the Germans belong without a doubt; and this trait is so deeply marked in their whole life in the world, both past and present, that very often, in order to be just both to contemporary foreign countries and to antiquity, they have been unjust to themselves. Then there are other peoples, whose ego is so closely wrapped up in itself that it never allows them the freedom to detach themselves for the purpose of taking a cool and calm view of what is foreign to them, and who are there- fore compelled to believe that there is only one possible way of existence for a civilized human being, and that is always the way which some chance or other has indicated to them alone at the time; the rest of mankind all over the world have no other destiny, in their opinion, than to become just what thev are, and ought to be extremely grateful to them if they take upon themselves the trouble of moulding them in this way. Between peoples of the 238 ADDRESSES TO THE GERMAN NATION former type there takes place an interaction of culture and education which is most beneficial to the develop- ment of man as such, and an interpenetration which none the less allows each one, with the goodwill of the other, to remain its own self. Peoples of the latter type are unable to form anything, for they are unable to apprehend anything in its actual state of existence; they only want to destroy everything that exists and to create every- where, except in themselves, a void in which they can reproduce their own image and never anything else. Even their apparent acceptance of foreign ways when they begin is only gracious condescension on the part of the tutor to the still feeble but promising pupil. Even the figures of the ancient world that has come to an end do not please them, until they have clad them in their own garments; and they would call them from their graves, if they had the power, to train them after their own fashion. Far from me be the presumption of accusing any existing nation as a whole and without exception of such narrow-mindedness. Let us rather assume that here, too, those who express no opinion are the better sort. But if those who have appeared among us and expressed their opinions are to be judged by the opinions they have expressed, it seems to follow that they are to be placed in the class we have described. As such a statement appears to require proof, I adduce the following, passing over in silence the other manifestations of this spirit which are before the eyes of Europe. We have been at war with each other; as for us, we are defeated, and they are the victors; that is true, and is admitted; with that our opponents might doubtless be contented. But if anyone among us went on to maintain that never- theless we had had the just cause and deserved the victory, and that it was to be deplored that victory had not fallen SAME SUBJECT FURTHER CONSIDERED 239