The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-05-09

are the facts OF nature physical and
moral Next under the leadership Of
France. Europe went on to complete
the work which the English had begun,
OF making human reason supreme in
religion, politics, art.
Thus, then, in letters and thought we
see in successive sway over Europe
Italian humanism giving way to Span
ish dOgmatism, this enforcement of
English empiricism, and the latter
breaking down its practical limits and
merging into French rationalism.
The turn of Germany to lead and to
contribute came at last. The golden
age Of IT'S pTimacy extends in its broader
limits from the year 174S to about
1870, or more narrowly from about 1850
to 1925 The golden gift of German
literature, philosophy and science dur
ing this period to the modern world
is the idea Of organism. Synthesis, the
individual, spontaneity. development
cOmparisOn-these ate the terms where
in the Germans have led US 10 think
organism not mechanism.
If our rapid Introductory survey has
50 FAR seemed philOsophic, abstract it
has at least this justification, that du3-
ing all the period we are now GD-
preaching philosophy flOurished in Ger
many no less than poetry, and both
were there and then interrelated and
recipTOcally influential to a degree I'M
known at any other time or in any
other land.
That the great classical period of
modern German letters came so late
has its sufficient explanation in the
thirty years war-161S- 164S. This set
Germany back fully 200 years in COM
paTisOn with France and England The
Germany of the sixteenth century was
IN material prosperity and social re-
finement. probably superior to the Eng
land and the France of that age, and
the nation was essentially one in its in
tellectual culture.
The work eff repression and diss0u-
ton begun by the religious and DOliti-
cal reaction Of the second half of the
sixteenth century, was completed with
disastrous thOrOughness by the thirty
years war, which destroyed nearly all
the national forces of Germanx-ma-
terial, social, intellectual, moral 1t
may here suffice to state that not until
about the year 1850 did Germany again
possess the actual, absolute amount OF
capital and Of material prosperity
which existed before 1918, and that the
spiritual impoverishment Of the sec
Ond half of the seventeenth century
was scarcely less in degree than the
material exhaustion thus proved. Ger
man literature of the early sixteen tn
century had been essentially national.
popular, original. A little more than a
century later the thread of historical
continuity had been severed. the Wild
est possible gulf opened between the
people and what there then was Of lit
erature. and this itself had come to be
ILL.,
In short, while the material and spir-
itual growth of England and France
had been and continued to be steadily
progressive. it was as if Germany right
after 1913 had TO recreate both ma
ti0nality and literature. This was in
deed a stupendous task, the accom-
plishment OF which is not the least in
teresting part of modern history
The details of the slow and unim-
pFessiVe foundation laying that lasted
for more than century we must here
leave unconsidered, passing at once to
the middle of the eighteenth century
when there appeared The immediate
beginnings of modern German litera-
ture. Goethe has written: The first
real living content, true and high. came
into German literature through Fred
erick the Great and the deeds Of the
seven years war" That is to say. as
the causes and results of the thirty
years war had drained the deadened
national life and literature. So now
the causes and results of the sever
years war 0756-63) brought vital en-
ergy in Astounding measure 10 both
and the outcome in the latter was the
golden age Of German literature.
The characteristic writer's Of the age
may be conveniently divided into three
main groups, which follow one an
other at the intervals of about twenty
years To the first group belong Xlop-
stock, Wisland, leasing, Winckelmann
Kant, Moses, Mendelssohn. With the
exception Of Kant their influence was
exerted BY works published between
the years 1850 and 1870. In the second
group are Herder. Goethe. Schiller