Year: 1870

| A LETTER FROM DAVID STRAUSS.


The following translation of a remarkable letter
from the eminent German scholar David Strauss, to
Ernest Renan of the French Academy is now for the
first time published in English:


But who take pleasure in literary labor. and
especially labor for international peace, my life Of
yoltare was intended to be, at moment when the two
nations 10 whose union II was meant TO contribute stand
in arms against anotheri Rightly do you say that


this must the deepest distress to all those who
have strven for the intellectual association Of France
and Germany; rightly do you describe it calamity,
that again for long time to come injustice and
charitable Judgment will be the order OF the day between
the two members Of the European family whose SYM
pathy soindspensabldtO the work OF moral civilization
Rightly do you declare to be the duty Of every friend
OF Truth nd Justice, at the time that he unre


servedy fufls his national duty, t0preserve himself
free from that patriotism which is only party spirit,
which narrows the heart and peryerts the Judgment
You say that you had hoped that the might still be
exercised beschw6ren) We Germans had the same hope
in every since 1866 when seemed 70 threaten
yet in general have held war with France; as con-
sequence of the events OF that year. to be nevabsO


inevitable that here and there heard the question
asked with dissatisfaction: "Why did not Prussia de-
clare sooner for instance occasion OF the Lux
emburg affair, and bring things to an issue~ Not
that we wished for war; but we knew the French well
enough TO know that they would wish for war. 1t is
now as il was with the Seven Years War; the conse
quence Of the Sesian conquests OF Fred
erick the Great. Frederick did not desire
that war, but he knew that Maria
Theresa desired it, and would not rest till she had found
confederates established ascendency is not readily
renounced either by O monarch or people. They will
make efforts preserve 1t until 1t is decisvey taken
from them. So it with Austria so Is 1t now with
France both Of them against Prussia by whose side the
whole Of nonAustrian Germany, better instructed is
this time standing. Since the epoch OF Richeeu and
Louis XIV France has been accustomed TO play the first
role among European nations and in this claim she was
strengthened by Napoleon l. The claim was based on
her strong poltcOmilitary organization, and still more
the classical literature which, in the course OF the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had grown up in
France and made her language and her culture supreme


in the world But the immediate condition Of this SUI
premacy OF France the weakness of Germany ever
against France united, unanimous and quick to move,
divided, dscordant, and unweldy, Germany stood Yet
every nation has its me and II it il OF the right Sort
not time alone. Germany had had its time in the
sixteenth century in the age Of the Reformation. IL
had paid dearly for this pre9mnenee in the commissions
Of thirtyyears which threw back not only into
political feebleness, but into intellectual stagnation.
Yet things were far from having end with il.
1t saw its time again. 1t began its work that side
where France had fixed the roots, not indeed of its
power but OF its true right TO European ascendency 1t
fashioned itself in silence 1t produced lterature II
gave TO the world succession Of poets and thinkers
who TOOK their place ny the sde OF tne French casc OF
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries something
than equals. If In finish of cosmopolitan under
standing cultivation in clearness and eloquence,
they fell short Of the French in depth Of thought
much in strength Of feeling, they surpassed them.
The idea OF Humanity Of the harmonious cultivation Of
human nature In individual in common life, de-
yeloped In German literature In the last 20 years Of the
eighteenth and the first years of the present century


The result OF this that Germany the ntellec-
tuaieadersp of Europe, while France still maintained
its political ascendency though atterly in hard struggle
WIN England But the literary outburst OF Germany
was either frutess bloom, was destined 20 be fol


lowed by political regeneration In the time Of Napoeon


France had laid Germany PROSTATE before her the yoke
was thrown of In the War Of Liberation OF lsa-A Rut
the ground OF our powerlessness the want of potical
unity, not removed the contrary il the German
Empire had long been anything but shadow now even
the shadow had vanished. Germany had become n
motley aggregate OF greater and smaller independent
states. This Independence itself may have been mere
show but IT yet real enough to make all energetic


action OF the whole body impossible, while, the other
hand, the " Bundtsta0." which had To represent