Such a rule is surely the maddest article of war ever
framed, and to people to whom nature has assigned a large volume of
intestines, must appear, no doubt, horrible; but yet has it not an
audacious, sparkling, immaterial manner with it, which lifts one out
of routine, and sets one's spirits in a glow?
All tendencies of human nature are in themselves vital and
profitable; when they are blamed, they are only to be blamed
relatively, not absolutely. This holds true of the Saxon's phlegm as
well as of the Celt's sentiment. Out of the steady humdrum habit of
the creeping Saxon, as the Celt calls him,--out of his way of going
near the ground,--has come, no doubt, Philistinism, that plant of
essentially Germanic growth, flourishing with its genuine marks only
in the German fatherland, Great Britain and her colonies, and the
United States of America; but what a soul of goodness there is in
Philistinism itself! and this soul of goodness I, who am often
supposed to be Philistinism's mortal enemy merely because I do not
wish it to have things all its own way, cherish as much as anybody.
This steady-going habit leads at last, as I have said, up to science,
up to the comprehension and interpretation of the world. With us in
Great Britain, it is true, it does not seem to lead so far as that;
it is in Germany, where the habit is more unmixed, that it can lead
to science.
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