My
mother never ordered me to do a thing. The relations between my
ecclesiastical teachers and myself were entirely free and spontaneous.
Whoever has had experience of this _rationabile obsequium_ cannot put
up with any other. An order is a humiliation whosoever has to obey is
a _capitis minor_ sullied on the very threshold of the higher life.
Ecclesiastical obedience has nothing lowering about it; for it is
voluntary, and those who do not get on together can separate. In one
of my Utopian dreams of an aristocratic society, I have provided that
there should only be one penalty, death; or rather, that all serious
offences should be visited by a reprimand from the recognised
authorities which no man of honour would survive. I should never have
done to be a soldier, for I should either have deserted or committed
suicide. I am afraid that the new military institutions which do
not leave a place for any exceptions or equivalents will have a very
lowering moral effect. To compel every one to obey is fatal to genius
and talent. The man who has passed years in the carriage of arms after
the German fashion is dead to all delicate work whether of the hand or
brain. Thus it is that Germany would be devoid of all talent since she
has been engrossed in military pursuits, but for the Jews, to whom she
is so ungrateful.
The generation which was from fifteen to twenty years of age, at the
brilliant but fleeting epoch of which I am speaking, is now between
fifty-five and sixty.
Pages:
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154