Yet, although the idea does not lack advocates, this does not make it a dominant thought in European philosophy. In Germany, for instance, Eduard von Hartmann thinks very differently of the aim--of history. His published utterances on the subject are well known. In conversation he once hinted how his idea had originated in his mind: "It was clear to me long ago," he said, "that history, or, to use a wider expression, the world process, must have an aim, and that this aim could only be negative. For a golden age is too foolish a figment." Hence his visions of a destruction of the world voluntarily brought about by the most gifted men. And connected with this is his doctrine that humanity has now reached man's estate, that is, has passed the stage of development in which geniuses were necessary. In the face of all this talk of the world process, the aim of which is annihilation or deliverance--deliverance even of the suffering godhead from existence--Nietzsche takes a very sober and sensible stand with his simple belief that the goal of humanity is not to be infinitely deferred, but must be found in the highest examples of humanity itself. And herewith he has arrived at his final answer to the question, What is culture? For upon this relation depend the fundamental idea of culture and the duties culture imposes. It imposes on me the duty of associating myself by my own activity with the great human ideals. Its fundamental idea is this: it assigns to every individual who wishes to work for it and participate in it, the task of striving to produce, within and without himself, the thinker and artist, the lover of truth and beauty, the pure and good personality, and thereby striving for the perfection of Nature, towards the goal of a perfected Nature. When does a state of culture prevail? When the men of a community are steadily working for the production of single great men. From this highest aim all the others follow. And what state is farthest removed from a state of culture? That in which men energetically and with united forces resist the appearance of great men, partly by preventing the cultivation of the soil required for the growth of genius, partly by obstinately opposing everything in the shape of genius that appears amongst them. Such a state is more remote from culture than that of sheer barbarism.