7. We are still child-like in our inmost feelings, innocent in our
pleasures, simple in our inclinations, in spite of individual
aberrations; we are still prolific, and our race multiplies, so that
our own soil has long been insufficient to support us all. It is
therefore doubly imperative for us to remain heroes, for who knows
whether the Germanic migrations are destined to remain isolated
phenomena in history! The peoples around us are either overripe fruits
which the next storm may bring to the ground, such as the Turks,
Greeks, Spaniards, Portuguese, and a great part of the Slavs; or they
are, indeed, proud of their race, but senile and artificial in their
Kultur, slow in their increase and boundless in their ambition, like
the French; or, confident in the unassailability of their country,
like the English and the Americans, they have forgotten justice and
made their selfishness the measure of all things. Who knows whether we
Germans are not the rod predestined for the chastening of these
degeneracies, who knows whether we may not again, like our fathers in
dim antiquity, have to gird on our swords and go forth to seek
dwelling-places for our increase?--F. LANGE, R.D., p. 159 (1893).
8. We are distinguished from other nations by our honourable love for
outspoken convictions, which would make a cut-and-dried party system
distasteful to us.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p. 148.
9. The surest means of serving the ends of humanity is to work at the
elaboration of our national personality, and to develop the full
strength of its crystalline radiance.--F. BLEY, W.D.D., p. 23.
10. We have forced ourselves, though the last-comers, the virtual
upstarts, between the States which have earlier gained their place, and
now claim our share in the dominion of the world, after we have for
centuries been paramount only in the realm of the intellect.--GENERAL
v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 13.
11. Why must teachers and schoolboys, year out, year in, worry about
the old Greeks and Romans? To foster idealism in the young, we are
told! But for that there is no need to go to Rome and Athens. Our
German history offers us ideals enough, and is richer in deeds of
heroism than Rome and Athens put together.--GENERAL KEIM, at meeting
of the German Defence League, Cassel, Feb., 1913; NIPPOLD, D.C., p.
82.
12. History teaches us that supreme treasure of humanity, German
idealism, can be preserved only in the stout bark of national
development.--F. BLEY, W.D.D., p. 23.
_On Idealism, see also Nos. 45, 276, 442, 464._
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