This weakness of will was indeed no new failing of the educated German. It was the two hundred years' malady of a people which had no participation in the State, and, from its natural disposition, was not carried away by the impulse of passion, but composedly deliberates on action, and is seldom prevented by vehement excitement from forming a moderate judgment. But in the first part of our century their old weakness became particularly striking amidst these rich treasures of knowledge. Oftener than formerly did the originality of a foreign form of life produce an overpowerful influence on them. Instead of withstanding some mighty influence, it might be that of Metternich, Byron, or Eugene Sue, popery, socialism, or Polish patriotism, being foreign, they yielded to its prestige, their own judgment being vacillating and uncertain. Though it was easy for the best amongst them to talk cleverly upon the most dissimilar subjects, it was difficult for them to act consistently. This malady seized almost all the intellectual portion of the people. The salons became _blase_, authors sensational, statesmen without fixed purpose, and officials without energy: these were all different forms of the same disease. It was everywhere destructive, nowhere more than in Prussia; it gave to this State a specially helpless, nay, even hoary aspect, that was in striking contrast to the respectable capacity which was not lost in the smaller circles of the people. But healing came, by degrees, and again in a circuitous way, sometimes bounding forwards, and then retrograding; but, on the whole, since 1830, in continual progress.