There is much besides this to indicate that Carlyle's praise of Germany in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is anything but evidence that he would endorse Kultur and Schrecklichkeit. His fundamental teaching is that we must not be formal, rigidly logical, or addicted to any fixed method of thinking. The nature of things must be determined from their effects, and not from any external characteristics. The national attributes of any people are not permanent, but they are capable of wide variation, and much of his invective and striking metaphor was poured forth in an effort to prove that this variation is very largely a question of good or bad leadership. In sustaining this thesis he traces the history of Germany more completely than he does that of any other country; and he indicates several periods, notably that of the Thirty Years' War, and the reign of Frederick I, when Prussia, at least, was contemptible in its policies. France, too, he argues, has not always been the mischief-maker of Europe; for to him the French Revolution was a salutary outburst of the native integrity of the French people, to sweep away the intolerable hypocrisies and injustices of the Old Regime, and to improve not only French, but human society as well. * * * * * It is plain, therefore, that he did not affirm the Germans to be intrinsically good and the French intrinsically bad. His aim was to show that nations rise in proportion to the extent to which their purposes are just and their methods intelligent, and that they invariably fall if they deal unjustly with their own citizens or their neighbors. Sometimes he contrasted the French unfavorably with the Germans, as, for instance, when he says that the martial ardor of the French may be compared to blazing straw, while that of the Germans is more like the burning of anthracite coal. This, however, is due to his having, like a great many other people, an impression that the French are more likely to exhibit superficial and glittering qualities, while the Germans are conspicuous for the commonplace virtues of industry and thoroughness. Nothing was more insidious, in his opinion, than to prefer brilliancy to solid worth; and it was the danger of this preference he was emphasizing, more than the native depravity of the French national character, when he compared the Gallic temperament unfavorably with the Teutonic. III