Part 4 of 4
V I now proceed to the last part of my treatment of Hegelianism, to the analysis of the dependence of the new tribalism or totalitarianism upon the doctrines of Hegel.
If it were my aim to write a history of the rise of totalitarianism, I should have to deal with Marxism first; for fascism grew partly out of the spiritual and political breakdown of Marxism. (And, as we shall see, a similar statement may be made about the relationship between Leninism and Marxism.) Since my main issue, however, is historicism, I propose to deal with Marxism later, as the purest form of historicism that has so far arisen, and to tackle fascism first.
Modern totalitarianism is only an episode within the perennial revolt against freedom and reason. From older episodes it is distinguished not so much by its ideology, as by the fact that its leaders succeeded in realizing one of the boldest dreams of their predecessors; they made the revolt against freedom a popular movement. (Its popularity, of course, must not be overrated; the intelligentsia are only a part of the people.) It was made possible only by the breakdown, in the countries concerned, of another popular movement. Social Democracy or the democratic version of Marxism, which in the minds of the working people stood for the ideas of freedom and equality. When it became obvious that it was not just by chance that this movement had failed in 1914 to make a determined stand against war; when it became clear that it was helpless to cope with the problems of peace, most of all with unemployment and economic depression; and when, at last, this movement defended itself only half- heartedly against fascist aggression, then the belief in the value of freedom and in the possibility of equality was seriously threatened, and the perennial revolt against freedom could by hook or by crook acquire a more or less popular backing. The fact that fascism had to take over part of the heritage of Marxism accounts for the one 'original' feature of fascist ideology, for the one point in which it deviates from the traditional make-up of the revolt against freedom. The point I have in mind is that fascism has not much use for an open appeal to the supernatural. Not that it is necessarily atheistic or lacking in mystical or religious elements. But the spread of agnosticism through Marxism led to a situation in which no political creed aiming at popularity among the working class could bind itself to any of the traditional religious forms. This is why fascism added to its official ideology, in its early stages at least, some admixture of nineteenth-century evolutionist materialism.
Thus the formula of the fascist brew is in all countries the same: Hegel plus a dash of nineteenth-century materialism (especially Darwinism in the somewhat crude form given to it by Haeckel [65]). The 'scientific' element in racialism can be traced back to Haeckel, who was responsible, in 1900, for a prize-competition whose subject was: 'What can we learn from the principles of Darwinism in respect of the internal and political development of a state?' The first prize was allotted to a voluminous racialist work by W. Schallmeyer, who thus became the grandfather of racial biology. It is interesting to observe how strongly this materialist racialism, despite its very different origin, resembles the naturalism of Plato. In both cases, the basic idea is that degeneration, particularly of the upper classes, is at the root of political decay (read: of the advance of the open society). Moreover, the modern myth of Blood and Soil has its exact counterpart in Plato's Myth of the Earthborn. Nevertheless, not 'Hegel + Plato', but 'Hegel + Haeckel' is the formula of modern racialism. As we shall see, Marx replaced Hegel's 'Spirit' by matter, and by material and economic interests. In the same way, racialism substitutes for Hegel's 'Spirit' something material, the quasi-biological conception of Blood or Race. Instead of 'Spirit', Blood is the self-developing essence; instead of 'Spirit', Blood is the Sovereign of the world, and displays itself on the Stage of History; and instead of its 'Spirit', the Blood of a nation determines its essential destiny.
The transubstantiation of Hegelianism into racialism or of Spirit into Blood does not greatly alter the main tendency of Hegelianism. It only gives it a tinge of biology and of modern evolutionism. The outcome is a materialistic and at the same time mystical religion of a self-developing biological essence, very closely reminiscent of the religion of creative evolution (whose prophet was the Hegelian [66] Bergson), a religion which G. B. Shaw, more prophetically than profoundly, once characterized as 'a faith which complied with the first condition of all religions that have ever taken hold of humanity: namely, that it must be ... a meta-biology. And indeed, this new religion of racialism clearly shows a meta- component and a biology-component, as it were, or Hegelian mystical metaphysics and Haeckelian materialist biology. So much about the difference between modern totalitarianism and Hegelianism. In spite of its significance from the point of view of popularity, this difference is unimportant so far as their main political tendencies are concerned. But if we now turn to the similarities, then we get another picture.
Nearly all the more important ideas of modern totalitarianism are directly inherited from Hegel, who collected and preserved what A. Zimmern calls [67] the 'armoury of weapons for authoritarian movements'. Although most of these weapons were not forged by Hegel himself, but discovered by him in the various ancient war treasuries of the perennial revolt against freedom, it is undoubtedly his effort which rediscovered them and placed them in the hands of his modern followers. Here is a brief list of some of the most precious of these ideas. (I omit Platonic totalitarianism and tribalism, which have already been discussed, as well as the theory of master and slave.)
(a) Nationalism, in the form of the historicist idea that the state is the incarnation of the Spirit (or now, of the Blood) of the state-creating nation (or race); one chosen nation (now, the chosen race) is destined for world domination, (b) The state as the natural enemy of all other states must assert its existence in war. (c) The state is exempt from any kind of moral obligation; history, that is, historical success, is the sole judge; collective utility is the sole principle of personal conduct; propagandist lying and distortion of the truth is permissible, (d) The 'ethical' idea of war (total and collectivist), particularly of young nations against older ones; war, fate and fame as most desirable goods, (e) The creative role of the Great Man, the world-historical personality, the man of deep knowledge and great passion (now, the principle of leadership). (f) The ideal of the heroic life ('live dangerously') and of the 'heroic man' as opposed to the petty bourgeois and his life of shallow mediocrity. This list of spiritual treasures is neither systematic nor complete. All of them are part and parcel of an old patrimony. And they were stored up, and made ready for use, not only in the works of Hegel and his followers, but also in the minds of an intelligentsia fed exclusively for three long generations on such debased spiritual food, early recognized by Schopenhauer [68] as an 'intelligence-destroying pseudo-philosophy' and as a 'mischievous and criminal misuse of language'.
I now proceed to a more detailed examination of the various points in this list.
(a) According to modern totalitarian doctrines, the state as such is not the highest end. This is, rather, the Blood, and the People, the Race. The higher races possess the power to create states. The highest aim of a race or nation is to form a mighty state which can serve as a powerful instrument of its self-preservation. This teaching (but for the substitution of Blood for Spirit) is due to Hegel, who wrote [69]: 'In the existence of a Nation, the substantial aim is to be a State and preserve itself as such. A Nation that has not formed itself into a State — a mere Nation — has strictly speaking no history, like the Nations ... which existed in a condition of savagery. What happens to a Nation ... has its essential significance in relation to the State.' The state which is thus formed is to be totalitarian, that is to say, its might must permeate and control the whole life of the people in all its functions: 'The State is therefore the basis and centre of all the concrete elements in the life of a people: of Art, Law, Morals, Religion, and Science . . . The substance that . . . exists in that concrete reality which is the state, is the Spirit of the People itself. The actual State is animated by this Spirit in all its particular affairs, in its Wars, Institutions, etc.' Since the state must be powerful, it must contest the powers of other states. It must assert itself on the 'Stage of History', must prove its peculiar essence or Spirit and its 'strictly defined' national character by its historical deeds, and must ultimately aim at world domination. Here is an outline of this historicist essentialism in Hegel's words: 'The very essence of Spirit is activity; it actualizes its potentiality, and makes itself its own deed, its own work . . . Thus it is with the Spirit of a Nation; it is a Spirit having strictly defined characteristics which exist and persist ... in the events and transitions that make up its history. That is its work — that is what this particular Nation is. Nations are what their deeds are ... A Nation is moral, virtuous, vigorous, as long as it is engaged in realizing its grand objects . . . The constitutions under which World-Historical Peoples have reached their culminations are peculiar to them ... Therefore, from ... the political institutions of the ancient World-Historical Peoples, nothing can be learned . . . Each particular National Genius is to be treated as only One Individual in the process of Universal History.' The Spirit or National Genius must finally prove itself in World-Domination: 'The self- consciousness of a particular Nation ... is the objective actuality in which the Spirit of the Time invests its Will. Against this absolute Will the other particular national minds have no rights: that Nation dominates the World . . . '
But Hegel not only developed the historical and totalitarian theory of nationalism, he also clearly foresaw the psychological possibilities of nationalism. He saw that nationalism answers a need — the desire of men to find and to know their definite place in the world, and to belong to a powerful collective body. At the same time he exhibits that remarkable characteristic of German nationalism, its strongly developed feelings of inferiority (to use a more recent terminology), especially towards the English. And he consciously appeals, with his nationalism or tribalism, to those feelings which I have described (in chapter 10) as the strain of civilization: 'Every Englishman', Hegel writes [70], 'will say: We are the men who navigate the ocean, and who have the commerce of the world; to whom the East Indies belong and their riches ... The relation of the individual man to that Spirit is . . . that it . . . enables him to have a definite place in the world — to be something. For he finds in ... the people to which he belongs an already established, firm world . . . with which he has to incorporate himself. In this its work, and therefore its world, the Spirit of the people enjoys its existence and finds satisfaction.' (b) A theory common to both Hegel and his racialist followers is that the state by its very essence can exist only through its contrast to other individual states. H. Freyer, one of the leading sociologists of present-day Germany, writes [71]: 'A being that draws itself round its own core creates, even unintentionally, the boundary-line. And the frontier — even though it be unintentionally — creates the enemy.' Similarly Hegel: 'Just as the individual is not a real person unless related to other persons so the State is no real individuality unless related to other States . . . The relation of one particular State to another presents . . . the most shifting play of . . . passions, interests, aims, talents, virtues, power, injustice, vice, and mere external chance. It is a play in which even the Ethical Whole, the Independence of the State, is exposed to accident.' Should we not, therefore, attempt to regulate this unfortunate state of affairs by adopting Kant's plans for the establishment of eternal peace by means of a federal union? Certainly not, says Hegel, commenting on Kant's plan for peace: 'Kant proposed an alliance of princes', Hegel says rather inexactly (for Kant proposed a federation of what we now call democratic states), 'which should settle the controversies of States; and the Holy Alliance probably aspired to be an institution of this kind. The State, however, is an individual; and in individuality, negation is essentially contained. A number of States may constitute themselves into a family, but this confederation, as an individuality, must create opposition and so beget an enemy.' For in Hegel's dialectics, negation equals limitation, and therefore means not only the boundary-line, the frontier, but also the creation of an opposition, of an enemy: 'The fortunes and deeds of States in their relation to one another reveal the dialectic of the finite nature of these Spirits.' These quotations are taken from the Philosophy of Law, yet in his earlier Encyclopedia, Hegel's theory anticipates the modern theories, for instance that of Freyer, even more closely: 'The final aspect of the State is to appear in immediate actuality as a single nation ... As a single individual it is exclusive of other like individuals. In their mutual relations, waywardness and chance have a place . . . This independency . . . reduces disputes between them to terms of mutual violence, to a state of war ... It is this state of war in which the omnipotence of the State manifests itself ...'
Thus the Prussian historian Treitschke only shows how well he understands Hegelian dialectic essentialism when he repeats: 'War is not only a practical necessity, it is also a theoretical necessity, an exigency of logic. The concept of the State implies the concept of war, for the essence of the State is Power. The State is the People organized in sovereign Power. '
(c) The State is the Law, the moral law as well as the juridical law. Thus it cannot be subject to any other standard, and especially not to the yardstick of civil morality. Its historical responsibilities are deeper. Its only judge is the History of the World. The only possible standard of a judgement upon the state is the world historical success of its actions. And this success, the power and expansion of the state, must overrule all other considerations in the private life of the citizens; right is what serves the might of the state. This is the theory of Plato; it is the theory of modern totalitarianism; and it is the theory of Hegel: it is the Platonic- Prussian morality. 'The State', Hegel writes [72], 'is the realization of the ethical Idea. It is the ethical Spirit as revealed, self-conscious, substantial Will.' Consequently, there can be no ethical idea above the state. 'When the particular Wills of the States can come to no agreement, their controversy can be decided only by war. What offence shall be regarded as a breach of treaty, or as a violation of respect and honour, must remain indefinite . . . The State may identify its infinitude and honour with every one of its aspects.' For '... the relation among States fluctuates, and no judge exists to adjust their differences.' In other words: 'Against the State there is no power to decide what is . . . right . . . States . . . may enter into mutual agreements, but they are, at the same time, superior to these agreements' (i.e. they need not keep them)... 'Treaties between states ... depend ultimately on the particular sovereign wills, and for that reason, they must remain unreliable.'
Thus only one kind of 'judgement' can be passed on World-Historical deeds and events: their result, their success. Hegel can therefore identify [73] 'the essential destiny — the absolute aim, or, what amounts to the same — the true result of the World's History'. To be successful, that is, to emerge as the strongest from the dialectical struggle of the different National Spirits for power, for world-domination, is thus the only and ultimate aim and the only basis of judgement; or as Hegel puts it more poetically: 'Out of this dialectic rises the universal Spirit, the unlimited World-Spirit, pronouncing its judgement — and its judgement is the highest — upon the finite Nations of the World's History; for the History of the World is the World's court of justice.'
Freyer has very similar ideas, but he expresses them more frankly [74]: 'A manly, a bold tone prevails in history. He who has the grip has the booty. He who makes a faulty move is done for ... he who wishes to hit his mark must know how to shoot.' But all these ideas are, in the last instance, only repetitions of Heraclitus: 'War ... proves some to be gods and others to be mere men, by turning the latter into slaves and the former into masters .... War is just.' According to these theories, there can be no moral difference between a war in which we are attacked, and one in which we attack our neighbours; the only possible difference is success. F. Haiser, author of the book Slavery: Its Biological Foundation and Moral Justification (1923), a prophet of a master race and of a master morality, argues: 'If we are to defend ourselves, then there must also be aggressors . . . ; if so, why then should we not be the aggressors ourselves?' But even this doctrine (its predecessor is Clausewitz's famous doctrine that an attack is always the most effective defence) is Hegelian; for Hegel, when speaking about offences that lead to war, not only shows the necessity for a 'war of defence' to turn into a 'war of conquest', but he informs us that some states which have a strong individuality 'will naturally be more inclined to irritability', in order to find an occasion and a field for what he euphemistically calls 'intense activity'.
With the establishment of historical success as the sole judge in matters relating to states or nations, and with the attempt to break down such moral distinctions as those between attack and defence, it becomes necessary to argue against the morality of conscience. Hegel does it by establishing what he calls 'true morality or rather social virtue' in opposition to 'false morality'. Needless to say, this 'true morality' is the Platonic totalitarian morality, combined with a dose of historicism, while the 'false morality' which he also describes as 'mere formal rectitude' is that of personal conscience. 'We may fairly', Hegel writes [75], 'establish the true principles of morality, or rather of social virtue, in opposition to false morality; for the History of the World occupies a higher ground than that morality which is personal in character — the conscience of individuals, their particular will and mode of action . . . What the absolute aim of Spirit requires and accomplishes, what Providence does, transcends . . . the imputation of good and bad motives . . . Consequently it is only formal rectitude, deserted by the living Spirit and by God, which those who take their stand upon ancient right and order maintain. ' (That is to say, the moralists who refer, for example, to the New Testament.) 'The deeds of Great Men, of the Personalities of World History, ... must not be brought into collision with irrelevant moral claims. The Litany of private virtues, of modesty, humility, philanthropy, and forbearance, must not be raised against them. The History of the World can, in principle, entirely ignore the circle within which morality ... lies.' Here, at last, we have the perversion of the third of the ideas of 1789, that of fraternity, or, as Hegel says, of philanthropy, together with the ethics of conscience. This Platonic-Hegelian historicist moral theory has been repeated over and over again. The famous historian E. Meyer, for example, speaks of the 'flat and moralizing evaluation, which judges great political undertakings with the yardstick of civil morality, ignoring the deeper, the truly moral factors of the State and of historical responsibilities'. When such views are held, then all hesitation regarding propagandist lying and distortion of the truth must disappear, particularly if it is successful in furthering the power of the state. Hegel's approach to this problem, however, is rather subtle: 'A great mind has publicly raised the question', he writes [76], 'whether it is permissible to deceive the People. The answer is that the People will not permit themselves to be deceived concerning their substantial basis' (F. Haiser, the master moralist, says: 'no error is possible where the racial soul dictates') 'but it deceives itself, Hegel continues, 'about the way it knows this ... Public opinion deserves therefore to be esteemed as much as to be despised . . . Thus to be independent of public opinion is the first condition of achieving anything great . . . And great achievements are certain to be subsequently recognized and accepted by public opinion ...' In brief, it is always success that counts. If the lie was successful, then it was no lie, since the People were not deceived concerning their substantial basis.
(d) We have seen that the State, particularly in its relation to other states, is exempt from morality — it is a-moral. We may therefore expect to hear that war is not a moral evil, but morally neutral. However, Hegel's theory defies this expectation; it implies that war is good in itself.
'There is an ethical element in war', we read [77]. 'It is necessary to recognize that the Finite, such as property and life, is accidental. This necessity appears first under the form of a force of nature, for all things finite are mortal and transient. In the ethical order, in the State, however, . . . this necessity is exalted to a work of freedom, to an ethical law . . . War ... now becomes an element ... of ... right ... War has the deep meaning that by it the ethical health of a nation is preserved and their finite aims uprooted ... War protects the people from the corruption which an everlasting peace would bring upon it. History shows phases which illustrate how successful wars have checked internal unrest .... These Nations, torn by internal strife, win peace at home as a result of war abroad.' This passage, taken from the Philosophy of Law, shows the influence of Plato's and Aristotle's teaching on the 'dangers of prosperity'; at the same time, the passage is a good instance of the identification of the moral with the healthy, of ethics with political hygiene, or of right with might; this leads directly, as will be seen, to the identification of virtue and vigour, as the following passage from Hegel's Philosophy of History shows. (It follows immediately after the passage already mentioned, dealing with nationalism as a means of getting over one's feelings of inferiority, and thereby suggests that even a war can be an appropriate means to that noble end.) At the same time, the modern theory of the virtuous aggressiveness of the young or have-not countries against the wicked old possessor countries is clearly implied. 'A Nation', Hegel writes, 'is moral, virtuous, vigorous while it is engaged in realizing its grand objects ... But this having been attained, the activity displayed by the Spirit of the People ... is no longer needed . . . The Nation can still accomplish much in war and peace . . . but the living substantial soul itself may be said to have ceased its activity . . . The Nation lives the same kind of life as the individual when passing from maturity to old age . . . This mere customary life (the watch wound up and going of itself) is that which brings on natural death ... Thus perish individuals, thus perish peoples by a natural death ... A people can only die a violent death when it has become naturally dead in itself.' (The last remarks belong to the decline-and-fall tradition.)
Hegel's ideas on war are surprisingly modern; he even visualizes the moral consequences of mechanization; or rather, he sees in mechanical warfare the consequences of the ethical Spirit of totalitarianism or collectivism [78]: 'There are different kinds of bravery. The courage of the animal, or the robber, the bravery that arises from a sense of honour, chivalrous bravery, are not yet the true forms of bravery.
In civilized nations true bravery consists in the readiness to give oneself wholly to the service of the State so that the individual counts but as one among many.' (An allusion to universal conscription.) 'Not personal valour is significant; the important aspect lies in self-subordination to the universal. This higher form causes . . . bravery to appear more mechanical ... Hostility is directed not against separate individuals, but against a hostile whole' (here we have an anticipation of the principle of total war); personal valour appears as impersonal. This principle has caused the invention of the gun; it is not a chance invention ...' In a similar vein, Hegel says of the invention of gunpowder: 'Humanity needed it, and it made its appearance forthwith.' (How kind of Providence!)
It is thus purest Hegelianism when the philosopher E. Kaufmann, in 1911, argues against the Kantian ideal of a community of free men: 'Not a community of men of free will but a victorious war is the social ideal ... it is in war that the State displays its true nature' [79]; or when E. Banse, the famous 'military scientist', writes in 1933: 'War means the highest intensification ... of all spiritual energies of an age ... it means the utmost effort of the people's Spiritual power ... Spirit and Action linked together. Indeed, war provides the basis on which the human soul may manifest itself at its fullest height . . . Nowhere else can the Will ... of the Race ... rise into being thus integrally as in war.' And General Ludendorff continues in 1935: 'During the years of the so-called peace, politics ... have only a meaning inasmuch as they prepare for total war.' He thus only formulates more precisely an idea voiced by the famous essentialist philosopher Max Scheler in 1915: 'War means the State in its most actual growth and rise: it means politics.' The same Hegelian doctrine is reformulated by Freyer in 1935: 'The State, from the first moment of its existence, takes its stand in the sphere of war . . . War is not only the most perfect form of State activity, it is the very element in which the State is embedded; war delayed, prevented, disguised, avoided, must of course be included in the term.' But the boldest conclusion is drawn by F. Lenz, who, in his book The Race as the Principle of Value, tentatively raises the question: 'But if humanity were to be the goal of morality, then have not we, after all, taken the wrong side?' and who, of course, immediately dispels this absurd suggestion by replying: 'Far be it from us to think that humanity should condemn war: nay, it is war that condemns humanity.' This idea is linked up with historicism by E. Jung, who remarks: 'Humanitarianism, or the idea of mankind ... is no regulator of history.'
But it was Hegel's predecessor, Fichte, called by Schopenhauer the 'wind-bag', who must be credited with the original anti-humanitarian argument. Speaking of the word 'humanity', Fichte wrote: 'If one had presented, to the German, instead of the Roman word "humaneness'' its proper translation, the word "manhood", then ... he would have said: "It is after all not so very much to be a man instead of a wild beast!" This is how a German would have spoken — in a manner which would have been impossible for a Roman. For in the German language, "manhood" has remained a merely phenomenal notion; it has never become a super-phenomenal idea, as it did among the Romans. Whoever might attempt to smuggle, cunningly, this alien Roman symbol' (viz., the word 'humaneness') 'into the language of the Germans, would thereby manifestly debase their ethical standards ...' Fichte's doctrine is repeated by Spengler, who writes: 'Manhood is either a zoological expression or an empty word'; and also by Rosenberg, who writes: 'Man's inner life became debased when ... an alien motive was impressed upon his mind: salvation, humanitarianism, and the culture of humanity.' Kolnai, to whose book I am deeply indebted for a great deal of material to which I would otherwise have had no access, says [80] most strikingly: 'All of us ... who stand for ... rational, civilized methods of government and social organization, agree that war is in itself an evil . . . ' Adding that in the opinion of most of us (except the pacifists) it might become, under certain circumstances, a necessary evil, he continues: 'The nationalist attitude is different, though it need not imply a desire for perpetual or frequent warfare. It sees in a war a good rather than an evil, even if it be a dangerous good, like an exceedingly heady wine that is best reserved for rare occasions of high festivity.' War is not a common and abundant evil but a precious though rare good: — this sums up the views of Hegel and of his followers.
One of Hegel's feats was the revival of the Heraclitean idea of fate; and he insisted [81] that this glorious Greek idea of fate as expressive of the essence of a person, or of a nation, is opposed to the nominalist Jewish idea of universal laws, whether of nature, or of morals.
The essentialist doctrine of fate can be derived (as shown in the last chapter) from the view that the essence of a nation can reveal itself only in its history. It is not 'fatalistic' in the sense that it encourages inactivity; 'destiny' is not to be identified with 'predestination'. The opposite is the case. Oneself, one's real essence, one's innermost soul, the stuff one is made of (will and passion rather than reason) are of decisive importance in the formation of one's fate. Since Hegel's amplification of this theory, the idea of fate or destiny has become a favourite obsession, as it were, of the revolt against freedom. Kolnai rightly stresses the connection between racialism (it is fate that makes one a member of one's race) and hostility to freedom: 'The principle of Race', Kolnai says [82], 'is meant to embody and express the utter negation of human freedom, the denial of equal rights, a challenge in the face of mankind.' And he rightly insists that racialism tends 'to oppose Liberty by Fate, individual consciousness by the compelling urge of the Blood beyond control and argument'. Even this tendency is expressed by Hegel, although as usual in a somewhat obscure manner: 'What we call principle, aim, destiny, or the nature or idea of Spirit', Hegel writes, 'is a hidden, undeveloped essence, which as such — however true in itself — is not completely real ... The motive power that ... gives them ... existence is the need, instinct, inclination and passion of men.' The modern philosopher of total education, E. Krieck, goes further in the direction of fatalism: 'All rational will and activity of the individual is confined to his everyday life; beyond this range he can only achieve a higher destiny and fulfilment in so far as he is gripped by superior powers of fate.' It sounds like personal experience when he continues: 'Not through his own rational scheming will he be made a creative and relevant being, only through forces that work above and beneath him, that do not originate in his own self but sweep and work their way through his self . . . ' (But it is an unwarranted generalization of the most intimate personal experiences when the same philosopher thinks that not only 'the epoch of "objective" or "free" science is ended', but also that of 'pure reason'.)
Together with the idea of fate, its counterpart, that of fame is also revived by Hegel:
'Individuals ... are instruments ... What they personally gain ... through the individual share they take in the substantial business (prepared and appointed independently of them) is ... Fame, which is their reward.' [83] And Stapel, a propagator of the new paganized Christianity, promptly repeats: 'All great deeds were done for the sake of fame or glory.' But this 'Christian' moralist is even more radical than Hegel: 'Metaphysical glory is the one true morality', he teaches, and the 'Categorical Imperative' of this one true morality runs accordingly: 'Do such deeds as spell glory!'
(e) Yet glory cannot be acquired by everybody; the religion of glory implies anti-equalitarianism — it implies a religion of 'Great Men'. Modern racialism accordingly 'knows no equality between souls, no equality between men' [84] (Rosenberg). Thus there are no obstacles to adopting the Leader Principle from the arsenal of the perennial revolt against freedom, or as Hegel calls it, the idea of the World Historical Personality. This Idea is one of Hegel's favourite themes. In discussing the blasphemous 'question whether it is permissible to deceive a people' (see above), he says: 'In public opinion all is false and true, but to discover the truth in it is the business of the Great Man. The Great Man of his time is he who expresses the will of his time; who tells his time what it wills; and who carries it out. He acts according to the inner Spirit and Essence of his time, which he realizes. And he who does not understand how to despise public opinion, as it makes itself heard here and there, will never accomplish anything great.' This excellent description of the Leader — the Great Dictator — as a publicist is combined with an elaborate myth of the Greatness of the Great Man, that consists in his being the foremost instrument of the Spirit in history. In this discussion of 'Historical Men — World Historical Individuals' Hegel says: 'They were practical, political men. But at the same time they were thinking men, who had an insight into the requirements of the time — into what was ripe for development . . . World Historical Men — the Heroes of an epoch — must therefore be recognized as its clear-sighted ones; their deeds, their words are the best of that time ... It was they who best understood affairs; from whom others learned, and approved, or at least acquiesced in — their policy. For the Spirit which has taken this fresh step in History is the inmost soul of all individuals; but in a state of unconsciousness which aroused the Great Men ... Their fellows, therefore, follow those Soul-Leaders, for they feel the irresistible power of their own inner Spirit thus embodied.' But the Great Man is not only the man of greatest understanding and wisdom but also the Man of Great Passions — foremost, of course, of political passions and ambitions. He is thereby able to arouse passions in others. 'Great Men have formed purposes to satisfy themselves, not others . . . They are Great Men because they willed and accomplished something great ... Nothing Great in the World has been accomplished without passion ... This may be called the cunning of reason — that it sets the passions to work for itself . . . Passion, it is true, is not quite the suitable word for what I wish to express. I mean here nothing more than human activity as resulting from private interests — particular, or if you will, self-seeking designs — with the qualification that the whole energy of will and character is devoted to their attainment ... Passions, private aims, and the satisfaction of selfish desires are ... most effective springs of action. Their power lies in the fact that they respect none of the limitations which justice and morality would impose on them; and that these natural impulses have a more direct influence over their fellow-men than the artificial and tedious discipline that tends to order and self-restraint, law and morality.' From Rousseau onwards, the Romantic school of thought realized that man is not mainly rational. But while the humanitarians cling to rationality as an aim, the revolt against reason exploits this psychological insight into the irrationality of man for its political aims. The fascist appeal to 'human nature' is to our passions, to our collectivist mystical needs, to 'man the unknown'. Adopting Hegel's words just quoted, this appeal may be called the cunning of the revolt against reason. But the height of this cunning is reached by Hegel in this boldest dialectical twist of his. While paying lip- service to rationalism, while talking more loudly about 'reason' than any man before or after him, he ends up in irrationalism; in an apotheosis not only of passion, but of brutal force: 'It is', Hegel writes, 'the absolute interest of Reason that this Moral Whole' (i.e. the State) 'should exist; and herein lies the justification and merit of heroes, the founders of States — however cruel they may have been . . . Such men may treat other great and even sacred interests inconsiderately . . . But so mighty a form must trample down many an innocent flower; it must crush to pieces many an object on its path.'
(f) The conception of man as being not so much a rational as an heroic animal was not invented by the revolt against reason; it is a typical tribalist ideal. We have to distinguish between this ideal of the Heroic Man and a more reasonable respect for heroism. Heroism is, and always will be, admirable; but our admiration should depend, I think, very largely on our appreciation of the cause to which the hero has devoted himself. The heroic element in gangsterism, I think, deserves little appreciation. But we should admire Captain Scott and his party, and if possible even more, the heroes of X-ray or of Yellow Fever research; and certainly those who defend freedom.
The tribal ideal of the Heroic Man, especially in its fascist form, is based upon different views. It is a direct attack upon those things which make heroism admirable to most of us — such things as the furthering of civilization. For it is an attack on the idea of civil life itself; this is denounced as shallow and materialistic, because of the idea of security which it cherishes. Live dangerously! is its imperative; the cause for which you undertake to follow this imperative is of secondary importance; or as W. Best says [85]: 'Good fighting as such, not a "good cause" ... is the thing that turns the scale ... It merely matters how, not for what object we fight'. Again we find that this argument is an elaboration of Hegelian ideas:
'In peace', Hegel writes, 'civil life becomes more extended, every sphere is hedged in . . . and at last all men stagnate . . . From the pulpits much is preached concerning the insecurity, vanity, and instability of temporal things, and yet everyone . . . thinks that he, at least, will manage to hold on to his possessions ... It is necessary to recognize ... property and life as accidental ... Let insecurity finally come in the form of Hussars with glistening sabres, and show its earnest activity!' In another place, Hegel paints a gloomy picture of what he calls 'mere customary life'; he seems to mean by it something like the normal life of a civilized community: 'Custom is activity without opposition ... in which fullness and zest is out of the question — a merely external and sensuous' (i.e. what some people in our day like to call 'materialist') 'existence which has ceased to throw itself enthusiastically into its object . . ., an existence without intellect or vitality.' Hegel, always faithful to his historicism, bases his anti-utilitarian attitude (in distinction to Aristotle's utilitarian comments upon the 'dangers of prosperity') on his interpretation of history: 'The History of the World is no theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony.' Thus, liberalism, freedom and reason are, as usual, objects of Hegel's attacks. The hysterical cries: We want our history! We want our destiny! We want our fight! We want our chains! resound through the edifice of Hegelianism, through this stronghold of the closed society and of the revolt against freedom.
In spite of Hegel's, as it were, official optimism, based on his theory that what is rational is real, there are features in him to which one can trace the pessimism which is so characteristic of the more intelligent among the modern racial philosophers; not so much, perhaps, of the earlier ones (as Lagarde, Treitschke, or Moeller van den Bruck) but of those who came after
Spengler, the famous historicist. Neither Spengler's biological holism, intuitive understanding, Group-Spirit and Spirit of the Age, nor even his Romanticism, helps this fortune-teller to escape a very pessimistic outlook. An element of blank despair is unmistakable in the 'grim' activism that is left to those who foresee the future and feel instrumental in its arrival. It is interesting to observe that this gloomy view of affairs is equally shared by both wings of the racialists, the 'Atheist' as well as the 'Christian' wing.
Stapel, who belongs to the latter (but there are others, for example Gogarten), writes [86]: 'Man is under the sway of original sin in his totality ... The Christian knows that it is strictly impossible for him to live except in sin . . . Therefore he steers clear of the pettiness of moral hair- splitting ... An ethicized Christianity is a counter-Christianity through and through ... God has made this world perishable, it is doomed to destruction. May it, then, go to the dogs according to destiny! Men who imagine themselves capable of making it better, who want to create a "higher" morality, are starting a ridiculous petty revolt against God . . . The hope of Heaven does not mean the expectation of a happiness of the blessed; it means obedience and War-Comradeship.' (The return to the tribe.) 'If God orders His man to go to hell, then his sworn adherent ... will accordingly go to hell ... If He allots to him eternal pain, this has to be borne too . . . Faith is but another word for victory. It is victory that the Lord demands . . . '
A very similar spirit lives in the work of the two leading philosophers of contemporary Germany, the 'existentialists' Heidegger and Jaspers, both originally followers of the essentialist philosophers Husserl and Scheler. Heidegger has gained fame by reviving the Hegelian Philosophy of Nothingness: Hegel had 'established' the theory [87] that 'Pure Being' and 'Pure Nothingness' are identical; he had said that if you try to think out the notion of a pure being, you must abstract from it all particular 'determinations of an object', and therefore, as Hegel puts it — 'nothing remains'. (This Heraclitean method might be used for proving all kinds of pretty identities, such as that of pure wealth and pure poverty, pure mastership and pure servitude, pure Aryanism and pure Judaism.) Heidegger ingeniously applies the Hegelian theory of Nothingness to a practical Philosophy of Life, or of 'Existence'. Life, Existence, can be understood only by understanding Nothingness. In his What is Metaphysics? Heidegger says: 'The enquiry should be into the Existing or else into — nothing; ... into the existing alone, and beyond it into — Nothingness.' The enquiry into nothingness ('Where do we search for Nothingness? Where can we find Nothingness?') is made possible by the fact that 'we know Nothingness'; we know it through fear: 'Fear reveals Nothingness.'
Fear; the fear of nothingness; the anguish of death; these are the basic categories of Heidegger's Philosophy of Existence; of a life whose true meaning it is [88] 'to be cast down into existence, directed towards death'. Human existence is to be interpreted as a 'Thunderstorm of Steel'; the 'determined existence' of a man is 'to be a self, passionately free to die ...in full self-consciousness and anguish'. But these gloomy confessions are not entirely without their comforting aspect. The reader need not be quite overwhelmed by Heidegger's passion to die. For the will to power and the will to live appear to be no less developed in him than in his master, Hegel. 'The German University's Will to the Essence', Heidegger writes in 1933, 'is a Will to Science; it is a Will to the historico-spiritual mission of the German Nation, as a Nation experiencing itself in its State. Science and German Destiny must attain Power, especially in the essential Will.' This passage, though not a monument of originality or clarity, is certainly one of loyalty to his masters; and those admirers of Heidegger who in spite of all this continue to believe in the profundity of his 'Philosophy of Existence' might be reminded of Schopenhauer's words: 'Who can really believe that truth also will come to light, just as a by-product?' And in view of the last of Heidegger's quotations, they should ask themselves whether Schopenhauer's advice to a dishonest guardian has not been successfully administered by many educationists to many promising youths, inside and outside of Germany. I have in mind the passage: 'Should you ever intend to dull the wits of a young man and to incapacitate his brains for any kind of thought whatever, then you cannot do better than give him Hegel to read. For these monstrous accumulations of words that annul and contradict one another drive the mind into tormenting itself with vain attempts to think anything whatever in connection with them, until finally it collapses from sheer exhaustion. Thus any ability to think is so thoroughly destroyed that the young man will ultimately mistake empty and hollow verbiage for real thought. A guardian fearing that his ward might become too intelligent for his schemes might prevent this misfortune by innocently suggesting the reading of Hegel.'
Jaspers declares [89] his nihilist tendencies more frankly even, if that is possible, than Heidegger. Only when you are faced with Nothingness, with annihilation, Jaspers teaches, will you be able to experience and appreciate Existence. In order to live in the essential sense, one must live in a crisis. In order to taste life one has not only to risk, but to lose! — Jaspers carries the historicist idea of change and destiny recklessly to its most gloomy extreme. All things must perish; everything ends in failure: in this way does the historicist law of development present itself to his disillusioned intellect. But face destruction — and you will get the thrill of your life! Only in the 'marginal situations', on the edge between existence and nothingness, do we really live. The bliss of life always coincides with the end of its intelligibility, particularly with extreme situations of the body, above all with bodily danger. You cannot taste life without tasting failure. Enjoy yourself perishing!
This is the philosophy of the gambler — of the gangster. Needless to say, this demoniac 'religion of Urge and Fear, of the Triumphant or else the Hunted Beast' (Kolnai [90]), this absolute nihilism in the fullest sense of the word, is not a popular creed. It is a confession characteristic of an esoteric group of intellectuals who have surrendered their reason, and with it, their humanity. There is another Germany, that of the ordinary people whose brains have not been poisoned by a devastating system of higher education. But this 'other' Germany is certainly not that of her thinkers. It is true, Germany had also some 'other' thinkers (foremost among them, Kant); however, the survey just finished is not encouraging, and I fully sympathize with Kolnai's remark [91]: 'Perhaps it is not ... a paradox to solace our despair at German culture with the consideration that, after all, there is another Germany of Prussian Generals besides the Germany of Prussian Thinkers.'
VI
I have tried to show the identity of Hegelian historicism with the philosophy of modern totalitarianism. This identity is seldom clearly enough realized. Hegelian historicism has become the language of wide circles of intellectuals, even of candid 'anti-fascists' and 'leftists'. It is so much a part of their intellectual atmosphere that, for many, it is no more noticeable, and its appalling dishonesty no more remarkable, than the air they breathe. Yet some racial philosophers are fully conscious of their indebtedness to Hegel. An example is H. O. Ziegler, who in his study. The Modern Nation, rightly describes [92] the introduction of Hegel's (and A. Mueller's) idea of 'collective Spirits conceived as Personalities', as the 'Copernican revolution in the Philosophy of the Nation'. Another illustration of this awareness of the significance of Hegelianism, which might specially interest British readers, can be found in the judgements passed in a recent German history of British philosophy (by R. Metz, 1935). A man of the excellence of T. H. Green is here criticized, not of course because he was influenced by Hegel, but because he 'fell back into the typical individualism of the English ... He shrank from such radical consequences as Hegel has drawn'. Hobhouse, who fought bravely against Hegelianism, is contemptuously described as representing 'a typical form of bourgeois liberalism, defending itself against the omnipotence of the State because it feels its freedom threatened thereby' — a feeling which to some people might appear well founded. Bosanquet of course is praised for his genuine Hegelianism. But the significant fact is that this is all taken perfectly seriously by most of the British reviewers.
I mention this fact mainly because I wish to show how difficult and, at the same time, how urgent it is to continue Schopenhauer's fight against this shallow cant (which Hegel himself accurately fathomed when describing his own philosophy as of 'the most lofty depth').
At least the new generation should be helped to free themselves from this intellectual fraud, the greatest, perhaps, in the history of our civilization and its quarrels with its enemies. Perhaps they will live up to the expectations of Schopenhauer, who in 1840 prophesied [93] that 'this colossal mystification will furnish posterity with an inexhaustible source of sarcasm'. (So far the great pessimist has proved a wild optimist concerning posterity.)
The Hegelian farce has done enough harm. We must stop it. We must speak — even at the price of soiling ourselves by touching this scandalous thing which, unfortunately without success, was so clearly exposed a hundred years ago. Too many philosophers have neglected Schopenhauer's incessantly repeated warnings; they neglected them not so much at their own peril (they did not fare badly) as at the peril of those whom they taught, and at the peril of mankind.
It seems to me a fitting conclusion to this chapter if I leave the last word to Schopenhauer, the anti-nationalist who said of Hegel a hundred years ago: 'He exerted, not on philosophy alone but on all forms of German literature, a devastating, or more strictly speaking, a stupefying, one could also say, a pestiferous, influence. To combat this influence forcefully and on every occasion is the duty of everybody who is able to judge independently. For if we are silent, who will speak?'