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The German attitude to morality.  A German is capable of great things, but it is improbable he will do them: for, as befits a sluggish spirit, he obeys whenever he can. If he is brought to the necessity of standing alone and throwing off his sluggishness, if he no longer finds it possible to disappear as a cipher in an addition (in this quality he is not nearly as valuable as a Frenchman or an Englishman)  he discovers his strength: then he becomes dangerous, evil, profound, daring and brings into the light of the day the sleeping hoard of energy he carries within him and in which no one (not even he himself) had believed. When in such an event a German obeys himself  this is very exceptional  he does so with the same ponderousness, inexorability and endurance with which he formerly obeyed his prince and his official obligations: so that, as aforesaid, he is then capable of great things which stand in no kind of relation to the 'weak character' he supposed he had. Usually, however, he is afraid of depending on himself alone, of improvising: that is why Germany uses up so many officials and so much ink.  He is a stranger to frivolity, being too timid for it; but in quite novel situations which draw him out of his drowsiness he is almost frivolous; he then enjoys the unfamiliarity of the novel situation as a kind of intoxication, and he understands intoxication! So it is that at present the German is always frivolous in the realm of politics: although it is of course supposed that here too he is, as always, serious and thorough  a supposition of which he amply avails himself in his dealings with other political powers  in secret he is full of high spirits at being for once permitted to be enthusiastic and capricious and innovative, and to exchange persons, parties and prospects as if they were masks.  German scholars, who have hitherto had the reputation of being the most German of Germans, were and perhaps are the equal of German soldiers in their profound, almost childlike tendency to obedience in all external things and in the constraint they are under often to stand alone and be answerable for many things in the realm of scholarship; if they know how to preserve their qualities of pride, simplicity and patience, and their freedom from political folly, in times when the wind blows all in the other direction, great things may still be expected of them: such as they are (or were), they are the embryos of something higher.  The advantage and disadvantage of the Germans, and even of their scholars, has hitherto been that they are more inclined to superstition and the desire to believe than are other peoples; their vices are, as they have always been, drunkenness and a tendency to suicide (a sign of the ponderousness of their spirit, which can easily be persuaded to throw down the reins); their danger lies in everything that suppresses the reasoning faculties and unchains the emotions (as, for example, the immoderate use of music and spirituous drinks): for, in a German, emotion is directed against his own advantage and is self-destructive like that of a drunkard. Enthusiasm itself is worth less in Germany than elsewhere, for it is unfruitful. Whenever a German did anything great, he did it because he was obliged to do it, in a state of bravery, with clenched teeth, the tensest reflection and often with magnanimity.  They are certainly worth cultivating  for almost every German has something to give if one understands how to make him find it, recover it (the German is disorderly in himself).    Now, if a nation of this sort concerns itself with morality, what morality will it be that will satisfy it? The first thing it will certainly require is that in this morality its heartfelt inclination to obedience shall appear idealised. 'Man has to have something which he can obey unconditionally'  that is a German sensation, a German piece of consistency: it is to be encountered at the basis of all German moral teaching. How different an impression we receive from the whole morality of antiquity! All those Greek thinkers, however varied they may appear to us as individuals, seem as moralists like a gymnastics teacher who says to his pupil: 'Come! Follow me! Submit to my discipline! Then perhaps you will succeed in carrying off a prize before all the Hellenes.' Personal distinction  that is antique virtue. To submit, to follow, openly or in secret  that is German virtue.  Long before Kant and his categorical imperative, Luther had, out of the same sensibility, said that there must exist a being in which man could have unconditional trust  it was his proof of the existence of God; coarser and grounded more in the people than Kant, he wanted man unconditionally to obey, not a concept, but a person; and Kant, too, made a detour around morality only in order in the end to arrive at obedience to the person: precisely this is the cult of the Germans, and is increasingly so the less is left to them of the religious cult. The Greeks and Romans felt differently, and would have mocked at such a statement as 'there must exist a being': it pertained to their southerly freedom of feeling to ward off any 'unconditional trust' and to keep back in the last recess of their heart a little scepticism for all and everything, whether god or man or concept. Not to speak of the philosopher of antiquity! Nil admirari  in this sentence he sees the whole of philosophy. And a German, namely Schopenhauer, went so far in the other direction as to say: admirari id est philosophari¹⁰⁷.  But now, what if the German should for once, as does sometimes happen, get into the state in which he is capable of great things? when the exceptional hour, the hour of disobedience, strikes?  I do not believe Schopenhauer was right when he said that the sole advantage the Germans had over other nations was that there were more atheists among them than elsewhere  but I know that, when the German gets into the state in which he is capable of great things, he always raises himself above morality! And how should he not? He now has something novel he has to do, namely to command  himself or others! But his German morality has not taught him commanding! German morality forgot to do so!