As far as you possibly could, you held from you the men who did such
things as well as their propositions; the reproach of lunacy, or the
advice that they be sent to the mad-house, was the thanks from you on
which they might usually count. They, in their turn, did not venture
to express themselves regarding you with the same frankness, since
they were dependent upon you; but their innermost thought was this,
that, with a few exceptions, you were shallow babblers and inflated
braggarts, dilettante who have only passed through school, blind
gropers and creepers in the old rut who had neither wish nor ability
for aught else. Give them the lie through your deeds, and to this end
grasp the opportunity now offered you; lay aside that contempt for
profound thought and learning; let yourselves be advised and hear and
learn what you do not know, or else your accusers win their case.
These addresses adjure you, thinkers, scholars, and authors who are
still worthy of this name! In a certain sense that reproach of the men
of affairs was not unjust. You often proceeded too unconcerned in
the realm of abstract thought, without troubling yourselves about the
actual world and without considering how the one might be connected
with the other; you circumscribed your own world for yourselves, and
let the real world lie to one side, disdained and despised. Every
regulation and every formation of actual life must, it is true,
proceed from the higher regulating concept, and progress in the
customary rut is insufficient for it; this is an eternal truth, and,
in God's name, it crushes with undisguised contempt every one who
is so bold as to busy himself with affairs without knowing this.
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