Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Note on the text and translation
- Suggestions for further reading
- Abbreviations
- Addresses to the German Nation
- Foreword
- 1 Preliminary remarks and overview
- 2 On the nature of the new education in general
- 3 Description of the new education – continued
- 4 The principal difference between the Germans and other peoples of Teutonic descent
- 5 Consequences of the difference that has been advanced
- 6 Exposition of German characteristics in history
- 7 A yet deeper understanding of the originality and Germanness of a people
- 8 What a people is in the higher sense of the word and what is love of fatherland
- 9 At what point existing in reality the new national education of the Germans will begin
- 10 Towards a more exact definition of the German national education
- 11 On whom the execution of this plan of education will devolve
- 12 On the means of maintaining ourselves until we achieve our principal purpose
- 13 Continuation of the reflections already begun
- 14 Conclusion of the whole
- Glossary
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
4 - The principal difference between the Germans and other peoples of Teutonic descent
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Note on the text and translation
- Suggestions for further reading
- Abbreviations
- Addresses to the German Nation
- Foreword
- 1 Preliminary remarks and overview
- 2 On the nature of the new education in general
- 3 Description of the new education – continued
- 4 The principal difference between the Germans and other peoples of Teutonic descent
- 5 Consequences of the difference that has been advanced
- 6 Exposition of German characteristics in history
- 7 A yet deeper understanding of the originality and Germanness of a people
- 8 What a people is in the higher sense of the word and what is love of fatherland
- 9 At what point existing in reality the new national education of the Germans will begin
- 10 Towards a more exact definition of the German national education
- 11 On whom the execution of this plan of education will devolve
- 12 On the means of maintaining ourselves until we achieve our principal purpose
- 13 Continuation of the reflections already begun
- 14 Conclusion of the whole
- Glossary
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Summary
We have said that the proposed means of cultivating a new race of men must first be applied by Germans to Germans, and that it is a task that quite properly and immediately pertains to our nation. This proposition, too, is in need of proof and here also we shall begin, just as we have done thus far, with that which is highest and most general. We shall demonstrate what the German in and of himself, independently of the fate that has now befallen him, is and has always been in his essential character, ever since he came into existence. And we shall show that his aptitude for and receptivity to a culture such as we envisage lies already in this essential character and separates him from every other European nation.
The Germans are first and foremost one of the Teutonic tribes. As to the latter it will suffice here to define them as those whose task it was to unite the social order established in ancient Europe with the true religion preserved in ancient Asia, and thus to develop out of themselves a new age in opposition to the antiquity that had perished. Furthermore, it is enough to describe the Germans as such in contrast only with the other Teutonic peoples. While some modern European nations, such as those of Slavic descent, seem not to have developed so clearly from the rest of Europe that a definite portrait of them would be possible, others of the same Teutonic stock, to whom the ground of distinction that I shall presently adduce does not apply, like the Scandinavians, are here taken undoubtedly for Germans and included in all the general conclusions of our meditations.
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- Fichte: Addresses to the German Nation , pp. 47 - 59Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009