To understand this last phase, we have to turn once more to the difference between kultur and civilization. We said that the technical products are not kultur, because they are prac tical, while the other elements have spiritual value. But there is a deeper trait. All those practical, technical achievements, those devices and inventions, are not bound up with the life of a nation. They can be imported. They are not expressions of the people's soul, while the songs and melodies, the morals and beliefs have grown from the bottom of the national soul. This leads to a more essential differentiation. We might say now : true kultur is only that which is an expression of the national con sciousness. We may go one step further. True kultur is characterized by creations which are produced in the service of the national con sciousness. We can enlarge this definition. Everything which is simply controlled by self ish personal desires, by individual longing for pleasures and advantages, by the chaotic chance production of independent persons, has nothing to do with true kultur. The real kultur exists in the service of individuals to those aims which belong to the national consciousness as such. This national consciousness comes to its or ganized expression in the state. Hence only through the state does the individual recognize the aims of the whole national unit. To be sure, the state must then be more than a mere protecting agency, a mere mechanism which secures the safety of the individuals. The state must then really undertake the guidance of the individuals toward the highest achieve ment in the service of the community. The state must aim toward the raising of the level of national production. . In short, the state must organize the whole national life in such a way that the individual becomes able and willing to help toward the realisation of the national ideals. This is the idea of German kultur in that newest formulation. As soon as kultur is taken in this sense, it is no longer confined to the spiritual goods, but all the prac tical and technical work in the frame of the nation becomes just as much a part of kultur as this too may be carried out not from indi vidualistic motives but as service to the com munity.
It was not by chance that this ideal took hold of the German nation during the last cen tury long before the word kultur became ad justed to it. Various historic conditions favored it. The Germans were a poor nation on poor soil. Only the greatest economy and the most energetic industry could lead them to success. In the training school of centuries they had had to learn the lessons of frugality, of saving and of hard work. All this means self-discipline and self-denial, and a people which has learned this lesson is prepared for that stage of kultur in which the individual is to subordinate him self to the will of the totality. The teaching of the great philosophers, notably Kant and Fichte, intensified this attitude. You can be cause you ought, is the centre of their philoso phy. The obligation of the ought as against the mere satisfaction of individual desires is the core of their speculation. This national trend became stronger under the hardship of the Napoleonic age. In the suffering of that time only one salvation was possible; the individual must subordinate himself with his whole soul to the soul of the state. But one other factor must not be overlooked. Throughout the 18th
century the Prussian kings had turned their whole energy toward the development of a civil service in which their ideal aims were em bodied. The entrance of the best elements of the nation into the civil service became a tradi tion of the state. The existence of such a model civil service was the practical condition for the firm organization of the national will to which the individual could subordinate him self with an enthusiastic and loyal confidence. All these elements worked together throughout the 19th century, and when the German Empire was founded filled the whole people with the one controlling idea that the richest meaning of life lies in the devotion of the individual to the aims of the state which organizes the activity of the whole nation. Discipline and respect for authority were the guiding principles of educa tion in the school and in the home; willingness to serve in the army was a matter of course for every adult ; but at the same time the state as such developed those systems of insurance by which every individual was enabled to serve the common life protected against sickness and accident and the consequences of old age. A thorough organization of the social life and a devoted confidence in the goodwill of the state had to work together to secure that effi ciency by which Germany with its small natural resources enjoyed an unparalleled development of its world commerce and of its industry. This spirit of subservience of individuals to the organized will of the national community is the true meaning of German kultur in that latest phase of the world discussion.
To arrive at a clear understanding of the development of kultur it ought not to be over looked that the reference to the state is not at all essential for the principle of German kultur. The essential feature is that the individual subordinates himself to the organized will of the community, but it is only secondary and to a certain degree accidental that this organized community is the state which embraces a total nation. The organ ization of the state is, of course, the firmest, but the principle demands just as much sub ordination where other groups, either smaller or larger, are in question. It is true that ac cording to German kultur ideas the state does not exist on account of the citizens but the citizens on account of the state. But with the same right it may be said that the city does not exist for the individuals but the individuals for the city. And the most important consequence of this is that the principle demands the same de votion when the social group is larger than the single state, as soon as the will of this larger group has really found a firm organization. If a number of states form a federation, German kultur would demand that the individuals serve this federation, if it is firmly organized and really conscious of its aims, with the same de votion with which each citizen serves his single state. Hence the principle of German kultur, however much it accentuates the idea of nation ality and statehood, in no way interferes with the idea of international organization and with the building up of a world federation. It would only demand that this larger group become really conscious of its aims in order that it offer guidance and goal to the will of the indi viduals and not leave them to the mere fancies of their selfish desires.