The discovery of a passage around Africa by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and the development of Spanish, Portuguese, and finally of English commerce, contributed with other circumstances to bring the prosperity of the German cities within well-ordered limits. The Thirty Years' War completed the work, and henceforth the cities became the cradles of true human civilization, the dwelling-places of civic virtue and domestic hap piness, which will constitute their glory for ever.
Figure 5 44), from an old copper-plate, showing a carnival banquet at the end of the sixteenth century, gives us a suggestive glimpse of a scene of revelry at that period. The pretexts for such banquets were especially based upon such feasts of the calendar as could by any possi bility be made an occasion for them—just as the art of that age, no less inclined to sensuality, attempted to justify the pictorial representation of such scenes by connecting them with the history of the Prodigal Son. Otherwise, as is also evident from our illustration, there was little form ality of manners to serve as a mask for licentiousness. An intellectual counterpoise existed as yet only in a slight degree. While in the Romance countries, owing to the dominating influence of mediaeval fancies, frivolity reigned unchecked, in Protestant Germany a rigid, intolerant orthodoxy enslaved the mind without being able to fetter the senses.
A step forward was taken when society began to pay attention to out ward forms. Nor should we regret that it followed French models, which were known even before the Thirty Years' War. At any rate, an impulse was given which otherwise would have been lacking: it offered the best form possible under existing circumstances; and if the sterile soil upon which German character had grown to manhood had not developed a high degree of creative power, it still was able to give a national tone to every fashion that was adopted.
Figure 6 (a ballroom scene, after a copper-plate by Abraham Boss) exhibits fashionable society about the middle of the seventeenth century. The manners are affected and perhaps stiff; but there is evidence of a decided tendency to rise above the level of mere natural inclinations. The regard for forms was by no means confined to bodily bearing, to speech, or to manners. It gave interest to many things, originated occupations and introduced ideas which were formerly unknown, and which, being of external origin, are to be reckoned as belonging to form and as matters of fashion, which only gradually stimulated heart and head to productive endeavors.
The development progressed throughout the long and dreadful war, at the close of which a wholly German conception of social affairs pre vailed, though still following the French model, which in its turn was of course largely influenced by Italy and Spain. As is shown even by the universal use of dark-colored clothes, the events of the immediately pre ceding period had impressed a somewhat gloomy seriousness upon the general spirit. Men were earnest, self-composed, and guided by morality and honor. There never was a time in which German family and social life had been so penetrated by fidelity as in the latter half of the seven teenth century. Severe and strict as manners were, the people deserve all the more praise for having submitted to them.
The opinion had long become prevalent that Germany was coming into possession of something original and national when, still under foreign guidance, and in proportion to the increase of knowledge, the narrow bands were loosened and a larger measure of freedom began to be enjoyed. During the entire course of the eighteenth century the most important and far-reaching influences were at work; it is true they made hardly an audible stir, but they disturbed the surface so slightly because the subjects with which they were engaged were the deepest foundations of ethico intellectual life. Consciously and unconsciously, the object of all effort was something that should bring satisfaction with one's self and with others. This was the aim of the sentimental epoch, as well as of the " Storm-and-Stress" period in Germany, the fruit of which had neces sarily to result in the production of the fairest humanity, because the goal was kept in view and the struggle to reach it was sincere. Manifold were the errors in the use of means and the choice of methods: mysticism and alchemy, pietism and enlightenment, pedantry and gallantry, existed, but they could not permanently lead astray a world in which every one, with a few marked exceptions, was seeking the good of all and not of self alone.