But nowhere has he unmasked so Mephistophelian a countenance as in his
essays on Luther and on an obscure German iconoclast named Friedrich
Nietschke (_Essays: Fremmede Personligheder_, pp. 151-244). It is
difficult to understand how a man of well-balanced brain and a logical
equipment second to none, can take _au serieux_ a mere philosophical
savage who dances a war-dance amid what he conceives to be the ruins of
civilization, swings a reckless tomahawk and knocks down everybody and
everything that comes in his way. There must lie a long history of
disappointment and bitterness behind that endorsement of anarchy pure
and simple. And it is the sadder to contemplate because it casts a
sinister light upon Dr. Brandes's earlier activity and compels many an
admirer of his literary art to revise his previous opinion of him. Can a
man ever have been a sound thinker who at fifty practically hoists the
standard of anarchy? A ship is scarcely to be trusted that flies such
compromising colors.
That all development, in order to be rational, must have its roots in
the past--must be in the nature of a slow organic growth--is certainly a
fundamental proposition of the Spencerian sociology.
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