Even in the eyes of
others it gave Germany an unwarranted intellectual prestige.
"Really, the German is not a big thinker; he is an immensely careful
thinker.
"Above everything, the German is an observer--a very diligent
observer--and his mental eyes are likely to be so close to the wall
that he sees only a single brick in it, wholly failing to get a
comprehensive view of the whole structure.
"Germans are very careful students. They attach a vast importance to
detail. I think it is not unfair to say that, with the German, the
smaller, the more minute the detail, the more it interests him. The
German loves to write a big book on a small subject, and, loving it, he
does it well.
"But there are more exalted tasks, as, for example, the writing of big
books upon big subjects, giving the world fresh visions of new and
far-flung vistas. The German loves to catalogue and catalogues almost
with genius; he loves to deliver long lectures upon microcosms.
"Cataloguing and the near-sightedness which may arise from intense study
of the atom, to the exclusion of the collective organism, whether that
collective organism be the human individual or the social mass, may
render immense service to the world, but it never will be the only
service necessary, and, if pursued to the exclusion of all other
investigations, such study is likely to produce an aggravated narrowness
of vision.
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