53. The Instincts of the French

It is not easy to form an accurate judgment of an individual person. It can happen that we think we know someone down to the very depths of his soul and yet one day he surprises us with an act that we would never have expected him to do. Much darker than the individual soul, however, is the mysterious power known as the people's soul, the epitome of the people's instincts.

This people's soul can prepare unbelievable surprises. If the events now taking place in France, of which Captain Dreyfus is the unfortunate object, were presented to me as the content of a novel, I would probably describe the author as a fantasist whose imagination distorts, even falsifies, reality in an outrageous way. You have to relearn almost every day if you want to understand reality.

Dry and sober, I will say what I mean. I always thought Captain Dreyfus was innocent. None of the impressions I received from the first day of the negotiations on his case could have made me waver in this conviction for a single moment.

I will deliberately mention only the weakest of the reasons for my conviction. Those who can judge human characters will understand me. I say to myself: whoever really committed what Dreyfus is accused of did not behave before and after the conviction in the same way as the captain did. Everything he said and did had a character that indicates the deepest consciousness of innocence. If someone were to bring me irrefutable proof of this man's guilt today, I would almost be tempted to believe in a miracle.

And yet the instincts of a people have condemned Dreyfus! The driving forces behind these instincts seem unfathomable to me. Anyone who talks about national chauvinism seems to me to be uttering a banality. He wants to get over great puzzles with a single word. How easy it is to use such a word to get over the incomprehensibility of reality!

And what is going on in France today! Read what the best of the nation are saying about the matter, and read what the many others are doing about it. Zola, the profound connoisseur of the human soul, wants to make Dreyfus' cause his own. The subtle Octave Mirbeau thinks the same. And a man like Scheurer-Kestner, whose nobility of spirit it would be an outrage to human nature to doubt, champions the unfortunate captain. And all this is not enough to lose a day in order to gain clarity about the guilt or innocence of the sorely tried man. The wonder of the matter would be the most excellent feeling one could have if it were not completely eclipsed by the sadness of the matter.

Nevertheless, I can only call it marvelous when writers, whose talent I must hold in the highest esteem according to their achievements, speak out about the matter in the way I recently read in the "Zukunft", for example. Of all the marvels that a clever mind can utter against naive human sentiment, the most marvelous seems to me to be when it is said that we Germans have no reason to interfere in the affairs of the French. Indeed, does human compassion end where the penal laws of a state end? Is nationality a tyrant that blunts our feelings towards every foreigner? I cannot understand the wisdom of people who organize their feelings in the manner of diplomats. Thanks to Bismarck's great example, such gagging of sensibilities is outdated even for diplomats.

Nothing can stop us from sympathizing with a person who, in our opinion, is suffering innocently. Of course, this is not denied by those who arrange their expressions of feeling along the lines of the diplomats of old.

But there are people who resent it when we express our feelings sincerely and openly to a Frenchman. Do people speak and write to conceal their feelings? It seems to me almost a duty that in this matter everyone who is able to wield the pen should speak out as clearly as possible against the voice of an entire people. It is a matter which interests the whole of educated mankind. He who feels vividly cannot restrain his feelings even towards a Frenchman; even if he wanted to.

A feeling of insecurity comes over us when we see that in a rather simple and yet momentous matter large masses of people judge differently from ourselves. We are used to such disharmony between the popular instinct and the judgment of the individual in major matters that require deep insight. But the Dreyfus case does not require deep insight. It seems to me that anyone who wants to see can see clearly. Anyone who has the impression that the captain is innocent could only be swayed by things of which not even a glimpse has yet reached the public.

We ask ourselves: How should we organize our lives if our faith in the correct course of world events can be shaken in such a way every day? In order to live, we must have the faith that our insight into the development of humanity cannot be turned into dull uncertainty and insecurity every day.

The treatment of the centurion languishing on Devil's Island must inspire such thoughts in us.

I don't begrudge the people who laugh at me for linking such a single fact with the whole development of humanity. And if it contributes to their health - they say laughter is always good - I am even pleased. At most, I allow myself to remark to such people that nothing is small enough not to provoke questions that shake us to the depths of our souls.