6. The Innate Capacities of the Nations of the World

Some years ago I said that the Englishman is something, and that the German can only become something. This constitutes the great difficulty in German culture. This is the reason why in the culture of Germany and of German Austria only single individualities stand out prominently who have taken themselves in hand, whereas the masses do not will to occupy themselves with thoughts, which are inherent in the instincts of the British peoples, but will to be controlled. It is for this reason that the population of Central Europe fell under the domination of such lust for rulership as that of the Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns—just because of its non-political nature, and because the German is faced by entirely different necessities if he wishes to achieve his mission. He must be educated to this mission. He must in some way be touched by what Goethe moulded into form in his Faust, that is, by the process of becoming of the human being between birth and death.