Having thus introduced the subject in its most general bearings and
aspects, it remains for us to review briefly its historical background.

Weltschmerz is essentially a symptom of a period of conflict, of
transition. The powerful reaction which marks the eighteenth century--a
reaction against all traditional intellectual authority, and a struggle
for the emancipation of the individual, of research, of inspiration and
of genius--reached its high-water mark in Germany in the seventies. But
with the unrestrained outbursts of the champions of Storm and Stress the
problem was by no means solved; there remained the basic conflict
between the idea of personal liberty and the strait-jacket of
Frederician absolutism, the conflict between the dynastic and the
national idea of the state. Should the individual yield a blind,
unreasoned submission to the state as to a divinely instituted arbitrary
authority, good or bad, or was the state to be regarded as the conscious
and voluntary coöperation of its subjects for the general good? It was,
moreover, a time not only of open and active revolt, as represented by
the spirit of Klinger, but also of great emotional stirrings, and
sentimental yearnings of such passive natures as Hölty. Rousseau's plea
for a simplified and more natural life had exerted a mighty influence.
And what has a most important bearing upon the relation between these
intellectual currents and Weltschmerz--these minds were lacking in the
discipline implied in our modern scientific training. Scientific
exactness of thinking had not become an integral part of education.
Hence the difference between the pessimism of Ibsen and the romantic
Weltschmerz of these uncritical minds.

In accounting for the tremendous effect produced by his "Werther,"
Goethe compares his work to the bit of fuse which explodes the mine, and
says that the shock of the explosion was so great because the young