characterises the starving, ye even snatch the dishes from the
sideboard of science. If, however, as scientific men, ye proceed with
science as the labourers with the tasks which the exigencies of life
impose upon them, what will become of a culture which must await the
hour of its birth and its salvation in the very midst of all this
agitated and breathless running to and fro--this sprawling
scientifically?

For it no one has time--and yet for what shall science have time if
not for culture? Answer us here, then, at least: whence, whither,
wherefore all science, if it do not lead to culture? Belike to
barbarity? And in this direction we already see the scholar caste
ominously advanced, if we are to believe that such superficial books
as this one of Strauss's meet the demand of their present degree of
culture. For precisely in him do we find that repulsive need of rest
and that incidental semi-listless attention to, and coming to terms
with, philosophy, culture, and every serious thing on earth. It will
be remembered that, at the meetings held by scholars, as soon as each
individual has had his say in his own particular department of
knowledge, signs of fatigue, of a desire for distraction at any price,
of waning memory, and of incoherent experiences of life, begin to be
noticeable. While listening to Strauss discussing any worldly
question, be it marriage, the war, or capital punishment, we are
startled by his complete lack of anything like first-hand experience,
or of any original thought on human nature. All his judgments are so
redolent of books, yea even of newspapers. Literary reminiscences do
duty for genuine ideas and views, and the assumption of a moderate and
grandfatherly tone take the place of wisdom and mature thought. How
perfectly in keeping all this is with the fulsome spirit animating the
holders of the highest places in German science in large cities! How