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ON EMINESCU’S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: TOWARDS AN ENGLISH ANTHOLOGY OF RELEVANT TEXTS

The present paper aims to offer Anglophone researchers a selection of translated quotes from Mihai Eminescu’s non-literary oeuvre, relevant to the philosophy of history of the most complex Romanian author of the nineteenth century. It should thus become possible to reconsider Eminescu’s position within the concert of European philosophers of history. The fragments gathered here stem mainly from his activity as a cultural and political journalist, throughout which he voiced, albeit unsystematically, his views on history. Although he did not ultimately articulate an academic philosophy of history per se, these fragments, now available in English for the first time, may give valuable insights into Eminescu’s conception of history. Above all else, they meaningfully complement whatever can be gleaned from Eminescu’s already translated poetry or literary prose. Hopefully the fragments presented here will aid scholars in establishing more precisely what Eminescu’s views on history owe to Schopenhauer’s metaphysics and what to the proper philosophy of history he could find in Hegel. This is a double allegiance scholars have also recognized in Maiorescu’s work. By the same token, it would further be important to chart Eminescu’s ambivalence towards Hegel, an ambivalence also visible in the works of Romanian philosopher Vasile Conta. Finally, the fragments below may help to bring to the fore the complex interplay between Hegelian theodicy and Kantian teleology in Eminescu’s historical thought.

The present paper aims to offer Anglophone researchers a selection of translated quotes from Mihai Eminescu's non-literary oeuvre, which is relevant to the philosophy of history of the most complex Romanian author of the nineteenth century. It should thus become possible to reconsider Eminescu's position within the concert of European philosophers of history. The fragments gathered here stem mainly from his activity as a cultural and political journalist, throughout which he voiced, albeit unsystematically, his Vol. 3 No 1 (2020) views on history. Although he did not ultimately articulate an academic philosophy of history per se, these fragments, now available in English for the first time, may give valuable insights into Eminescu's conception of history. Above all else, they complement in a meaningful manner whatever can be gleaned from his poetry or literary prose as already translated (e.g. by Giurgea, Eminescu, 1995; see also an analysis of historical nooks and crannies in "Luceafărul" in Noica, 2009).
Only a handful of the non-literary fragments germane to this topic have been transposed into an international language so far. They are nonetheless scattered in various publications. Kanterian (2013: 52), for example, offers a translation of a passage from an 1871 letter to Dumitru Brătianu, wherein Eminescu wrote: "If a generation has any merit, it is that of being a faithful agent of history, to carry out the duties imposed with necessity by the place it occupies in the course of ages. The history of the world reasons as wellslowly, but with certainty and justice: the history of mankind is the development of the thought of God" (Kanterian, 2013: 52).
Similarly, C. Folschweiller (2010a: 245) translated (into French this time) the following passages: "Les peuples ne sont pas des produits de l'intelligence, mais de la nature" (Eminescu, 1999: 101)… It is to be hoped that the couple dozens new fragments translated below will create a sounder basis for evaluating the way in which Eminescu built onand how he parted ways withvarious European philosophers of history.

Eminescu and the German philosophy of history
Paramount for understanding the development of Eminescu's ideas on history were undoubtedly his years as a visiting student in Vienna andBerlin (1869-1874). There he was inevitably exposed to the German philosophy of history, and particularly to Herbart, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Hegel. According to Edward Kanterian's summary, such ideas were bound to be sparked while Eminescu attended Eduard Zeller's lectures on German philosophy since Leibniz and those of C.V. Althaus, entitled Eine Vol. 3 No 1 (2020) Entwicklung und Kritik der Principien der Hegelschen Philosophie. Eminescu's vision of history must have been further refined while he worked on the translation of significant parts of Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft, for which he had to coin a proper philosophical terminology in Romanian, and of a book by German theatre critic E.Th. Rötscher, Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung, itself imbued with Hegelian ideas (Kanterian, 2013: 51-52).
The passage from the 1871 letter to Brătianu, quoted above, can be correlated to Hegel's description of history as "the process of the Spirit of carrying forward the form of knowledge of itself […] a slow procession and succession of spiritual manifestations" (52). For Eminescu however, a different individual spiritual manifestation takes the stage: the peoplealmost completely determined by the past. In Kanterian's view, Eminescu's philosophy of history is more dualistic and deterministic than Hegel's, despite evolutionist elements, and can be summed up as "Hegel appropriated to local political purposes, quite intolerant ones" (52) The intolerance here, rooted in the spirit of the time, had to do with the fact that for Eminescu, when it came to the existence of a nation, and pace Hegel, not everything real was true, because, to quote Kanterian (52), "the co-existence with ethnicities alien to a nation's essence was possible but evil, created by human will". Since for Eminescu nations are a product of nature, rather than intelligence, it can be said that he aimed to replace the revolutionary ideology of 1848 (rationalist, universalist, and Republican) with a conservative view exalting adaptation to preexisting condition (Folschweiller. 2010a). The Romanian poet also endorsed, paradoxically, the social contract in a form of "social compensation", recast as the most rational solution to the natural conflict of selfish reasons (see Folschweiller 2010b on Rousseau and Follschweiller 2010a: 251 on Montesquieu). Another alleged departure from Hegel was detected by Folschweiller in Eminescu's naturalist-organicist sociology, and yet another one in Eminescu's less metaphysical views on the Constitution as the actual organism of the state (2010a: 257, 263).
It remains to be establishedand hopefully the fragments below will aid scholars in that endeavor -what Eminescu's views on history owe to Schopenhauer's metaphysics and what to the proper philosophy of history he could find in Hegel. This is a double allegiance scholars have also recognized in Maiorescu's work (Ciomoș, 2006). By the same token, it would further be important to chart Eminescu's ambivalence towards Hegel, an ambivalence also visible in the works of Romanian philosopher Vasile Conta. Finally, it is to be hoped that the fragments below will help to bring to the fore the complex interplay between Hegelian theodicy and Kantian teleology in Eminescu's historical thought. Vol. 3 No 1 (2020)

Note on the translation
In translating these fragments it was considered profitable to eschew archaisms and to maintain a neutral language. This entailed doing away with words that are too obviously localized in modernity, but also with any attempt to make Eminescu sound like either Dickens or, for that matter, the King James's Bible. I also refrained from artificially making Eminescu any more poetical than he genuinely is: where he says "when he himself must submit his own atom" (using the word, "atom", which was exceedingly rare at the time, in the sense of minimal contribution), I resisted the temptation to use in translation something like "modicum". If Eminescu refers to the "lost son" of the parable, rather than using, as he easily could have, the word "prodigal", then the translator will retain "lost" and discard "prodigal". One fragment is translated from German since Eminescu found it easy to revert to the language of his studies when he found himself meditating on historical matters. He had in fact further honed his German skills by translating (in 1879) the first volume of the historical treatise Fragmente zur Geschichte der Rumänen. Those who have only read Eminescu's literary works are bound to be astonished by both the modernity and pugnacity of his style, by his longwinded phrases always ready to take a quantum leap from a concrete detail to a universal theme, as well as by the furious restlessness fueling his discourse none of which is, alas, all that easy to capture in translation. Since clarity was the translator's main objective, occasionally phrases have been split into shorter sentences.
[ immersed in Western ideas, whereas all around us pullulate forms of historical life which, in their general disposition, are so divergent from the history of the West. Sometimes we ought to at least imagine ourselves as a boundary between two entirely different worlds, and consider that it is in our best interest to be acquainted with both these worlds. We have a thorough knowledge of the West. Its mission in the East is economic conquest, the pauperization of Oriental races through foreign industry, through enslavement to foreign capital. Conversely, we perceive the other part of the world as being animated not by an economic undertow, but by a historical and religious one, sure to greatly fascinate the economically underdeveloped peoples in the Balkan Peninsula, who still hold religious beliefs and historical ideals to be holy, because unscathed by modern materialism. IX, 477: Popoarele mor de cele mai multe ori prin stingere fizică, mai arareori prin desnaţionalizare, iar acest din urmă caz e cu putinţă numai atunci când naţionalitatea 4 nu e conştie de sine, când desnaţionalizarea e privită ca un fel de înaintare. Astăzi însă nu există aproape nici o limbă în Europa, fie cît de izolată, care, călcată pe urmele culturei antice, limpezită prin formele culturei clasice să nu fie în stare de-a cuprinde şi reda întreaga cultură omenească, de la abstracţiunea cea mai naltă pînă la espresiile cele mai IX, 477: Peoples generally die out by being physically extinguished and, more rarely, by being denationalized. The latter case is only possible when a nation has no selfawareness, when being denationalized is perceived as being some kind of progress. Today, however, there is almost no language in Europe, no matter how isolated, which, after having trodden in the footsteps of ancient civilization and having been purified by the forms of classical culture, should remain unable to encompass and reproduce Vol. 3 No 1 (2020) concrete.
["DOMNILOR, PROGRESUL OMENIREI..."] frg. 2259 IX, 459: Mankind's progress often lies not in the number of its geniuses nations with brilliant geniuses are often unhappybut in those voiceless figures of history, who toil ceaselessly, with no other reward than the sense of fulfilled duty. Indeed, progress is in all, not in one, or in some.
… [N]ici averea noastră, nici cultura generală nu ne-a făcut încă X, 153: In point of fact, man is no freer than a falling raindrop, or water flowing downhill rather than uphill, thus there can be no question of absolute freedom in a metaphysical sense, nor, consequently, of a freedom of man which is superordinate to his liberties. It would be very difficult to put forward a definition for such an abstract and absolute freedom, and even if it were to be put forward, it could not be precise, since it would define an object whose existence is yet to be proven. Man's freedom is a historical notion rather than a philosophical one, a series of successive episodes of emancipation, an array of liberties coordinated and conquered over time (…). For all our wealth and our education, we are still not mature enough to fully exercise such freedom. Vol. 3 No 1 (2020) maturi pentru exerciţiul deplin al acestei libertăţi.
[ANEXAREA DOBROGEI] X, 95: Like the lost son in the Gospel parable, we got lost along the path of our true history way, we squandered most of our parents' inheritance on the empty forms of a foreign civilization, lacking both the time and the means to make it our own. X, 97: Doing what everybody else does, that is, seizing and ruling by means of the bayonet, is easy. However, holding on to this miniature Orient, with all of its amalgamation of peoples, proving that we are equitable and eventempered enough to maintain the balance and peace for its extremely diverse denizens -that is an art, it is true politics, as opposed to the politics of brute-force, which is a farce. X, 59: "o vreme ca aceea a lui Rurik sau a lui Oleg, în care istoria e mit şi mitul istorie" X, 59: times like those of Rurik and Oleg [of Novgorod], when history is myth and myth is history X, 74: "În tendenţele de cucerire, în aşa-numitele misiuni istorice cari-şi caută marginile naturale nu e nimic dedesupt decît pur şi simplu neştiinţa şi gustul de spoliare. În zadar caută un popor în întinderi teritoriale, în cuceriri, în războaie ceea ce-i lipseşte în chiar sufletul lui; sub nici o zonă din lume nu va găsi ceea ce Dumnezeu i-a refuzat sau mai bine zicînd ceea ce Dumnezeu a voit ca să fie rezultatul muncii a multe generaţii dedate la lucru. Căci stă oare destoinicia unei naţii în vrun raport cu întinderea teritoriului pe care ea-1 ocupă?" X, 74: Behind the propensity for conquest, behind those so-called historical missions, which test their natural limits, there is nothing but mere ignorance and a taste for plunder. In vain shall a people search, in the expanse of land, in conquests, in wars, for that which it lacks in its very soul. In no realm of the world will it find that which God denied it, or, better yet, that which God intended to be the result of the toil of many generations' daily grind. For is there any connection between the worthiness of a nation and the size of the land it inhabits?" Vol. Deie-ni-se voie a arăta că ideea statului, ideea armoniei intereselor există în realitate, că statul nu este XI, 22-23: In a Republic the interest of the individual reigns supreme, and more generally the interest of the party. (…) This state of facts is free of danger only insofar as there is within the state a cultured and economically potent middle class, which can keep in check the balance between the backward tendencies of the people's sense of history, as generally represented by the enduring forms of a past civilization, and the boisterous tendencies of the urgent demands of the present, as represented by the needs of the lower classes. Where this class's existence is precarious, or where it is too weak to stave off extreme tendencies, the Republic becomes a mere toy for the parties, a form abused by both sides, to the obvious detriment of the public interest. (…) The state is not just a sum of individuals who coexist at a given moment, it represents the very possibility to correct the wrongs Vol. 3 No 1 (2020) numai suma de indivizi ce coexistă într-un moment dat, că el reprezentă însăşi putinţa de îndreptare a unor rele ce rezultă din instinctele nesocotite ale actualităţii.
which ensue from the reckless instincts of contemporaneity.
(…) Indeed, if we were to focus on each individual, we would clearly see that the majority, the vast majority of people would gladly dodgeif only they couldtheir obligations such as taxes, public duties, or military service. Regardless of the extent to which a given individual acknowledges the preeminence of the general interest, when he himself must submit his own atom to that preeminent cause, his intimate and primitive instinct is to eschew paying his dues. (…) Therefore, placing the state, that delicate instrument, that representative of both historical life and a nation's harmony of interests, at the sole discretion of one partyis dangerous. It is particularly so when the arbitratora cultivated and wellto-do middle classis only present in a very rudimentary form. posesiune de mari bunuri imobiliare. Sub ,,istorică" înţelegem că trebuie să fi răsărit din dreptul public propriu al unui popor şi câştigată prin merite pentru el. E preferabil ca aceste merite să se datorească caracterului mai mult decât inteligenţei. Căci un caracter drept, viteaz şi generos se moşteneşte şi e o mare calitate politică, pe când inteligenţa se poate recruta din tot ce produce mai bun o generaţie, ea e aliata naturală a acestor caractere, dar din nefericire nu se moşteneşte cu atâta siguranţă. Apoi aristocraţia trebuie să fie puţin numeroasă, pentru ca alături cu ea să aibă loc meritele personale din orice generaţie; în fine trebuie să fie în posesiune de mari bunuri imobiliare, pentru că asemenea bunuri nu sunt supuse pericolului pierderii, îl fac pe om neatârnat de jocul banului şi-l pun în legătură cu brazda şi cu populaţia istorică a ţării. [26 aprilie 1881] ["A DISCUTA CU IGNORANŢA ..."] aristocracy will be regarded as usurpation. Thus, it must be historical, scarce in numbers, and in possession of significant estates.
By "historical" we mean that it ought to have emerged out of a people's own public law, and to have been deserved by service to the people. It is to be preferred that its merits stem from character, rather than intelligence. For an honest, brave, and generous character is inherited and represents a great political quality, whereas intelligence can be recruited from amongst the best a generation has to offer, it is the natural ally of such character, but unfortunately it is not as positively inheritable. Furthermore, aristocracy must be scarce in numbers, so that it leaves enough room beside it for people of valor of any generation; finally, the possession of significant estates is important, since such assets are not subject to loss and their owners are not contingent on the money game and, at the same time, do not lose touch with the furrow and with the country's historical population. XII, 154: formaţiunea demagogiei merge repede într-o ţară a cărei continuitate de dezvoltare istorică a fost nimicită prin dominaţiunea străină şi care este ea însuşi o creaţiune politică proaspătă. Când într-o ţară trecutul n-a distins pe omul de merit de cel de rând , când conştiinţa publică şi împrejurările sunt turburi şi departe încă de cristalizaţiune , ajung, ca şi la apa cea turburată, gunoiele deasupra. A striga XII, 154: Demagogy spreads fast in a country whose continuity of historical development has been shattered by foreign domination and which is itself a recent political creation. In a country whose past has not sifted out the unworthy from the worthy man, and whose public conscience is as murky and uncrystallized as its circumstances, rubbish will find its way to the surface, as is the case with murky Vol. 3 No 1 (2020) pe toate uliţele şi pe toate tonurile patrie, libertate, egalitate, fraternitate! nu e un merit nici la noi, nici în Bulgaria, nici undeva în lume. Dar cine nu are altul îşi creează din asemenea strigăte un titlu de recomandaţie.
[20 octombrie 1881] XII, 374: The Romanian nation, just like any other, has the innate right to defend its historical heritage and its achievements in the face of all foreign elements. The choice of weapons and means depends on time and circumstances, and, if the preservation of the Romanian race in this corner of the world, and the building of its character and way of life are at stake, then no weapon should be inappropriate if resorted to at the right moment. XII, 162 : Statele moderne nu se mai dezvoltă, din nefericire, în linie dreaptă, ci prin cotituri, adesea prin concesii, renunţând la maniera lor dea fi, la signatura existenţei lor. Sunt cristalizaţiuni imperfecte pe lângă câteva cristale perfecte pe cari le prezintă istoria. Asta e chiar deosebirea între naţii mici, fără simţ istoric , şi naţiile mari, c-un profund simţ istoric şi c-un mare viitor. [NU VOM DISCUTA CU ROMÂNUL PRINCIPII…] XII,162: Unfortunately, modern states no longer develop in a straight line, but through twists and turns, often by way of compromises, relinquishing their way of life, the signature of their existence. They are imperfect crystallizations alongside the few perfect crystals that history evinces. This is the very difference between small nations, with no sense of history, and great nations, with an engrained sense of history and a great future. XII, 159-160 Cu toate acestea oricine va voi să definească marele mister al existenţei va vedea că el consistă în împrospătarea continuă a fondului şi păstrarea formelor. Forme vechi, dar spirit pururea nou. Astfel vedem cum Anglia, care stă în toate celea în fruntea civilizaţiei, păstrează şi astăzi XII, 159-160: Nonetheless, anyone endeavoring to define the great mystery of existence will realize that it resides in the constant renewal of content with the preservation of form. Ancient forms, but a perpetually new spirit. This is why we see England, which is on all Vol. 3 No 1 (2020) vechile sale forme istorice , pururea reâmprospătate de spiritul modern, de munca modernă.
counts the spearhead of civilization, retain today its old historical forms, constantly rejuvenated by modern spirit, by modern toil.
Am putea zice că e luptă de toată ziua pentru toate bunurile naţionalităţii noastre. … Ceea ce se dezgroapă prin aceste documente istorice şi linguistice nu sunt dar numai materialuri de interes arheologic , ci e România însăşi, e geniul poporului românesc de pe care se înlăturează păturile superpuse de ruine şi de barbarie. Fiece pas înainte se face aci în înţelesul reconstruirii XIII, 89: Historical, philological, and folk psychology research would not be of such keen interest had we superseded an era of consummate civilization, had our national spirit been preserved, cloaked in the garment of timelessness, in the writings of past thinkers. However, our civilization is phony; foreigners and half-foreigners born in Bucharest or in the cities on the Danube and Frenchified in Paris have falsified law, public life and traditions alike, have turned our forefathers' words into journalistic gobbledygook and court legalese (…). We might say that there's a daily battle for all of our nation's assets. (…) What is being unearthed with these historical and linguistic documents are not mere archaeological materialsit is Romania herself, the genius of the Romanian people, from which we peel superimposed layers of debris and backwardness. Each and every step forward is taken towards the reconstruction of the Romanian nationality and in order for the latter to acknowledge itself and come to its senses. The biblical curse, "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread", was no curse at all, but a naţionalităţii române şi pentru ca ea însăşi să se recunoască pe sine, să-şi vie în fire. Blestemul din Biblie, "în sudoarea frunţii tale îţi vei câştiga hrana", n-a fost un blestem, ci o binecuvântare . "În sudoarea frunţii tale te vei cunoaşte pe tine însuţi" zicem cercetătorilor pe terenul istoriei şi a linguisticei bucuraţi de aceste rezultate ale unei munci naţionale, rezultate greu de câştigat în comparare cu deprinderea mecanică a formelor esterioare ale unei civilizaţii străine. [1 aprilie 1882] blessing. "In the sweat of thy face thou shalt know thyself"this is what we say to those conducting historical and linguistic research. Such a national enterprise delights us, and its results are much harder to harvest than it is to mechanically appropriate the outer forms of foreign civilization. XIII, 190 : Absolutismul nu este pururea şi pretutindenea o nenorocire. Adeseori el e necesar şi mari creaţiuni istorice îi se datoresc. Dar.. . absolutismul sincer, întemeiat ca atare pe dreptul public al poporului, absolutismul care nu se ruşinează de sine însuşi şi care crede că, prin o biurocraţie energică, cu învăţătură de carte şi incoruptibilă, se poate produce mai mult bine decât prin discuţiile adese sterpe ale unor parlamente inculte. Dar a avea un absolutism bazat pe minciuna parlamentară însemnează a avea o companie de esploatare în capul ţării, care, păzind cu ipocrizie formele esterioare ale parlamentarismului, e despotică nu în folosul statului şi al populaţiunilor, ci în folosul [a] o mână de oameni lacomi de avere şi moraliceşte putrezi.
[17 septembrie 1882] ["FRIGURI DE REFORME..."] XIII, 190 : Absolutism is not always and everywhere a calamity. It is often necessary, and it has engendered great historical creations. A straightforward absolutism is meant here, one based on the people's public law, an absolutism which is not ashamed of itself and which upholds that, through an industrious bureaucracy, educated and incorruptible, more good can be achieved than through the oftentimes sterile debates of ignorant parliaments. However, an absolutist rule rooted in parliamentary deceit comes down to appointing as the head of the state an exploitation company, which, while hypocritically defending the outer forms of parliamentarism, rules tyrannically not for the benefit of the state and the populations, but for that of a handful of greedy and morally bankrupt people.
Nu acel istoric va fi exact, carele în fraze pompoase va lăuda sau va batjocori întâmplările în trista şi searbăda lor conexiune cauzală, ci acela care va căuta raţiunea de-a fi a acelor întâmplări şi va descoperi-o în endeavor of observation and conception, an attempt to epitomize pre-existing elements in the life of the people. There are writersand their number is legionwho, while sucking on their quills, come up with all kinds of mumbo-jumbo, pure figments of imagination bearing no connection to reality, contrivances which, by dint of their novelty, may be fashionable and curry the favor of the public for a while. (…) We believe that no robust and healthy literature which is able to determine the spirit of a people, can exist in any other way than by being itself determined by the spirit of that people, in other words, founded on the broad basis of the national genius. This does not hold solely for the man of letters, but equally applies to the lawgiver, to the historian, to the statesman. An important lawgiver is not the one who plagiarizes foreign legislation, translated from the statutes of remote countries, which are and were subject to different circumstancesbut the one who will fathom how to create a code of laws out of his country's traditions and the solutions given to such issues by the people, ensuing from its deep convictions.
["NOVELE DIN POPOR DE IOAN SLAVICI"] ridicule events in their sad and bland causality, but the one who looks for the rationale of those events and discovers it in the depths of the popular genius. Such a historian will discover that the very reasons which made Romanians rise, also made them fall; the same qualities that made the Ottomans become rulers of three continents were also the roots of their undoing; that any virtue, any energy, anything of great and intense passion necessarily carries with it the very roots of its happiness and unhappiness. Only people who have the stamina to be true to their own character can truly have an aesthetic impact, only they possess the charm of the truth. Their depiction deeply shakes our sensesand this alone can be the subject of art.
Istoricul se va ataşa de-o idee şi această idee el o va urma de la originea sa până la ultimul termin al dezvoltării sale, cum s-ar zice prin XV, 87: Whoever shall attempt to write the history of a time period or of a certain movement shall above all endeavor to bring to the fore the law of continuity of this movement. He shall have to seek out the departure and arrival points, and then the series of intermediary stages connecting these two extreme points. Moreover, he shall have to exert himself to emphasize the aforementioned double mechanism of rejection and assimilation, and through which the movement was effected.
The historian shall focus on one idea and pursue this idea from its inception to the final phase of its development, so to speak across its most diverse exploits; it is this idea that will be the character and protagonist of the book. The systems whose groundwork and foundation it will have formed will resemble external accoutrements, diverse stages of its development; great men who have expressed it will be mere instruments; their personality will dissolve into the personality of the idea. Only in this fashion will we genuinely produce the history of a certain movement, not that of isolated events, which are nothing but episodes.
Furthermore, if this will be not just a certain idea, whose avatars the historian will investigate in the aforementioned manner, if this indeed be rather the idea in itself, then one shall be able to see a whole historical development in its very inception, as well as in its progress, in its simultaneity, in its continuity. We shall read at a glance the workings of history as a whole. * General moving principles, which characterize a time period, are nothing short of moving. They are the monogram which epitomizes the aspirations of a people's generation; they incorporate the dynamics of those living forces striving for public life, forces which remain unoccupied or unoccupiable by the people's economic endeavors. XV, 88 Darum ist auch leicht erklärlich warum in Politik u [nd] Moralität ein[er] etwas lobt, ein anderer tadelt. Nicht der Intellekt thut XV, 88: Therefore, it is not difficult to explain why, in politics and morals, what one praises, another castigates. It is not the intellect that es, sondern der Wille vermittels des Intellektes,der Urtheil des reinen Intellekts ist immer gerecht. Die Logik der Geschichte ist Eristik u[nd] Sophisterei, die Leute beweisen nicht, weil es von selbst folgt, also aus reinem Interesse für die Wahrheit, sondern weil sie es beweisen wollen.
[LOGICA ISTORIEI] 2287 * Cumcă oamenii ştiu istorie fără să-nveţe nimic de la ea e un semn că istoria este voinţă şi nu teorie, că se poate învăţa şialea non discitur. Inteligenţa este condamnată a juca rolul de salahor al voinţei, cum se vede aceasta în jurnale şi în opinia publică în genere. Ea este într-adevăr l'avocat du diable, precând toată filozofia istoriei e concentrat[ă] în fraza latină : Stat pro ratione voluntas. De aceea în genere toată literatura politică, toată istoria optimistă, toată, toată filozofia, care rezumă în sine starea de bucurie sau neplăcere a unei epoce şi e espresia, fizionomia ei, nu sunt decât tot atâtea pagine ale opului l'avocat du diable. De-aceea şi este de un timp zisă, de altul dezisă, este vină în ele, este interes, este voinţă. Adevărat nemuritoare, inocente în felul lor sunt numai acele producte născute dintr-o mare superfluenţă a creierului, care a paralizat sau cel puţin s-a eliberat pe deplin de voinţă. În van vei spune că istoria învaţă, că războaie, ură, nedreptăţi, răutate nu duc decît la o esistenţă efemeră, va să zică la nimic, căci, într-un timp nemărginit, un secol e o clipă suspendată. effects this, but the will, by means of the intellect. The judgement of the pure intellect is always just. The logic of history is heuristics and sophistry. People do not prove something because it is truly provable, that is, out of pure interest for the truth, but because they want to prove it. * That people have a knowledge of history without learning anything from it is a sign that history is will, and not theory, that it can be learned and thatalea non discitur [the die cannot be learned]. Intelligence is doomed to play the role of a farmhand for the will, as can be witnessed in the newspapers and in the public opinion in general. It is indeed l'avocat du diable, whereas all philosophy of history is concentrated in the Latin adage: Stat pro ratione voluntas [The will stands in place of a reason]. That is why generally all political literature, all optimistic history, indeed all philosophy, which encapsulates the whole state of elation or discontent of an epoch and constitutes its expression, its physiognomy, are nothing but as many pages in an opus titled l'avocat du diable. (…) Truly immortal, innocent in their own way, are only those products born out of an overabundance of the brain, which has paralyzed the will or at least has freed itself from it. It is pointless to say that history is a teacher, that wars, hatred, injustice, wretchedness only engender a fleeting existence, boiling down to nothing, because,