Saturday, April 19:
Preparations for the journey. Worry about the children, which R. understands and shares, a deep, everlasting worry!
In the morning, conversation about the Germans and the French; there is talk of civil war breaking out among our neighbors. “If only we could reach the point of no longer looking to them for our ideas!” R. says. “How low they have sunk one can see by the fact that they imagine they can get things done by maxims based on reason. As if anything ever comes of reason! If men were reasonable, they would not live or congregate together in bad regions, leaving the finest lands unoccupied. The examples among the people concerned show that morality is closely interwoven with established customs, from the cradle to the grave. A great statesman is one who recognizes the prevailing influence of unreason and guides it as best he can without the use of maxims. But only religion and art can educate a nation — what use is science, which analyzes everything and explains nothing?”
He quotes to me some of Jean Paul’s titles, and when I say I find these very mannered and affected, he says, “Yes, and yet he had some original ideas, such as death after death, but was unable to express them in any other form than the one which looks affected to us.” The Pope is dangerously ill. Letters from Cologne, no very good news from there, and we consider whether under the circumstances we should not give up our journey there. We ask to be informed by telegram in Würzburg. In the evening dictation, despite the mood of vexation (conclusion of the 3rd volume).