Page 197 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg

character cannot be described. "In vain", says Goethe, "do we strive
to describe a man, but, if one puts down his deeds, then an image of
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the character will come to us". All that went before has described
such deeds of the Jewish mind; here the consequences of them are
to be drawn and it is then to be seen if that which manifested itself
from the nature of the Jews has emerged also in the sphere of his
self-understanding. Goethe said: "Jewish character: energy, the basis
of everything". With this Goethe, with wonderful sharpness, hits
the nail on the head. The history of the Jews, which I attempted to
delineate in short strokes, shows such a tenacity of character as we
have hardly ever had an opportunity to observe among any other
people.
The men of the 20 th century live a life in which changes,
inventions, news, etc. rush headlong; multiplicity and change are
the factors that determine our public life and also give a direction to
our thought. We are indeed easily inclined to smile when one speaks
to us of something rigid, without change; the present-day life has
brought with it the result that leisure time was measured out so
short that the possibility was lacking to be able to see the unity in
the manifold, and that the capacity to survey and understand greater
complexes became ever smaller.
The practical man, who knew only the present and evaluated
this along with the past and the future from the perspective of
accidental personal experiences, set the tone and it is hard for us to
bring other points of view to the attention of such a man. And yet
we must tell ourselves that there are forces which, notwithstanding
the fleeting character of our present, indeed change their appearance
but remain essentially the same. To these forces belongs the Semitic
Jewish will.
We cannot explain the phenomenon of the Jewish energy
but must assume it as a historically proven fact. Scattered through
all countries, the will to its national life exclusively of everything
else has constantly remained the same; today the Jews are

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[Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) expounded his doctrine of the Wille zum
Leben (will-to-live) as the driving force of all life in his major work, Die Welt als
Wille und Vorstellung (1818/1 844).]
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