Excerpt from The Mantle of Caesar

To-day, when the need OF the strong man 1s felt, and when - the hagglers and babblers having lost their popularity sergeants and corporals are resorted to instead of leaders; when, particularly in Germany, the guidance of the people is entrusted to any striking talent in the military-economic field, so long as it can occupy office or show literary ability; and when parsons of social tendencies and generals of unsocial tendencies, or giants of acquisition and industry, as well as rabid petty bourgeois indi viduals, are considered statesmen-we should like to recall to the minds of those of hasty judgment the great man to whom the supreme authority owes its name and for centuries its guiding thought: Caesar. We do not suppose for a moment that con juring this name will produce a Caesar/ History never repeats the manifestation of her ideas, constant though they may remain, and no knowledge of the past will create what is needed in the present. Imitations based on political erudition are always mis guided and fruitless. We shall know what countenance our future lord or savior will bear, only when he is already in the saddle. His hour and his task he alone will know. But learning may teach us what countenance he will not bear, and the eternal figures must be kept alive and defended against the claims of the dark and dismal present, not for the sake of politics, but for the sake of culture, that is, for the sake of human dignity and awe. The historian, the guardian of culture (for that is his chief office), m adopt pregnant de cisions in the fast flow of destiny from hour to hour. But he can help animate the atmosphere in which deeds of insight shall be accomplished, and can recruit adherents for the heroes that are to come. In this sense, he invokes the historical forces and their incarnations: the nations and their leaders.

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