DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32079#0031
from which they can hardly rise, and are in little dan-
ger of falling. The progress of the people attains
a certain necessary development, — there it stops,
the native power has no force to carry it further.
The spring, stretched to its full extent, ceases to act.
All this results in a child-like trust in fate as the
protecting providence, and except in regard to the
only accident which the Egyptian spies on his hori-
zon, namely, either too low or too high a Nile, he
believes firmly in the stability of a state of things
which seems to have no end as it has had no known
beginning.
Independence and initiative, qualities essential to
political life or to the action of free association in
any forrri, are wanting here.
So we find conditions that naturally account for
the docility and submission of'the people and their
abject obedience to the de facto government which,
under whatever ruler, has always been despotic; con-
ditions that also explain the essential qualities of the
race, namely, its gentleness, peacefulness, and immo-
bility.
These causes not only account for the political
insignificance of the Egyptians in modern times, but
also for their actual want of every form of intellec-
tual activity. There is no motive for education, for
trade, or for enterprise, and even contact with civil-
ized races is only superficial. Mechanical improve-
ments coming to them as it were from without or
from above, not altering their life, not welcomed
into it, not touching the essence of their condition,
are a mere break of their routine, anchored as they
are in their traditions of labor.
If the forces of nature seem permanent in their
influence upon the Egyptians, and tend to their
moral and political lethargy, the effect of them is
augmented by the Mahometan religion, which has
at least this resemblance with the ancient religion,
that it is crystallized and fixed in form’s and dogmas
immovable, incapable ofprogress, and admitting no
independent thought within its domain.
ger of falling. The progress of the people attains
a certain necessary development, — there it stops,
the native power has no force to carry it further.
The spring, stretched to its full extent, ceases to act.
All this results in a child-like trust in fate as the
protecting providence, and except in regard to the
only accident which the Egyptian spies on his hori-
zon, namely, either too low or too high a Nile, he
believes firmly in the stability of a state of things
which seems to have no end as it has had no known
beginning.
Independence and initiative, qualities essential to
political life or to the action of free association in
any forrri, are wanting here.
So we find conditions that naturally account for
the docility and submission of'the people and their
abject obedience to the de facto government which,
under whatever ruler, has always been despotic; con-
ditions that also explain the essential qualities of the
race, namely, its gentleness, peacefulness, and immo-
bility.
These causes not only account for the political
insignificance of the Egyptians in modern times, but
also for their actual want of every form of intellec-
tual activity. There is no motive for education, for
trade, or for enterprise, and even contact with civil-
ized races is only superficial. Mechanical improve-
ments coming to them as it were from without or
from above, not altering their life, not welcomed
into it, not touching the essence of their condition,
are a mere break of their routine, anchored as they
are in their traditions of labor.
If the forces of nature seem permanent in their
influence upon the Egyptians, and tend to their
moral and political lethargy, the effect of them is
augmented by the Mahometan religion, which has
at least this resemblance with the ancient religion,
that it is crystallized and fixed in form’s and dogmas
immovable, incapable ofprogress, and admitting no
independent thought within its domain.