the scrapheap—and the printing-press, which had made possible the democratic propagation of ideas, and the propagation of democratic ideas, which were one and the same. For these good gifts he praised Germany; praised her for her past, but awarded his own country the palm, because she had been the first to unfurl the banner of freedom, culture, and enlightenment, at a time when all other lands were wrapped in the darkness of superstition and slavery. Yet in paying due honour, as upon their first meeting, at the bench by the watercourse, to commerce and technology (Hans Castorp’s own field), Settembrini apparently did so not for the sake of these forces themselves, but purely with reference to their significance for the ethical development of mankind. For such a significance, he declared, he joyfully ascribed to them. Technical progress, he said, gradually subjugated nature, by developing roads and telegraphs, minimizing climatic differences; and by the means of communication which it created proved itself the most reliable agent in the task of drawing together the peoples of the earth, of making them acquainted with each other, of building bridges to compromise, of destroying prejudice; of, actually, bringing about the universal brotherhood of man. Humanity had sprung from the depths of fear, darkness, and hatred; but it was emerging, it was moving onward and upward, toward a goal of fellow-feeling and enlightenment, of goodness and joyousness; and upon this path, he said, the industrial arts were the vehicle conducive to the greatest progress. But all this made a confused impression on Hans Castorp. Herr Settembrini seemed to bring together in a single breath categories which in the young man’s mind had heretofore been as the poles asunder—for example, technology and morals! Positively, he made the statement that Christ had been the first to proclaim the principle of equality and union, that the printing-press had propagated the doctrine, and that finally the French Revolution had elevated it into a law! All which our poor young friend found very muddling, he scarce knew why—though the feeling was definite enough in all conscience, and though Herr Settembrini had couched his thought in the clearest and roundest of periods. Once, the Italian went on, once only in his life, and that in his early manhood, had his grandfather known what it was to feel profound joy. That was at the time of the Paris July Revolution. He had gone about proclaiming to all and sundry that some day men would place those three days alongside the six days of creation, and reverence them alike. Hans Castorp felt utterly dumbfounded—involuntarily he slapped the table with his hand. To compare those three summer days of the year 1830 when the Parisians had taken unto themselves a new constitution, to the six in which God had divided the land from the water and created the lights in the firmament of heaven, as well as flowers, trees, birds, and fishes, and all other living things—that seemed to him to be going too far. He talked it over later with Cousin Joachim, and gave clear expression to his opinion that it really was pretty thick, that he, Hans Castorp, for his part, found it positively offensive.
But still open-minded—at least in the sense that he enjoyed the experiment he was making—he restrained the objections which his sense of fitness would have raised against the Settembrinian scheme of things. Restrained them on the theory that what seemed sedition to him might to another seem dauntless courage; and what he called bad taste might have been, in that far-off time and circumstance, but a display of the noble excesses of a high-hearted nature—for instance, when Grandfather Settembrini called the barricades “the people’s throne,” and talked about “dedicating the burgher’s pike on the altar of humanity.”
Hans Castorp knew—without putting it into so many words—why he lent an ear to Herr Settembrini. Partly it was out of a sense of duty; though also out of that holiday mood of taking everything as it came, rejecting nothing, in the knowledge that in another day or so he would spread his wings and fly back to the wonted order of things. Yes, he knew it was largely the promptings of conscience to which he hearkened; to be precise, the promptings of a conscience not altogether easy—as he sat listening to the Italian, one leg crossed over the other, drawing at his Maria Mancini; or when the three of them climbed the hill from the English quarter.
Two principles, according to the Settembrinian cosmogony, were in perpetual conflict for possession of the world: force and justice, tyranny and freedom, superstition and knowledge; the law of permanence and the law of change, of ceaseless fermentation issuing in progress. One might call the first the Asiatic, the second the European principle; for Europe was the theatre of rebellion, the sphere of intellectual discrimination and transforming activity, whereas the East embodied the conception of quiesence and immobility. There was no doubt as to which of the two would finally triumph: it would be the power of enlightenment, the power that made for rational advance and development. For human progress snatched up ever more peoples with it on its brilliant course; it conquered more and more territory in Europe itself and was already pressing Asia-wards. Much still remained to be done, sublime exertions were still demanded from those spirits who had received the light. Then only the day would come when thrones would crash and outworn religions crumble, in those remaining countries of Europe which had not already enjoyed the blessings of eighteenth-century enlightenment, nor yet of an upheaval like 1789. But the day would come, Settembrini said, with his suave smile; it would come, he repeated, if not on the wings of doves, then on the pinions of eagles; and dawn would break over Europe, the dawn of universal brotherhood, in the name of justice, science, and human reason. It would bring in its train a new Holy Alliance, the alliance of the democratic peoples
