Frederick The Great
Superman. By Nathaniel Ausubel. (Rontledge. 18s.)
IT is strange that in a civilization which makes a point of dividing conduct into the good and the bad, the honourable and the dishonourable, anyone who behaves, politically, like a first-class blackguard is dignified by the label " realist," while those who attempt to preserve decency are said to be ruled by illusions. The inference is that we base our ethical code on the pursuit of illusion and the condemnation of reality ; which is absurd. It would be less strange if we were at all consistent about it ; but, although an unscrupulous politician can pass as a " realist," an unscrupulous financier (at least if he is unlucky enough to be convicted) is called a crook. It may, of course, be argued that the word is used loosely; the retort is that it is high time that an attempt was made to simplify ideas by confining important words to their proper fields.
All this has been said before, will be said again (in each case more lucidly than here), and is provoked in this instance by the sight of a new life of Frederick the Great, who is commonly called a " supreme realist." He is called that because in his more spectacular actions he exhibited to a marked degree traits of cruelty, callousness, chicanery and general un- scrupulousness. These qualities were freely used in the cause of Prussia's aggrandizement. In the eyes of the average Englishman they combine to make up the whole Frederick. Little is generally known of his restless craving for knowledge or philosophical truth ; his deep love of music and the humanities. Little is generally known of his appalling childhood, of the violent oppression of the absurdly sensitive child by the raving madman who was his father. These and kindred aspects of Frederick's life are dwelt upon in Superman at considerable length. Herr Ausubel is not concerned with giving us a picture of Frederick the " supreme realist," but with portraying the real Frederick as a credible human being. He succeeds without apparent effort simply because he reviews the life and environment of his subject in proper perspective. Most things appear credible when the perspective is right. What is entirely incredible is the popular notion of Frederick as an evil monster of scarcely human shape : evil never had so single-minded a disciple as he is supposed to have been. Before he introduces Frederick, Herr Ausubel gives the reader a working idea of the characters of the grandfather, the father and the mother, and contrives to make Frederick emerge from his environment, hereditary and actual, rather than appear upon the scene with sudden irrelevance. He is born before our eyes, and we watch the gradual crystallization of his character, with its stultifications and developments, until the final dissolution of the completed whole. We are given a coherent picture of this whole, and, although when it is finished it seems quite inevitable, Herr Ausubel has really achieved a remarkably complicated piece of reconstruction which will, one imagines, in all essentials remain unchanged. There are details to cavil at, but by and large the picture rings true.
We have in effect the portrait of a man of genius who pre- sented in himself an extreme example of dualism ; the ruthless instigator of the Seven Years War on the one hand, on the other the flute-playing philosopher. It is the Frederick of the Seven Years War whom we know as the " realist." Herr Ausubel avoids any use of the word ; but he makes it clear that Frederick himself would have laughed the conception to scorn. He had no illusions as to the validity of his darker side. He knew well that for him no contentment could be won from aggrandizement, power, and the adulation of the mob ; but mere knowledge could not help. The world to-day may condemn Frederick for achieving power by unscrupulous methods, and derive obscure comfort by calling him a realist" Frederick knew better, and condemned himself for his madness in seeking power at all. He was realist enough to know that an insane lust for power was deterring him from the pursuit of reality. The rest was illusion.
Herr Ausubel makes no attempt to judge Frederick. He is content to let the good and the bad stand side by side. He does not demand canonization simply because he has found that Frederick was not, after all, a completely amoral fiend. For all practical purposes he was an impossible person, fit only for the lunatic asylum or the lethal chamber ; but it is enlightening to watch the forces of destruction at work, from early childhood, upon a colossal mind ; it is also deeply moving.
This is a book to be read ; but for long stretches it sorely tries the patience of the reader. It suffers from most of the faults of novelized biography ; long-windedness, theatricality, repetitiveness. One cannot help feeling that a straightforward account in half as many words would have been far more effective. But even while we blame Herr Ausubel for making Rs dig for his argument, we are grateful that it is there at all.
EDWARD CRANKSHAW.
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