cultural resources in henrik ibsen's early environment - Ibsen.net

time precisely to develop itself from within, from the consciousness' own depths, and
therefore it is perhaps most practical that the active work in the service of the idea be
limited at first to the literary situation. It is perhaps even useful that the masses of
workers, especially the young people who engage themselves with it, not be conscious at
first of any other purpose; their work will thereby be more peaceful, more secure, less
marked by self-interest and the passions of the moment. But it cannot fail that one must
gradually glimpse, at least as a distant possibility (which in any case one must regard
either with fear or antipathy) what the more insightful already perceive as a necessity. A
people's literature is indeed never anything isolated, anything existing for itself alone, but
has its actual significance in a real existing nationality; it is an expression of a nation's
innermost consciousness, and where this is true and strong, there also outwardly far and
wide it must and shall break itself a way to unite itself.
For that matter, of what character this Scandinavian unity should be or will
become, lies outside the possibilities of the present moment to determine more closely. It
would not be difficult to write a book about it and make proposals by the dozen, but that
would be only slightly useful. The certain and complete answers to such questions occur
only through the course of centuries, not in a thinker's mind. Well runs the old rule, that
one should always think before one acts, and from this should follow, not to embark upon
anything which one has not investigated completely beforehand; but this division between
thought and action must not be pursued too far; since it is certain in any case that the
greater, world-historical thoughts are not in themselves fully developed before precisely
being acted. What time carries in its womb can only in general contours and for the most
part merely negatively be reported in advance. Accordingly the considerations we have
450