ABSTRACT
For the Wagnerian romantic, any attempt to circumscribe the torrent of appetites erupting from the ego is anathema; the everlasting expansion of arbitrary caprice is the only way to ensure the pure goodness inhering in every human heart is unleashed. In comparing the bohemian volition of the romantic with the inner check of the humane conservative, Viereck illustrates the need for ethical traffic lights. In yet a more indirect sense, one hundred years of romantic literature and philosophy made Germany more susceptible to Nazi concepts than any other country in the world, already long before Versailles. Viereck admonishes the reader not to confuse this glorification of irresponsible emotionalism with emotional sentimentalism, because the romantic philosophy is the "product of intense cerebration". Human beings must not get lost in clouds of our own ego, must not forget our place within that great, majestic order that transcends our mortal perception.
