There was still the philosophy. But German philosophy was almost at the very root of the problem. The sense of neurasthenia felt in the late nineteenth century was in part created by a weariness with philosophy. And not only because suddenly there was so much awareness of how much there was to think about, but because German thought was already characterised by a weightiness that too easily transferred into weariness and even fatalism. There are of course many reasons for this. But among them is the peculiarly German pursuit of continuously, relentlessly, pursuing ideas to their end point – wherever that might lead.

This tendency also has an expression in German: Drang nach dem absoluten (‘the drive towards the absolute’). It is not a phrase that the English or English philosophy would use, but it aptly sums up that habit of pushing and pushing ideas until they reach what can then seem to be an unavoidable and even seemingly predetermined end point. Once that end point becomes clear, what can be done to avoid it? There is a reading of Hegel that can lead people to this – to the idea that history itself is a force to which we must simply submit. In this vision of philosophy – and of politics – it might be more accurate to describe not so much a drive towards the absolute as a pull towards the absolute. From at least the nineteenth century, German philosophy had a tendency to present certain ideas and theories as revealed truths, exercising an almost gravitational force that could not be resisted however hard it might be to live with those truths. The dogged habit of pushing ideas to their utmost point made German philosophy overtake most other philosophies of the day. It was why it swept not only across Europe but also across Russia and eventually even the universities of America. Indeed, German philosophy almost ruled the world of philosophy for a time. And it also helped to crash it.

The truths were laid down and people simply had to find a way to live with them. Martin Heidegger is often said to have provided the nadir when he used his Rector’s address at the University of Freiburg in 1933 to tell his audience that the crucial decisions for the future of their country had now been made for them. Decisions were a thing of the past, in his view, because all of the important questions had now been ‘decided’. All that could now be done was to submit to those decisions.