Naturally Peter Schmidt, the blond Friesian, also suffered under these conditions, but not to such an extent as to be shaken in his peculiar, deep-seated idealism.  It was his idealism, never for an instant forsaking him, that raised him above all momentary hardships.  This very fact, it seemed to Frederick, only added to his wife’s vexation.  From certain remarks of hers, he could tell that it would have been more pleasing to her had Peter cared more for his own advancement and less for the advancement of humanity at large.  No man possessed firmer belief than he in the triumph of good, and no man rejected religious beliefs with greater horror.  He was one of those who disavow the Garden of Eden and declare the next world to be a myth, yet are firmly convinced that the earth may be developed and will develop into a paradise and that man may be developed and will develop into the divinity of that paradise.  Frederick, too, had an inclination for Utopias, and his friend’s notions had a revivifying effect upon him.  When accompanying him on his professional visits, or skating on the little Lake of Hanover, or conversing with him in his Diogenes tub, hope came back to him; but when his friend left, hope forsook him.

But Peter Schmidt was no vain Utopist.  He had a solid basis for his ideals, and endeavoured to realise them in practice.  Frederick knew no one so well versed in the natural sciences, political economy, and medicine; and since he also had very accurate knowledge of the geography and history of the important countries, his survey of political conditions was enviably broad.  When twenty years old, he had upheld the pan-Germanic ideal.  Now, at thirty, he wrote anonymous editorials, which received much attention, advocating the coalition of America, Germany and England, while strongly objecting to the Russian policy in Germany that originated with Bismarck.  The theme that the friends chiefly discussed in those days may be summed up in the names of Marx and Darwin, or either of them.  In Peter Schmidt a sort of adjustment, or rather fusing, of the fundamental tendencies of those two great personalities was in process, though the Christ-Marxian principle of the protection of the weaker gave way to the natural principle of the protection of the stronger; and this mirrors the result of the profoundest revolution that has ever taken place in the history of mankind.

“If, with that tough Friesian skull of yours,” Frederick once said to him, “you succeed for twenty years in propagating the idea of artificial selection as applied to man, and if the idea of race hygiene, of a teleologic improvement of human types is sufficiently spread, it will undoubtedly be fruitful of practical results some day.  That is, a fresh, healthy, vigorous stream of blood will flow through our veins and tend more and more to counteract the increasing marasmus that is enfeebling the race.”

XXVII