In other words, he was unwilling to treat this as anything but a concrete problem, and he was used to camels being in villages, and he was quite unable to use the hypothetical, to ask himself what if there were no camels in Germany.
In altre parole, non era disposto a trattare questo se non come un problema materiale, e lui era abituato a vedere i cammelli nei villaggi, ed era praticamente incapace di utilizzare la supposizione, e a chiedersi se potessero non esserci cammelli in Germania.