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Lord Bryce and many other moralists have analyzed Germany's cause in a masterly manner; and yet they have omitted to mention the one touch-stone which peculiarly distinguishes this war. This is not so much a war as it is an outbreak of national fury transfused with the passion of fear. The great neutral public feels that there is in Germany an element of unreason, and instinctively opposes her as one would oppose any mad creature.

I will not at this moment try to give an account of how this great fear overcame the German consciousness, but I will point out the normal effect of its existence. It separates the Germans from the rest of humanity; the natural man becomes aghast at it. The question is not exactly a question of wickedness. Napoleon was probably as typical a bad-man as is to be found in history. He broke treaties, he was cruel, he was selfish and cynical, he desired to exalt himself and his own ambition above the whole earth. In his private life he was immoral, in his public acts he was often unjust and at times incredibly base. And yet Napoleon does not arouse in us that opposition to the diabolical which, for the time being, we feel towards the Germans. The reason is that Napoleon was sane; the

Germans are, for the time being, more or less insane.

A perception of their insanity began to dawn on us in the first days of the war, when the Imperial Chancellor propounded his novel theories as to the binding character of treaties. These German doctrines chilled us. They prevented us from sympathizing with the magnificent display of German patriotism which accompanied the crime against Belgium. Soon after this the Teutonic philosophy of extermination was further revealed to us in the orders of the commanders, in the actual conduct of the troops, and also in the books about Germany which we all began to read at this period.

We now discovered that the literature of PanTeutonism, which, up to this time, we had taken to be a sort of bad joke, was a very serious matter, -representing as it did Unreason Enthroned.

Pan-Teutonism had been teaching that Germany must save mankind through bloodshed. In a private person such a belief would lead to his incarceration; but so many books are published nowadays, and every one is so inured to extravagant arguments, that no one objects to Unreason in a book. There is a kind of squint of insanity, -of the malice of the neurotic invalid,-which

accompanies the text in much Pan-German literature. The author passes from obvious truths to obvious contradictions without knowing that he has made a transition. The author, moreover, is more sure he is right than a sane man ever is; and when he wishes to be impressive he runs into megalomania. These characteristics of a madman, (1) unconscious passage from reason to unreason, (2) certitude, and (3) megalomania, are to be found in all the German war-literature. Strangely enough, the turn of phrase and tone of mind are alike in the writings of the learned and of the vulgar. The war-spirit speaks in a wartongue. Both the literati of Germany and the manin-the-street in Germany blaze with passion and vociferate with conviction. To them their phrases are full of sacred truth, to them religion and piety, patriotism, profound thought, and holy inspiration live in the words they utter.

To my mind, there is immense psychological interest in these exhibitions of pure, unadulterated patriotism. Their sincerity penetrates us: but the idea they convey is zero. Their message is, indeed, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Such is the message of any mere race-patriotism, of any patriotism which obliges the rest of the world to be subdued

before it can receive the benefits of the pretended dispensation. Zero is the substance and the symbol of race-patriotism. All the piety and enthusiasm with which it is offered to the world, all the gun-boats and bloodshed which herald it are powerless to raise the intellectual value of this emotion above the zero point.

II

THE GENESIS OF MADNESS

WHAT is Germany's grievance against France? Napoleon I humiliated Germany in 1807, and the Germans in 1870 had their revenge. Germany's attack on France in 1870 was regarded by Europe, and is regarded by posterity, as a criminal act; but it was at least successful; it wiped off old scores. What then is the left-over grievance, so visible to German eyes, so invisible to the rest of the world, which is the cause of this present war? This question is very hard to answer. Perhaps Germany harbours a fatal consciousness that the war of 1870 was, in some sense, unjustly waged by her, and that time will bring its revenges. Perhaps she even believes that her great mistake in 1870 was that she left France alive. Whatever be the griefs of Germany, she has been mourning over them and girding against them for a generation. Her own success and riches have not satisfied her, she has brooded

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