Germany and the Next War

act that war is the destruction of all good and the origin of all evil. In spite of all that history teaches, no conviction is felt

d its destructive as well as creative and purifying power. It has not succeeded in teaching mankind what its real nature is. Long periods of war, far from con

piration finds its public expression in peace leagues and peace congresses; the Press of every country and of every party opens its columns to it. The current in this direction is, indeed, so strong that the majority of Governments profess-outwardly, at any

al position of affairs at the Hague Congresses, and this is also the meaning of the action of the United States of America, who in recent times have earnestly tried to conclude treaties

l instincts, to take such steps, and induced "perfidious Albion" to accede to the proposals. We may suppose that England intended to protect her rear in event of a war with Germany, but that America wished to have a free hand in order to follow her policy of sovereignty in Central America without hindrance, and to carry out her plans regarding the Panama Canal in the exclusive interests of America. Both countries certainly entertained

cal courage such as has often been shown by a race of Epigoni. "It has always been," H. von Treitschke t

y with it, and emphasizes the primitive brutality of man. It is therefore a most desirable consummation if wars for trivial reasons should be rendered impossible, and if efforts are made to restrict the evils which follow necessarily in the train of war, so far as is compatible with the essential

ative element in the life of mankind which cannot be dispensed with, since without it an unhealthy development will follow, which excludes every advance

(Heraclitus

of life, and to assert themselves in the universal economy of Nature. The weaker succumb. This struggle is regulated and restrained by the unconscious sway of biological laws and by the interplay of opposite forces. In the plant world and the animal world this process is worked out in unconscious tragedy. In the human race it is consciously carried out, and regulated by social ordinances. The man of strong will and strong intellect tries by every means to assert himself, the ambitious strive to rise, and

for possessions, power, and sovereignty, which primarily governs the relations of one nation to another, and right is respected so far only as it is compatible with advantage. So long as there are men

out. The extrasocial, the supersocial, struggle which guides the external development of societies, nations, and races, is war. The internal development, the intrasocial struggle, is man's daily work-the struggle of thoughts, feelings, wishes, sciences, activities. The outward

ner, "Der Krieg als sch

the best able to defend itself. War will furnish such a nation with favourable vital conditions, enlarged possibilities of expansion and widened influence, and thus promote the progress of mankind; for it is clear that those intellectual and moral factors which insure superiority in war are also those which render possible a gener

e is kept within bounds, and that the right shall prevail. Behind the law stands the State, armed with power, which it employs, and rightly so, not merely to protect, but actively to promote, the moral and spiritual interests of society. But there is no impartial power that stands above the rivalry of States to restrain injustice, and to use that rivalry with conscious purpose to promote the highest ends of mankind. Between States the only check on injustice is force, and in morality and civilization each people must play its

cceed for a time, but in the end the more intensive vitality will prevail. The allied opponents have the seeds of corruption in them, while the powerful nation gains fr

l or in the life of States, which are agglomerations of individuals. The first and paramount law is the assertion of one's own independent existence. By self-assertion alone can the State maintain the conditions of life for its citizens, and insure them the legal protecti

, they require new territory for the accommodation of their surplus population. Since almost every part of the globe is inhabited, new

emigrants into other States and territories. These submit to the legislature of the new country, but try to obtain favourable

ossible to determine what degree of civilization justifies annexation and subjugation. The impossibility of finding a legitimate limit to these international relations has been the cause of many wars. The subjugated nation does not recognize this right of subjugation, and the more powerful civilized nation refuses to admit the claim of the

the surplus population which the mother-country can no longer feed. Then the only course left is to acquire the necessary territory by war. Thus the instinct of self-preservation l

m didst inherit

possess it,

of such conditions, while Germany in the Morocco ques

ve to maintain the actual sovereignty of this State on the basis of the Alge?iras Convention. Among other advantages, which need not be discussed he

e right, and the dispute as to what is right is decided by the arbitrament of war. War g

n circumstances a convincing argument for war, so

home industries into existence, and to protect them by tariff barriers; and, on the other hand, the foreign country tries to keep the markets open to itself, to crush or cripple competing industries, and thus to retain the consumer for itself or win fresh ones. It is an embittered struggle which rages in the market of the world. It has already often assumed definite hostile forms in tariff wars, and the future will certainly intensify this struggle. Great commercial countries will, on the one hand, shut their doors more closely to outsiders, and countries hitherto on the down-grade will devel

ced, Germany would hardly have conceded to France the most favourable position in the Morocco market without a struggle. England, doubtless, would not shrink from a war to the knife, just as she fought for the ownership of the South African goldfields and diamond-mines, if any attack threatened her Indian market, the control of which i

ards this idea is closely connect

possible diminution of all bodily suffering. The State will be regarded as a sort of assurance office, which guarantees a life of undisturbed possession and enjoyment in the widest meaning of the word. We must endorse the view which Wilhelm von Humboldt professed in his t

boldt, "Ideen zu einem

es Staates zu

and social insurance office, political union will not seem to us to have the one object of bringing the advantages of civilization within the reach of the individual; we shall assign to it the nobler task of raising the intellectual and moral powers of a nation to the highest expansion, and of securing for them that influence on the world which tends to the combined progress of humanity. We shall see in the Sta

for which he lives and works. He must be in a family, in a society, in the State, which draws the individual out of the narrow circles in which he otherwise would pass his

, since in a human race conceived as a whole struggle and, by Implication, the most essential vital principle would be ruled out. Any action in fa

the highest and most valuable interests of a nation. As human life is now constituted, it is

he conditions under which mankind develops into the most splendid perfection. The development of all the best human capabilities and qualities can only find scope on the great stage of action which power creates. But when the State renounces all extension of power, and recoils from every war which is necessary for its expansion; when it is content to e

peace. Selfishness and intrigue run riot, and luxury obliterates idealism. Money acq

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Braut v.

n and stagnation. It is well that the transitoriness of the goods of this world is

o Fischer, "Hege

material and mental distress in its train, but at the same time it evokes the noblest activities of the human nature. This is especially so under present-

manent results in the national life. We need only recall the uniting power of the War of Liberation or the Franco-German War and their historical consequences. The brutal incidents inseparable from every war vanish completely before the idealism of the main result. All the sham reputations w

hke, "Deutsche Gesch

ruitful field to all virtues, for at every moment constancy, pity, magnanimity, heroism, and

of the whole body. He should recognize how his own life is nothing worth in comparison with the welfare of the community. War is elevating, because the individual disappears before the great concept

eitschke, "Poli

, it leads to a healthy revival, and lays the foundation of a new and vigorous constitution. "I recognize in the effect of w

e cause which he serves, or even to the conception of the value of ideals to personal morality. Similarly, nations and States can a

these sentiments spring, and thus only are nations enabled to do justice to the highest duties of civilization by the fullest development of their moral fo

pioned the ideas of universal peace in order to be able to devote their undisturbed attention to money-making and the enjoyment of wealth, and to save the three hundred million dollars which they spend on their army and navy; they thus incur a great danger, not so much from the possibility of a war with England or Japan

ality is personal and social, and in its nature cannot be political. Its object is to promote morality of the individual, in order to strengthen him to work unselfishly in the interests of the community. It tells us to love our individual enemies, but does not remove the conception of enmity. Christ Himself said: "I am not come to send peace on earth, but a sword." His teaching can never be adduced as an argument against the universal law of struggle. There never was a religion which was more combative than Ch

views will certainly regard it with disfavour, since it may cost him life and prosperity. The State, however, as such can also come from the materialistic stan

ds to selfishness, the majority of the citizens have no reason for not sacrificing the minority in their own interests. Thus,

tifiable from every point of view. The practical methods which the adherents of the pea

involved in the fullest assertion of these rights, and proposals are made from time to time on this basis to settle the disputes which arise between the various countries by Arbitra

t right is the finding of this Arbitration Court based? and wh

n indefinite, purely personal conception; in its second meaning it is variable and capable of development. The right determined by law is only an attempt to secure a right in itself. In this sense right is the system of social aims secured by compulsion. It is therefore impossible that a written law should meet all the special points of a pa

r peoples, and this consciousness finds its expression in most varied forms, and lives in the heart of the people by the side of, and frequently in opposition to, the established law. In Christian countries m

e established law can seldom keep pace with this inner development, this growth of moral consciousness; it lags behind. A condition of things arises where the living

ransmitted,

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how much more impossible must a universal international law be in the wide-reaching and complicated relations between nations and States! Each nation evolves its own conception of right, each has its particular ideals and aims, which spring with a certain inevitableness from its character and historical life. These various views bear in themselves their living justification, and may well be diametrically opposed to those of other nations, and none can say that one nation has a better right than the other. There never

ion Court must originate in a certain political status; it must regard this as legally constituted, and must treat any alterations, however necessary, to which the whole of the contracting parties do not agree, as an encroachment. In this way eve

udgment of the Arbitration Court be enforced if any State refuses to submit to it? Wh

. The present leaders of the American peace movement seem to share this idea. With a childlike self-consciousness, they appear to believe that public opinion must represent the view which the American plutocrats think most profitable to themselves. They have no notion that t

an Empire existed. Such an empire never can or will arise again. Even if it did, it would assuredly, like a universal peace leagu

inable legal issues, and that a general arbitration treaty between two countries afforded no guarantee of permanent peace. Such a treaty merely proved that between the two contracting States no serious inducement to break the peace could be imagined. It therefore only confi

the State in whose favour it is pronounced. If we imagine, for example, that Silesia had fallen to Frederick the Great by the finding of a Court of Arbitration,

that it vindicated its position as the home of unfettered intellectual and religious development. It was war which laid the foundations of Prussia's power, which amassed a heritage of glory and honour that can never be again disputed. War forged that

ight and the possibility to sacrifice their highest material possessions, their physical life, for ideals, and thus to realize the highest moral unselfishness. It is proposed to obviate the great quarrels between nations and States by Courts of Arbitration-that is, by arrangements. A one-sided, restricted, formal law

the expansion of sovereignty and territory in the interests of the national welfare; for a definite influence in the concert of nations according to the scale of their importance in civilization; for intellectual freedom from dogmatic and political compulsion; for the honour of the flag as typical of their own worth-then progressive development is broken off, decadence is inevitable, and ruin at home and abroad is only

ational character and military tradition act and react upon each." These are the

of a nation into the spell of their Utopian efforts, and they thus introduce an element of weakness into the national life; they cripple the justifiable national pride in independence, and support a nerveless opportunist policy by surrounding it with the glamour of a higher hu

forces, as well as of political power, as the surest guarantee for the uniform development of character; on the other hand t

ally for the whole industrial world, and when the cost of living is everywhere uniformly regulated. Until this is the case the prices of the international market determine the standard of wages. The nation which leaves this out of account, and tries to settle independently wages and working hours, runs the risk of losing its position in the international market in c

iform regulation of the world's industries. A State which disregarded the differently conceived notions of neighbouring countries, and wished to make the idea

bject in a world bristling with arms, where a healthy egotism still directs the policy of most countries.

eitschke, "Poli

al attribute with us, as in France." [J] We lack the true feeling for political exigencies. A deep social and religious gulf divides the German people into different political groups, which are bitterly antagonisti

eitschke, "Poli

e convinced that the general good is being advanced by them. Equally true is it, however, that this peace movement is of

The policy of a great State has positive aims. It will endeavour to attain this by pacific measures so long as that is possible and profitable. It must not only be conscious that in momentous questions which influence definitely the entire development of a nation, the appeal to arms is a sacred right o

of a pea

dream

our ral

to vi