“And the reason for all this?  Because England was envious of Germany’s greatness, because she was bound to hinder further expansion of the German sphere at any cost!  There cannot be the least doubt that England was determined from the start to break in upon Germany’s great conflict for national existence, to cast as many stones as possible in Germany’s path, and to block her every effort toward adequate expansion.  England lay in wait until the favourable opportunity for inflicting a lasting injury upon Germany should come, and promptly seized upon the unavoidable German invasion of Belgian territory as a pretext for draping her own brutal national egotism in a mantle of decency.

“Or is there in the whole world a person so simple as to believe that England would have declared war upon France, had the latter Power invaded Belgium? In that event, England would have shed hypocritical tears over the necessary violation of international law, while concealing a laughing face behind the mask.  The most repulsive thing in the whole business is this hypocritical Pharisaism; it merits only contempt.

“History shows that such sentiments as these, far from guiding nations upward, lead them along the downward path.  But we of this present time have fixed our faith firm as a rock upon our righteous cause, and upon the superior power and the inflexible will for victory that abide in the German nation.  Nevertheless the deplorable fact remains, that the boundless egotism already mentioned has for that span of the future discernible to us destroyed the collaboration of the two nations which was so full of promise for the intellectual uplift of humanity.  But the other party has willed it so.  Upon England alone rests the monstrous guilt and the responsibility in the eye of world-history.”

“ERNST HAECKEL.

“RUDOLF EUCKEN.”

* * * * *

FROM THE MANIFESTO OF PROFESSOR EUCKEN.

“Let us hope that our German weapons will show the Englishmen that they were entirely wrong in their reckoning; but first let us point out the wide discrepancy between their motives and ours.

“With them it is self-seeking, envy, calculation; with us the conviction that we are fighting for the holiest possessions of our people, for right and justice.”

* * * * *

NIETZSCHE ON DISARMAMENT.

The following extract from Nietzsche may be worth quoting as presenting one aspect of his many-sided thought:—­

“Perhaps a memorable day will come when a nation renowned in wars and victories, distinguished by the highest development of military order and intelligence, and accustomed to make the heaviest sacrifices for these objects, will voluntarily exclaim, ‘We will break our swords,’ and will destroy its whole military system, lock, stock, and barrel.  To make ourselves defenceless (after having been most