That is the real problem; and it is a far more complex and difficult one than if we had to do with a people which had consciously abandoned the Christian virtues or consciously embarked on a conspiracy against Belgium or Great Britain.  The utter failure of even the most eminent Germans to grasp British politics, British institutions, and the British point of view points to a fundamental misunderstanding, a fundamental divergence of outlook, between the political ideals of the two countries.  It is the conflict between these ideals which forms the second great issue between Germany and Great Britain; and on its outcome depends the future of human civilisation.

Sec.2. Culture.—­What is the German ideal?  What do German thinkers regard as Germany’s contribution to human progress?  The answer comes back with a monotonous reiteration which has already sickened us of the word.  It is Kultur, or, as we translate it, culture.  Germany’s contribution to progress consists in the spread of her culture.

Kultur is a difficult word to interpret.  It means “culture” and a great deal more besides.  Its primary meaning, like that of “culture,” is intellectual and aesthetic:  when a German speaks of “Kultur” he is thinking of such things as language, literature, philosophy, education, art, science, and the like.  Children in German schools are taught a subject called Kulturgeschichte (culture-history), and under that heading they are told about German literature, German philosophy and religion, German painting, German music and so on.

So far, the English and the German uses of the word roughly correspond.  We should probably be surprised if we heard it said that Shakespeare had made a contribution to English “culture”:  but, on consideration, we should admit that he had, though we should not have chosen that way of speaking about him.  But there is a further meaning in the word Kultur, which explains why it is so often on German lips.  It means, not only the product of the intellect or imagination, but the product of the disciplined intellect and the disciplined imagination. Kultur has in it an element of order, of organisation, of civilisation.  That is why the Germans regard the study of the “culture” of a country as part of the study of its history.  English school children are beginning to be taught social and industrial history in addition to the kings and queens and battles and constitutions which used to form the staple of history lessons.  They are being taught, that is, to see the history of their country, and of its civilisation, in the light of the life and livelihood of its common people.  The German outlook is different.  They look at their history in the light of the achievements of its great minds, which are regarded as being at once the proof and the justification of its civilisation.  To the question, “What right have you to call yourselves a civilised country?” an Englishman