Mephistopheles Appears.

In the presence of such events as are passing before our eyes, how can we keep our minds free?  We have to say to ourselves:  “See what has come of that philosophic, artistic, scientific development whose grandeur and idealistic character all the world has proclaimed!” “That is what the infernal cur had in his belly,” said Faust as he saw the dog which was playing at his side change into Mephistopheles.  What!  Having declared the morality of Plato and Aristotle inadequate and mediocre, having preached duty for duty’s sake, having established the unconditioned supremacy of moral worth, the royalty of the intellect, to end by officially declaring that a signed engagement is but a scrap of paper, and that juridic or moral laws do not count if they incommode us and if we are the strongest!  Having given to the world marvelous music, in which the purest and deepest aspirations seem to be heard; having raised art and poetry to a sort of religion, in which man communes with the Eternal by the worship of the ideal; having exalted the universities as the most sublime of human creations, temples of science and of intellectual freedom, to come to bombarding Louvain, Malines, and the Cathedral of Rheims!  Having assumed the role of representative par excellence of culture, of civilization in its loftiest form, at the end to aim at the subjugation of the world and to strive toward that aim by the methodical letting loose of brute force, wickedness, and barbarism!  To boast of having attained the highest plane of human nature, and to reveal themselves as survivors of the Huns and Vandals!

Only yesterday Germany was feared throughout the world because of her power, but esteemed for her science and her heritage of idealism.  Today, on the contrary, there is a common cry of reprobation and horror raised against her from one end of the earth to the other.  Fear is overcome by indignation.  On every side it is asserted that the victory of German imperialism and militarism would be the triumph of despotism, brutality, and barbarism.  These ideas are expressed to us by Americans of the North and South, by Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, Swiss, and Rumanians.  The nation which burned the University of Louvain and the Cathedral of Rheims has brought dishonor upon itself.

What shall we think of the prodigious contrast which manifests itself between the high culture of Germany and the end at which she aims, the means which she employs in the present war?  Is it enough to explain this contrast, to allege that in spite of all their science the Germans are but slightly civilized, that in the sixteenth century they were still boorish and uncultivated and that their science, an affair of specialists and pundits, has never penetrated their soul or influenced their character?