For the same kind of reason, it appears to me that we all think that peace is a blessing, and war a curse.  For under peace commerce and industry prosper; science and the arts flourish; friendships are made and adorn the amenities of life.  Moreover, our religious traditions in all Christian countries, and in some non-Christian ones like China, influence us to believe that war is wrong, indefensible, and, in the present year of our Lord, an anachronism.

We imagined, perhaps not most, but many of us, that no important European nation thought differently.  Your leading Liberal paper, The Manchester Guardian, on July 22, 1908, wrote, “Germany, though the most military of nations, is probably the least warlike”; and this doubtless represented the views of the majority of Englishmen.  Some of us knew better.  I have, or had, many German friends; we have lived for many years on a footing of mutual kindliness; but it was impossible to disregard the signs of the times.  The reason of this war is at bottom, as we have now discovered, the existence of a wholly different ideal in the Germanic mind from that which lies at the base of the Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, or Scandinavian nations.  Such a statement as this is sweeping; it can be illustrated by a trivial tale.  In 1912 an international scientific congress met at Berlin; I was a member.  Although the conventional language was German, in compliment to our hosts, it turned out that in the long run all discussions were conducted in French.  After such a sitting, the members separated, the German committee remaining behind for business purposes.  The question of language was raised, I think by a Dutchman, in the corridor.  Of the representatives of the fourteen or fifteen nations present, all were agreed on this—­that they were not going to be compelled to publish in German; some chose English; some French; Spanish was suggested as a simple and easily understood language; but there was no love lost between the “foreign” and the German representatives, and this not the least on personal, but purely on national grounds.  Acknowledging to the full the existence of high-minded German gentlemen, it is a sad fact that the character of the individuals of the nation is not acceptable to individuals of other nations.  Listen to a quotation from a letter I have received from a very distinguished Swiss:  “Une chose me frappait aussi, dans les tendances allemandes, une incroyable inconscience.  Accaparer le bien d’autrui leur paraissait si naturel qu’ils ne comprenaient meme pas que l’on eut quelque desir de se defendre.  Le monde entier etait fait pour constituer le champ d’exploitation de l’Allemagne, et celui qui s’opposait a l’accomplissement de cette destinee etait, pour tout allemand, l’objet d’une surprise.” [Translation:  “One thing has also struck me in German tendencies; that is an unbelievable want of conscience.  To grab the belongings of others appeared to them so natural, that they did not understand that one had some wish to defend himself.  The whole world was made for the field of German operations, and whoever placed himself in opposition to the accomplishment of this destiny was for every German the object of surprise.”] The view is not new; the feeling of surprise at opposition was expressed wittily by a French poet in the words: