German Problems and Personalities Part 7

VI.-TREITSCHKE'S TREATISE ON POLITICS.

It is much to be regretted that the British public should have been first introduced to Treitschke's "History of Germany." The "History of Germany" is, no doubt, the most important and the most monumental, but it is by no means the most interesting nor the most significant of Treitschke's writings. German history could never be as arresting to a Continental student as British or French history. It is not mixed up with universal events. It is too parochial. It does not evoke human sympathy. With all the magic of Treitschke's art, we feel that we are following, not the great highway, but one of the by-ways of history.

We cannot get absorbed in the petty quarrels of the princelings of the German Federation. Of the five volumes of Treitschke's "German History," the only part which is of general interest is the first volume, dealing with the rise of Prussia, the reign of Frederick the Great and his successors, the Napoleonic wars, and the Congress of Vienna.

As often happens, it is mainly through his minor writings that Treitschke will live-through his "Cavour," his "United Netherlands,"

his "Bonapartism," and his Biographical Essays. But to the philosophical student by far the most important of Treitschke's writings are his two volumes on the Science of Politics, which are, without exception, the most fascinating and the most suggestive political treatise published in this generation. Political treatises are proverbially dull and out of touch with reality. Treitschke's treatise is a solitary exception. To him politics are not, like mathematics, an abstract or a deductive science. We cannot build an ideal political structure in the air. The political thinker must be more modest in his ambitions. He cannot adduce first principles. All politics must be _Realpolitik_. All politics must be based on concrete historical facts-_i.e._, circ.u.mscribed in time and s.p.a.ce.

Indeed, strictly considered, political philosophy is only applied history. That is why political treatises are so disappointing. The philosopher is content to generalize, and does not know the facts. On the other hand, the historian who knows the facts has not the capacity of generalization. Politics must be mainly empirical. The political thinker does not reason forward from the past to the present, but backwards from the present to the past. He studies the present results of the mature experience of many ages, and then explains the distant past in the light of the present.

VII.-PRUSSIA THE SOLE STANDARD OF POLITICAL VALUES.

Not only has Prussian history been the centre of all Treitschke's activities; it also supplies him with the sole standard of all political values, the sole test of the truth of all political theories. With superb logic he deduces all his political system from the vicissitudes of the Brandenburg State. His sympathies and antipathies, his affinities and repulsions, are Prussian. Prussia and the German Empire have monopolized all human virtues. His only enemies are the enemies of the Prussian State (see paragraphs VIII. and IX. of this Essay).

Prussia is a national State, exclusive, self-sufficient, self-contained. Therefore, the national State is the supreme and final political reality (see paragraph XI.).

All the theories which challenge or threaten this conception of the national State are dismissed by Treitschke as d.a.m.nable heresies: the heresy of individualism (see paragraph XII.), the heresy of internationalism (see paragraph XIII.), and the heresy of imperialism (paragraph XIV.).

The one aim of the Prussian State has been the extension of Prussian power. Therefore the will to power must be the fundamental dogma of the State (paragraph XV.).

Prussia has always subordinated political ethics to national aggrandizement; therefore Treitschke holds with Machiavelli that in politics the end justifies the means (paragraph XVI.).

Prussia has only expanded through war. War has been the national industry of the Prussian people. Therefore war is considered by Treitschke as the vital principle of national life (paragraph XVII.).

Prussia has been the family estate of the Hohenzollern dynasty; therefore the monarchy must be considered as the ideal form of government (paragraph XVIII.).

The Prussian military aristocracy of Junkers have been the mainstay of the Prussian State; therefore an aristocratic government is a corollary of the monarchic form of government, and the French democratic theory of government is the arch-heresy (paragraphs XIX.

and XX.).

Prussia has been the leading Protestant State; therefore Roman Catholicism must be held to be inconsistent with the prosperity of any modern polity (paragraph XXI.).

Prussia, from a small straggling territory, has grown to be one of the leading Powers of Europe by the gradual absorption of all the surrounding small States; therefore only great Powers have a right to exist (paragraph XXII.); therefore small States are a monstrosity (paragraph XXIII.).

VIII.-TREITSCHKE'S POLITICAL PAGANISM.

There is no counterpart in modern history to the development of the Prussian State, no political structure so entirely self-contained and self-sufficient, which has so continuously pursued its own selfish ends. For an exact a.n.a.logy it is necessary to revert to ancient history; therefore Treitschke's sympathies go to the ancient State much more than to the modern State. In his religion he is a devout Lutheran. But in his political conceptions he is entirely pagan. To him the politics of Aristotle remain the fountain of all political wisdom. The modern man in order to understand the majesty of the State must free himself of a whole ma.s.s of acquired notions. In quiet and peaceful times the average man may pursue his private avocations and hardly give a thought to the State. It was different in antiquity. The ancient city State was everything, and was felt to be everything, so that the citizen could not conceive himself as apart from the State.

That is why they had a much stronger and healthier political sense, an instinctive comprehension for, and a pa.s.sionate devotion to, the State. The moderns have ceased to live and move in the State. They are divided and distracted by their social and economic interests. Only the modern Prussian feels for Prussia as the Roman and the Spartan felt for their native countries. To the Prussian alone, as to the Roman and the Spartan, the devotion to the State is glorified into a religion, the religion of patriotism.

IX.-TREITSCHKE'S ANTIPATHIES AND HATREDS.

Even as his sympathies, so are Treitschke's antipathies determined by his Prussian preconceptions. Whatever is alien to Prussian ideals is odious to Treitschke. Whoever has opposed the growth of the Prussian State or threatened its future becomes a personal enemy. And, as every State has had to oppose the predatory policy of Prussia, and is threatened by its ambitions, as, to use Treitschke's own words, "Prussia was the best hated of all the German States from the first days of her independent history," the antipathies of the Prussian historian are almost universal. And what a fierce hater he is; what unlimited power of vituperation; what intensity of bitter feeling! He hates Talleyrand, Lord Palmerston, King Leopold of Belgium, with a personal animosity. He hates Britain and France. He hates Austria and the small German Princ.i.p.alities. He hates Belgium and Holland; and, above all, he loathes and despises the Jews.

X.-TREITSCHKE'S HATRED OF THE JEWS.

No nation inspires Treitschke with a more instinctive repulsion than the Jews. He may be called the father of scientific and pedantic anti-Semitism. In other nations anti-Semitism was only an instinctive and irrational popular feeling. In Treitschke anti-Semitism becomes a systematic doctrine. It becomes part of a political creed. Treitschke hates the Jews because they are unwarlike, because they are absorbed in material interests, because they are Atheists. He abhors the Gospel according to Saint Marx. He denounces the cynicism of Heine. He dreads the influence of the Jewish Press. But, above all, he hates the Jews because they are denationalized, because they have no stake in the prosperity and greatness of the national State. The Jews are wanderers without a settled existence, without allegiance and loyalty except to their own race. The dual political life which the Jews are leading as members of the Jewish nation and as parasites of other national States to which they have temporarily migrated is a permanent menace to a healthy national German life. Everywhere the Jews are revolutionists, anarchists, Atheists. All the leaders of the German Social Democracy-La.s.salle, Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Bernstein-are Hebrews. It is the imperative duty of all Prussian patriots to guard the people against the Jewish danger, against Jewish journalism, Jewish finance, Jewish materialism, Jewish socialism, and Jewish internationalism.

XI.-THE THEORY OF THE NATIONAL STATE.

Let us revert to the starting-point of Treitschke's politics, which is the theory of the national State. Only in the national State can the individual realize the higher moral and political life. The State is not part of a larger whole. It is in itself a self-contained whole. It is not a means to an end; it is an end in itself. It is not a relative conception; it is an absolute. The French people may fight for humanity. A St. Louis may be inspired with the crusading spirit.

Treitschke has no sympathy for such quixotism. The national State must be selfish. To be unselfish is the mortal sin of politics. Humanity, sentimentalism, have no place in politics. Frederick William IV., the one sentimental King in the whole history of the Hohenzollern Dynasty, once rendered an unselfish service to his neighbours. A Prussian army saved the Saxon monarchy from revolution and then withdrew. Treitschke has no words strong enough to condemn this solitary instance of a disinterested Prussian policy.

The national State is alone invested with the attributes of sovereignty. There is nothing above it. National rights must be final.

The national State may for the time being limit its absolute sovereignty by international agreements, but any such agreements are only conditional and temporary-_rebus sic stantibus_. No national State can make international agreements which are binding for the future. The time must always come when the sc.r.a.p of paper has to be torn asunder. It is true that the national State is indirectly playing its part in the moral education of humanity, but it will best serve humanity by only thinking of itself.

XII.-THE HERESY OF INDIVIDUALISM.

There are many heresies which threaten the orthodox religion of the national State. The first and the most dangerous is the heresy of individualism. A school of modern theorists, William von Humboldt and John Stuart Mill, have a.s.serted the rights of the individual apart from and above the rights of the State. They reserve for the individual a sphere where the State may not encroach. According to Mill, the political life is only a part and the minor part of his social activities. His higher activities are spent in the service of the Church, in the service of Art and Science.

Treitschke has fought this heresy of individualism in all his writings. The interest of the individual cannot be opposed to the interest of the State. The individual can only realize himself, he can only realize the higher life, in and through the State. It is the State which sets free the spiritual forces of the individual by securing for him security, prosperity, and economic independence.

XIII.-THE HERESY OF INTERNATIONALISM.

The second deadly heresy which threatens the dogma of the national State is the heresy of internationalism. It takes the form either of the black internationalism of the Catholic Church or the red internationalism of Social Democracy. Treitschke has fought Roman Catholicism and its champions, the Jesuits, with relentless hate.

Through all his writings there sounds the watchword of Voltaire, the spiritual adviser of Frederick the Great, "ecrasez l'infame," and the battle-cry of Gambetta, "Le clericalisme, voila l'ennemi." Nor is he less bitter against the Socialists. Bismarck and the Kaiser opposed the encroachments of the Social Democracy in a succession of anti-Socialist repressive measures. Treitschke may have disapproved of some of the _Sozialisten Gesetze_ because they defeated their purpose.

But he shares the Kaiser's hatred against those irreconcilable enemies of Prussian greatness. The Social Democratic theories of the Jews-La.s.salle, Marx, and Bernstein-are one of the most deadly poisons that imperil the const.i.tution of the German body politic.

Events have shown how little even Treitschke realized the strength of the Prussian State and the fanaticism of German nationalism. We know how little his dread of the black International of Catholicism and the red International of Socialism has been justified by the servile att.i.tude of all the Opposition parties, and how, when the crisis came, both Catholics and Socialists proved as Prussian as the Junkers of Pomerania.

XIV.-THE HERESY OF IMPERIALISM.

If it be true that the citizen can only realize himself through the national State, if the whole course of human history is essentially a conflict of national States, and if the rich variety of civilization is made up of the rivalry of those national States, it logically follows that the expansion of any national State into a world empire must necessarily be baneful. The State must, no doubt, expand, but there is a limit to that expansion. The State must not incorporate any alien races which it cannot a.s.similate. When the State is unable to absorb heterogeneous elements and grows into a world empire, it becomes a danger both to itself and to humanity.

Civilization has been threatened in the past by such monstrous conglomerates of heterogeneous nations. It has been threatened by the Spanish tyranny of Charles V. and the French tyranny of Louis XIV. and Napoleon. It is still threatened to-day by a similar danger. Two national States, Great Britain and Russia, have again grown into world empires. If their ambitions were to succeed, if the greater part of the civilized world were to become either Anglo-Saxon or Russian, there would be an end to the diversity and the liberty of modern civilization. Only the good sword of Prussia and Germany can save humanity from that Anglo-Saxon and Slav peril.

XV.-THE DOGMA OF THE "WILL TO POWER."

But the fact that there is danger in the unlimited expansion of the national State ought not to prevent us from recognizing that irresistible tendency to expansion. The "will to power" is the essence of the State. "The State is power" (_Der Staat ist Macht_) must ever be the first axiom of political science. Muddled political thinkers, who confuse the spiritual with the temporal activities of man, may hold that the end of the State is social justice, or the diffusion of light, or the propagation of religion, or the advancement of humanity.

But the cause of justice, the spread of education, will best be furthered if the State is strong. Only the strong can be just, partial, and enlightened. The sole criterion of political values is strength. It is the supreme merit of Machiavelli that he has been the first to emphasize this cardinal truth. The mortal sin of a State is to be weak. Only the strong man, only a Bismarck, a Richelieu, a Cavour, is a true statesman.

And that strength of the State which is its chief attribute must not be dispersed; that political power must neither be divided nor alienated. Many writers on politics still echo the absurd theory of Montesquieu on the division of the executive, legislative, and the judiciary. Treitschke, following Rousseau, lays down the axiom that the power of the State is indivisible and inalienable.

XVI.-THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.

If the one virtue of the State is to be strong and to a.s.sert its strength, it follows that the ethics of the State cannot be the ethics of the individual. The ruler of the State is not the head of a monastery or the president of an academy of fine arts. The end must justify the means, and any means may be employed which will add to the strength of the State. It is the glory of Frederick the Great that he has always had the moral courage of brushing away conventions and scruples to achieve his object, and that he has always had the political insight and wisdom of adjusting the means to the end.

XVII.-WAR AS THE VITAL PRINCIPLE OF POLITICAL LIFE.

Prussia is not, like France, the result of a thousand years of natural growth. It has no definite natural boundaries. The Prussian State is an artificial creation. It has grown and expanded through conquest.

It is the Order of the Teutonic Knights, it is the warrior dynasty of the Hohenzollern, who have built up Prussian power. That purely military growth of the Prussian State is made by Treitschke into a universal rule of all political growth. According to him war always was and will remain the master-builder of national life. Other thinkers, like Joseph de Maistre, have glorified war in the name of theology. Treitschke extols it in the name of politics. War not only makes a State: it makes the citizen. The heroic virtues are warlike virtues; they are the outcome of military inst.i.tutions. It is not war but peace which is the evil. Woe to the nation which allows itself to be deceived by the sentiment and cowardice of pacifists.