Germany and the Next War Part 5

on the other, the serenely grave Olympian who uttered the words, "Let man be n.o.ble, resourceful, and good"; who gave a new content to the religious sentiment, since he conceived all existence as a perpetual change to higher conditions, and pointed out new paths in science; who gave the clearest expression to all aspirations of the human intellect, and all movements of the German mind, and thus roused his people to consciousness; who finally by his writings on every subject showed that the whole realm of human knowledge was concentrated in the German brain; a prophet of truth, an architect of imperishable monuments which testify to the divinity in man.

The great conqueror of the century was met by the hero of intellect, to whom was to fall the victory of the future. The mightiest potentate of the Latin race faced the great Germanic who stood in the forefront of humanity.

Truly a nation which in the hour of its deepest political degradation could give birth to men like Fichte, Scharnhorst, Stein, Schiller, and Goethe, to say nothing about the great soldier-figures of the wars of Liberation, must be called to a mighty destiny.

We must admit that in the period immediately succeeding the great struggle of those glorious days, the short-sightedness, selfishness, and weakness of its Sovereigns, and the jealousy of its neighbours, robbed the German people of the full fruits of its heroism, devotion, and pure enthusiasm. The deep disappointment of that generation found expression in the revolutionary movement of 1848, and in the emigration of thousands to the free country of North America, where the Germans took a prominent part in the formation of a new nationality, but were lost to their mother-country. The Prussian monarchy grovelled before Austria and Russia, and seemed to have forgotten its national duties.

Nevertheless in the centre of the Prussian State there was springing up from the blood of the champions of freedom a new generation that no longer wished to be the anvil, but to wield the hammer. Two men came to the front, King William I. and the hero of the Saxon forest. Resolutely they united the forces of the nation, which at first opposed them from ignorance, and broke down the selfishness and dogmatic positivism of the popular representatives. A victorious campaign settled matters with Austria, who did not willingly cede the supremacy in Germany, and left the German Imperial confederation without forfeiting her place as a Great Power. France was brought to the ground with a mighty blow; the vast majority of the German peoples united under the Imperial crown which the King of Prussia wore; the old idea of the German Empire was revived in a federal shape by the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy. The German idea, as Bismarck fancied it, ruled from the North Sea to the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. Like a phoenix from the ashes, the German giant rose from the sluggard-bed of the old German Confederation, and stretched his mighty limbs.

It was an obvious and inevitable result that this awakening of Germany vitally affected the other nations which had hitherto divided the economic and political power. Hostile combinations threatened us on all sides in order to check the further expansion of our power. Hemmed in between France and Russia, who allied themselves against us, we failed to gather the full fruits of our victories. The short-sightedness and party feuds of the newly-formed Reichstag--the old hereditary failings of our nation--prevented any colonial policy on broad lines. The intense love of peace, which the nation and Government felt, made us fall behind in the race with other countries.

In the most recent part.i.tion of the earth, that of Africa, victorious Germany came off badly. France, her defeated opponent, was able to found the second largest colonial Empire in the world; England appropriated the most important portions; even small and neutral Belgium claimed a comparatively large and valuable share; Germany was forced to be content with some modest strips of territory. In addition to, and in connection with, the political changes, new views and new forces have come forward.

Under the influence of the const.i.tutional ideas of Frederick the Great, and the crop of new ideas borne by the French Revolution, the conception of the State has completely changed since the turn of the century. The patrimonial state of the Middle Ages was the hereditary possession of the Sovereign. Hence sprung the modern State, which represents the reverse of this relation, in which the Sovereign is the first servant of the State, and the interest of the State, and not of the ruler, is the key to the policy of the Government. With this altered conception of the State the principle of nationality has gradually developed, of which the tendency is as follows: Historical boundaries are to be disregarded, and the nations combined into a political whole; the State will thus acquire a uniform national character and common national interests.

This new order of things entirely altered the basis of international relations, and set new and unknown duties before the statesman. Commerce and trade also developed on wholly new lines.

After 1815 the barriers to every activity--guilds and trade restrictions--were gradually removed. Landed property ceased to be a monopoly. Commerce and industries flourished conspicuously. "England introduced the universal employment of coal and iron and of machinery into industries, thus founding immense industrial establishments; by steamers and railways she brought machinery into commerce, at the same time effecting an industrial revolution by physical science and chemistry, and won the control of the markets of the world by cotton.

There came, besides, the enormous extension of the command of credit in the widest sense, the exploitation of India, the extension of colonization over Polynesia, etc." England at the same time girdled the earth with her cables and fleets. She thus attained to a sort of world-sovereignty. She has tried to found a new universal Empire; not, indeed, by spiritual or secular weapons, like Pope and Emperor in bygone days, but by the power of money, by making all material interests dependent on herself.

Facing her, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, linking the West and the East, the United States of North America have risen to be an industrial and commercial power of the first rank. Supported by exceptionally abundant natural resources, and the unscrupulously pushing character of her inhabitants, this mighty Empire aims at a suitable recognition of her power in the council of the nations, and is on the point of securing this by the building of a powerful navy.

Russia has not only strengthened her position in Europe, but has extended her power over the entire North of Asia, and is pressing farther into the centre of that continent. She has already crossed swords with the States of the Mongolian race. This vast population, which fills the east of the Asiatic continent, has, after thousands of years of dormant civilization, at last awakened to political life, and categorically claims its share in international life. The entrance of j.a.pan into the circle of the great World Powers means a call to arms.

"Asia for the Asiatics," is the phrase which she whispers beneath her breath, trusting in the strength of her demand. The new Great Power has emerged victoriously from its first encounter with a European foe.

China, too, is preparing to expand her forces outwardly. A mighty movement is thrilling Asia--the awakening of a new epoch.

Dangers, then, which have already a.s.sumed a profound importance for the civilized countries of Europe, are threatening from Asia, the old cradle of the nations. But even in the heart of the European nations, forces which have slumbered hitherto are now awake. The persisting ideas of the French Revolution and the great industrial progress which characterized the last century, have roused the working cla.s.ses of every country to a consciousness of their importance and their social power. The workers, originally concerned only in the amelioration of their material position, have, in theory, abandoned the basis of the modern State, and seek their salvation in the revolution which they preach. They do not wish to obtain what they can within the limitations of the historically recognized State, but they wish to subst.i.tute for it a new State, in which they themselves are the rulers. By this aspiration they not only perpetually menace State and society, but endanger in the separate countries the industries from which they live, since they threaten to destroy the possibility of competing in the international markets by continuous increase of wages and decrease of work. Even in Germany this movement has affected large sections of the population.

Until approximately the middle of the last century, agriculture and cattle-breeding formed the chief and most important part of German industries. Since then, under the protection of wise tariffs, and in connection with the rapid growth of the German merchant navy, trade has marvellously increased. Germany has become an industrial and trading nation; almost the whole of the growing increase of the population finds work and employment in this sphere. Agriculture has more and more lost its leading position in the economic life of the people. The artisan cla.s.s has thus become a power in our State. It is organized in trade unions, and has politically fallen under the influence of the international social democracy. It is hostile to the national cla.s.s distinctions, and strains every nerve to undermine the existing power of the State.

It is evident that the State cannot tolerate quietly this dangerous agitation, and that it must hinder, by every means, the efforts of the anti-const.i.tutionalist party to effect their purpose. The law of self-preservation demands this; but it is clear that, to a certain point, the pretensions of the working cla.s.ses are justified. The citizen may fairly claim to protect himself from poverty by work, and to have an opportunity of raising himself in the social scale, if he willingly devotes his powers. He is ent.i.tled to demand that the State should grant this claim, and should be bound to protect him against the tyranny of capital.

Two means of attaining such an object are open to the State: first, it may create opportunities of work, which secure remunerative employment to all willing hands; secondly, it may insure the workman by legislation against every diminution in his capacity to work owing to sickness, age, or accident; may give him material a.s.sistance when temporarily out of work, and protect him against compulsion which may hinder him from working.

The economical prosperity of Germany as the visible result of three victorious campaigns created a labour market sufficiently large for present purposes, although without the conscious intention of the State.

German labour, under the protection of the political power, gained a market for itself. On the other hand, the German State has intervened with legislation, with full consciousness of the end and the means. As Scharnhorst once contrasted the duty of the citizen with the rights of man, so the Emperor William I. recognized the duty of the State towards those who were badly equipped with the necessaries of life. The position of the worker was a.s.sured, so far as circ.u.mstances allowed, by social legislation. No excuse, therefore, for revolutionary agitation now existed.

A vigorous opposition to all the encroachments of the social democrats indicated the only right way in which the justifiable efforts of the working cla.s.s could be reconciled with the continuance of the existing State and of existing society, the two pillars of all civilization and progress. This task is by no means completed. The question still is, How to win back the working cla.s.s to the ideals of State and country? Willing workers must be still further protected against social democratic tyranny.

Germany, nevertheless, is in social-political respects at the head of all progress in culture. German science has held its place in the world.

Germany certainly took the lead in political sciences during the last century, and in all other domains of intellectual inquiry has won a prominent position through the universality of her philosophy and her thorough and unprejudiced research into the nature of things.

The achievements of Germany in the sphere of science and literature are attested by the fact that the annual export of German books to foreign countries is, according to trustworthy estimates, twice as large as that of France, England, and America combined. It is only in the domain of the exact sciences that Germany has often been compelled to give precedence to foreign countries. German art also has failed to win a leading position. It shows, indeed, sound promise in many directions, and has produced much that is really great; but the chaos of our political conditions is, unfortunately, reflected in it. The German Empire has politically been split up into numerous parties. Not only are the social democrats and the middle cla.s.s opposed, but they, again, are divided among themselves; not only are industries and agriculture bitter enemies, but the national sentiment has not yet been able to vanquish denominational antagonisms, and the historical hostility between North and South has prevented the population from growing into a completely united body.

So stands Germany to-day, torn by internal dissensions, yet full of sustained strength; threatened on all sides by dangers, compressed into narrow, unnatural limits, she still is filled with high aspirations, in her nationality, her intellectual development, in her science, industries, and trade.

And now, what paths does this history indicate to us for the future?

What duties are enforced on us by the past?

It is a question of far-reaching importance; for on the way in which the German State answers this question, depend not only our own further development, but to some extent the subsequent shaping of the history of the world.

CHAPTER IV

GERMANY'S HISTORICAL MISSION

Let us pa.s.s before our mind's eye the whole course of our historical development, and let us picture to ourselves the life-giving streams of human beings, that in every age have poured forth from the Empire of Central Europe to all parts of the globe; let us reflect what rich seeds of intellectual and moral development were sown by the German intellectual life: the proud conviction forces itself upon us with irresistible power that a high, if not the highest, importance for the entire development of the human race is ascribable to this German people.

This conviction is based on the intellectual merits of our nation, on the freedom and the universality of the German spirit, which have ever and again been shown in the course of its history. There is no nation whose thinking is at once so free from prejudice and so historical as the German, which knows how to unite so harmoniously the freedom of the intellectual and the restraint of the practical life on the path of free and natural development. The Germans have thus always been the standard-bearers of free thought, but at the same time a strong bulwark against revolutionary anarchical outbreaks. They have often been worsted in the struggle for intellectual freedom, and poured out their best heart's blood in the cause. Intellectual compulsion has sometimes ruled the Germans; revolutionary tremors have shaken the life of this people--the great peasant war in the sixteenth century, and the political attempts at revolution in the middle of the nineteenth century. But the revolutionary movement has been checked and directed into the paths of a healthy natural advancement. The inevitable need of a free intellectual self-determination has again and again disengaged itself from the inner life of the soul of the people, and broadened into world-historical importance.

Thus two great movements were born from the German intellectual life, on which, henceforth, all the intellectual and moral progress of man must rest: the Reformation and the critical philosophy. The Reformation, which broke the intellectual yoke, imposed by the Church, which checked all free progress; and the Critique of Pure Reason, which put a stop to the caprice of philosophic speculation by defining for the human mind the limitations of its capacity for knowledge, and at the same time pointed out in what way knowledge is really possible. On this substructure was developed the intellectual life of our time, whose deepest significance consists in the attempt to reconcile the result of free inquiry with the religious needs of the heart, and to lay a foundation for the harmonious organization of mankind. Torn this way and that, between hostile forces, in a continuous feud between faith and knowledge, mankind seems to have lost the straight road of progress.

Reconciliation only appears possible when the thought of religious reformation leads to a permanent explanation of the idea of religion, and science remains conscious of the limits of its power, and does not attempt to explain the domain of the supersensual world from the results of natural philosophy.

The German nation not only laid the foundations of this great struggle for an harmonious development of humanity, but took the lead in it. We are thus incurring an obligation for the future, from which we cannot shrink. We must be prepared to be the leaders in this campaign, which is being fought for the highest stake that has been offered to human efforts. Our nation is not only bound by its past history to take part in this struggle, but is peculiarly adapted to do so by its special qualities.

No nation on the face of the globe is so able to grasp and appropriate all the elements of culture, to add to them from the stores of its own spiritual endowment, and to give back to mankind richer gifts than it received. It has "enriched the store of traditional European culture with new and independent ideas and ideals, and won a position in the great community of civilized nations which none else could fill." "Depth of conviction, idealism, universality, the power to look beyond all the limits of a finite existence, to sympathize with all that is human, to traverse the realm of ideas in companionship with the n.o.blest of all nations and ages--this has at all times been the German characteristic; this has been extolled as the prerogative of German culture." [A] To no nation, except the German, has it been given to enjoy in its inner self "that which is given to mankind as a whole." We often see in other nations a greater intensity of specialized ability, but never the same capacity for generalization and absorption. It is this quality which specially fits us for the leadership in the intellectual world, and imposes on us the obligation to maintain that position.

[Footnote A: Treitschke, "Deutsche Geschichte," i., p. 95.]

There are numerous other tasks to be fulfilled if we are to discharge our highest duty. They form the necessary platform from which we can mount to the highest goal. These duties lie in the domains of science and politics, and also in that borderland where science and politics touch, and where the latter is often directly conditioned by the results of scientific inquiry.

First and foremost it is German science which must regain its superiority in unwearying and brilliant research in order to vindicate our birthright. On the one hand, we must extend the theory of the perceptive faculty; on the other, we must increase man's dominion over Nature by exploring her hidden secrets, and thus make human work more useful and remunerative. We must endeavour to find scientific solutions of the great problems which deeply concern mankind. We need not restrict ourselves to the sphere of pure theory, but must try to benefit civilization by the practical results of research, and thus create conditions of life in which a purer conception of the ideal life can find its expression.

It is, broadly speaking, religious and social controversies which exercise the most permanent influence on human existence, and condition not only our future development, but the higher life generally. These problems have occupied the minds of no people more deeply and permanently than our own. Yet the revolutionary spirit, in spite of the empty ravings of social democratic agitators, finds no place in Germany.

The German nature tends towards a systematic healthy development, which works slowly in opposition to the different movements. The Germans thus seem thoroughly qualified to settle in their own country the great controversies which are rending other nations, and to direct them into the paths of a natural progress in conformity with the laws of evolution.

We have already started on the task in the social sphere, and shall no doubt continue it, so far as it is compatible with the advantages of the community and the working cla.s.s itself. We must not spare any efforts to find other means than those already adopted to inspire the working cla.s.s with healthy and patriotic ambitions.

It is to be hoped, in any case, that if ever a great and common duty, requiring the concentration of the whole national strength, is imposed upon us, that the labour cla.s.ses will not withhold their co-operation, and that, in face of a common danger, our nation will recover that unity which is lamentably deficient to-day.

No attempt at settlement has been made in the religious domain. The old antagonists are still bitterly hostile to each other, especially in Germany. It will be the duty of the future to mitigate the religious and political antagonism of the denominations, under guarantees of absolute liberty of thought and all personal convictions, and to combine the conflicting views into a harmonious and higher system. At present there appears small probability of attaining this end. The dogmatism of Protestant orthodoxy and the Jesuitic tendencies and ultramontanism of the Catholics, must be surmounted, before any common religious movement can be contemplated. But no German statesman can disregard this aspect of affairs, nor must he ever forget that the greatness of our nation is rooted exclusively on Protestantism. Legally and socially all denominations enjoy equal rights, but the German State must never renounce the leadership in the domain of free spiritual development. To do so would mean loss of prestige.

Duties of the greatest importance for the whole advance of human civilization have thus been transmitted to the German nation, as heir of a great and glorious past. It is faced with problems of no less significance in the sphere of its international relations. These problems are of special importance, since they affect most deeply the intellectual development, and on their solution depends the position of Germany in the world.

The German Empire has suffered great losses of territory in the storms and struggles of the past. The Germany of to-day, considered geographically, is a mutilated torso of the old dominions of the Emperors; it comprises only a fraction of the German peoples. A large number of German fellow-countrymen have been incorporated into other States, or live in political independence, like the Dutch, who have developed into a separate nationality, but in language and national customs cannot deny their German ancestry. Germany has been robbed of her natural boundaries; even the source and mouth of the most characteristically German stream, the much lauded German Rhine, lie outside the German territory. On the eastern frontier, too, where the strength of the modern German Empire grew up in centuries of war against the Slavs, the possessions of Germany are menaced. The Slavonic waves are ever dashing more furiously against the coast of that Germanism, which seems to have lost its old victorious strength.

Signs of political weakness are visible here, while for centuries the overflow of the strength of the German nation has poured into foreign countries, and been lost to our fatherland and to our nationality; it is absorbed by foreign nations and steeped with foreign sentiments. Even to-day the German Empire possesses no colonial territories where its increasing population may find remunerative work and a German way of living.

This is obviously not a condition which can satisfy a powerful nation, or corresponds to the greatness of the German nation and its intellectual importance.

At an earlier epoch, to be sure, when Germans had in the course of centuries grown accustomed to the degradation of being robbed of all political significance, a large section of our people did not feel this insufficiency. Even during the age of our cla.s.sical literature the patriotic pride of that idealistic generation "was contented with the thought that no other people could follow the bold flights of German genius or soar aloft to the freedom of our world citizenship." [B]

[Footnote B: Treitschke, "Deutsche Geschichte," i., p. 195.]