f 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 assert 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