Terror; the theories of Katkov and the extreme Pan-Slavists were
supreme in Russia under the reign of Alexander III. Under a government
like Prussia, where all the spiritual forces are mobilized, where
Universities, Churches, and newspapers are subject to the State, there
is nothing to counteract the doctrinaire spirit. It is, therefore, not
to be wondered at that the heresy of race should have become a fixed
idea, a monomania, in the German Empire. In Great Britain the theories
of the apostate Englishman Chamberlain could not have struck deep
root, notwithstanding all the enthusiastic praise which Mr. Bernard
Shaw has given to the "Foundations." In France the theories of Count
de Gobineau passed unnoticed. In Germany "Gobineau Societies" have
been established in order to propagate the gospel of the French
diplomat. In Germany one hundred thousand copies of the "Foundations"
of Chamberlain, with their ponderous twelve hundred pages compact with
facts and arguments, have been sold, have poisoned countless brains,
and have wielded enormous political influence.

IX.

The first inevitable outcome of the German race heresy has been to
stimulate the belief in the supremacy of the Teuton and to transform
the natural conceit of patriotism into an odious megalomania. Once the
Germans assumed in accordance with the race dogma that some European
races are born to rule and others to obey, it was inevitable that they
should draw the further inference that they of all races were the
dominant race. It is true that the belief of the Calvinist in
religious predestination may lead to a pessimistic as well as to an
optimistic conclusion. The believer in predestination may assume that
he is predestined to eternal damnation as easily as he assumes that he
is predestined to eternal salvation. But the pseudo-scientific mind
and the materialistic mind is not so easily addicted to humility and
pessimism. The slave morality of the Christian may lead to meekness
and charity and to all the negative virtues of a degenerate
Christianity. The master morality of the Anti-Christ Nietzsche must
lead to the ruthless assertion of power. The belief in race
predestination can therefore only result in megalomania, and in
Germany it has certainly resulted in the most acute, the most insane,
inflation of nationalism and imperialism recorded in modern history.
Of that megalomania the Kaiser has been, in innumerable speeches, the
eloquent and insolent spoke