is to be more than an armistice of fools.

The war has produced in the public opinion of the nations a
state of mind which formerly would not have been regarded as
possible in our age of internationalism and intellectuality.
National egotism and the effort to assert one's own national
interests by all and every means are dominating so exclusively
each belligerent group that it forms for itself a closed circle
of ideas, and under its influence conclusions are drawn which
are so contradictory that one is almost inclined to think that
logic and common sense have been entirely eliminated from the
thinking capacity of the warring nations....

We Germans, among the others, are subject to this
war-suggestion. We do not wish to say, after the manner of the
Pharisees, beating their breasts: "We thank Thee, Lord, that we
are not like these publicans." We know that we, too, are
prisoners of our circle of ideas, and must remain so, for we,
too, are ruled by our national egotism and by our desire to win
the war.--_Koelnische Zeitung_, as quoted by the _Daily News_,
September 3, 1915.

Ideas imprisoned, narrowed (beschraenkt, as the Germans say), become
putrescent through lack of free air. It is in this putrescence that the
gospel of hate is bred. Here is a German officer's protest against the
infamy of this gospel. It is quoted from the _Koelnische Zeitung_ by Mr.
A. G. Gardiner in his book, "The War Lords":

Perhaps you will be so good as to assist, by the publication of
these lines, in freeing our troops from an evil which they feel
very strongly. I have on many occasions, when distributing among
the men the postal packets, observed among them postcards on
which the defeated French, English and Russians were derided in
a tasteless fashion. The impression made by these postcards on
our men is highly noteworthy. Scarcely anybody is pleased with
these postcards; on the contrary, every one expresses his
displeasure.

This is quite natural when one considers the position. We know
how victories are won. We also know by what tremendous
sacrifices they are obtained. We see with our own eyes the
unspeakable misery of the battlefield. We rejoice over our
victories, but our joy is damped by the recollection of the sad
pictures which we observe almost daily.

And our enemies have, in an overwhelming m