rief a space. If
French's little Army is contemptible, it would seem clear that all the
skill and valour of the German Army had better not be concentrated on it,
but on the larger and less contemptible allies. If all the skill and
valour of the German Army are concentrated on it, it is not being treated
as contemptible. But the Prussian rhetorician had two incompatible
sentiments in his mind; and he insisted on saying them both at once. He
wanted to think of an English Army as a small thing; but he also wanted to
think of an English defeat as a big thing. He wanted to exult, at the same
moment, in the utter weakness of the British in their attack; and the
supreme skill and valour of the Germans in repelling such an attack.
Somehow it must be made a common and obvious collapse for England; and yet
a daring and unexpected triumph for Germany. In trying to express these
contradictory conceptions simultaneously, he got rather mixed. Therefore he
bade Germania fill all her vales and mountains with the dying agonies of
this almost invisible earwig; and let the impure blood of this cockroach
redden the Rhine down to the sea.

But it would be unfair to base the criticism on the utterance of any
accidental and hereditary prince: and it is quite equally clear in the case
of the philosophers who have been held up to us, even in England, as the
very prophets of progress. And in nothing is it shown more sharply than in
the curious confused talk about Race and especially about the Teutonic
Race. Professor Harnack and similar people are reproaching us, I
understand, for having broken "the bond of Teutonism": a bond which the
Prussians have strictly observed both in breach and observance. We note it
in their open annexation of lands wholly inhabited by negroes, such as
Denmark. We note it equally in their instant and joyful recognition of the
flaxen hair and light blue eyes of the Turks. But it is still the abstract
principle of Professor Harnack which interests me most; and in following it
I have the same complexity of enquiry, but the same simplicity of result.
Comparing the Professor's concern about "Teutonism" with his unconcern
about Belgium, I can only reach the following result: "A man need not keep
a promise he has made. But a man must keep a promise he has not made."
There certainly was a treaty binding Britain to Belgium; if it was only a
scrap of paper. If there was any treaty binding Britain to Teutonism it is,
to say the le