The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Arena, by Various

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Title: The Arena
Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891

Author: Various

Editor: B. O. Flower

Release Date: January 4, 2007 [EBook #20281]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE ARENA.

No. XXI.

AUGUST, 1891.

[Illustration: Elizabeth Cady Stanton (signed "Sincerely yours
Elizabeth Cady Stanton")]

THE UNITY OF GERMANY.

BY MME. BLAZE DE BURY.

"THE IDEA WHENCE SPRANG THE FACT."[1]

[1] "L'Allemagne lepnis, Leibniz. Essai sur le
Developpement de la Conscience Nationale en Allemagne."
By Prof. Levy Bruehl, Paris. 1 vol. Hachette, 1890.

Since the Great French Revolution of 1789 and its immediate
consequence in the military despotism of Bonaparte, nothing has
occurred that has so convulsed the Old World and so altered the
conditions of men and things, as the establishment of the United
German Empire in 1870. The men of our time are obliged to know how
this event came about, or remain in ignorance of all that has happened
during the twenty years following it--that is, to ignore their own
political status.

Now two records of this enormous change in all our destinies exist; as
yet there are but two, and modern men are bound in duty to take
cognizance of them. One is the famous "History," written in Germany by
Heinrich von Sybel; the other the work of Prof. Levy Bruehl, published
in France. Both must be read.[2]

[2] "History of the Creation of United Germany." 5 vols.
Heinrich v. Sybel, Berlin, 1890.

The remarkable book of M. Levy Bruehl on the reconstruction of the
German Empire cannot be read by itself or separated from the scarcely
less remarkable one of Heinrich von Sybel, the fifth and latest volume
of which has just appeared. The two require to be studied together,
for though starting from opposite standpoints, they explain each other
and distinctly show the impartial reader where to recognize the _real
raison