e protector of religion, the
source of inspiration for agricultural reforms, and all great commercial
and industrial enterprises. This State was not an emanation from the
national will, but the creator of a nation, the living and moving
self-incarnation of the Hegelian "idea," that is to say, the Divine
thought.

Of all the German aristocracy the noble of Pomerania or Brandenburg, the
Prussian Junker, represented this social type most definitely. In the
south the liberal tendencies--to be exact, the memories of the French
Revolution--persisted far into the nineteenth century. But it is well
known that German unity was accomplished by military force and against
liberalism.

After 1871, and even after Sadowa, the problem of interior policy which
presented itself was that of the "Prussianization" of Germany. At one
time it seemed that Bismarck was on the point of succeeding in it. What
was that national liberal party upon which he depended for so long? It
was the old liberal party, with advanced tendencies tainted with
democratic liberalism and even with cosmopolitanism, keeping up its
relations with the intellectuals, the university men, who made so much
noise with pen and voice about 1848 and later. They dreamed of the unity
of Germany in the democratic liberty and moral hegemony of their nation,
having become in Europe the sobered heir of the French Revolution.

Under the influence of Bismarck they sacrificed to their dream of unity,
to their national dream, their liberal dream, and they secured for the
Chancellor the support of the upper bourgeoisie.

It was indeed the Prussianization of Germany, but in that spirit and in
that system contemporary German militarism would never have fructified.
It was contrary to the characteristic tendencies of a monarchical State
supported by a conservative caste, which was also particularist,
military, and agricultural. A State of this kind tends to become a
closed State.

What then happened? An event of capital importance which everybody
knows, but of which we only now begin to see the consequences. It was
the radical transformation of Germany from an agricultural to an
industrial nation. In its origin this phenomenon dates from before the
nineteenth century. By 1848 it had become perceptible. Since 1866, and
especially since 1871, it has dominated the entire social evolution of
the empire. Here, in fact, is the revolution. It partakes of the
character of a tragedy, it has over