route to the Orient, on the other the empire
of the sea. But in so doing she virtually declared war on the nations
which Bismarck had managed to keep allied or friendly. Her ambition
looked forward to the domination of the world.

Moreover, there was no moral restraint which could keep this ambition
under control. Intoxicated by victory, by the prestige which victory
had given her, and of which her commerce, her industry, her science
even, had reaped the benefit, Germany plunged into a material
prosperity such as she had never known, such as she would never have
dared to dream of. She told herself that if force had wrought this
miracle, if force had given her riches and honour, it was because
force had within it a hidden virtue, mysterious--nay, divine. Yes,
brute force with its train of trickery and lies, when it comes with
powers of attack sufficient for the conquest of the world, must needs
be in direct line from heaven and a revelation of the will of God on
earth. The people to whom this power of attack had come were the
elect, a chosen race by whose side the others are races of bondmen. To
such a race nothing is forbidden that may help in establishing its
dominion. Let none speak to it of inviolable right! Right is what is
written in a treaty; a treaty is what registers the will of a
conqueror--that is, the direction of his force for the time being:
force, then, and right are the same thing; and if force is pleased to
take a new direction, the old right becomes ancient history and the
treaty, which backed it with a solemn undertaking, no more than a
scrap of paper. Thus Germany, struck with wonder in presence of her
victories, of the brute force which had been their means, of the
material prosperity which was the outcome, translated her amazement
into an idea. And see how, at the call of this idea, a thousand
thoughts, as if awaked from slumber, and shaking off the dust of
libraries, came rushing in from every side--thoughts which Germany had
suffered to sleep among her poets and philosophers, every one which
could lend a seductive or striking form to a conviction already made!
Henceforth German imperialism had a theory of its own. Taught in
schools and universities, it easily moulded to itself a nation already
broken-in to passive obedience and having no loftier ideal wherewith
to oppose the official doctrine. Many persons have explained the
aberrations of German policy as due to that theory. For my part, I see