al
determinants of the attitude. The attitude, in any country, whatever it
may be called, rests at bottom on sheer national vanity. It is the belief
in the inherent superiority of one's own civilization, and the desire to
extend it, by force if need be, throughout the world. It matters little
what arguments in its support this passion to dominate may garner from
that twilight region in which the advanced guard of science is labouring
patiently to comprehend Nature and mankind. Men take from the treasury of
truth what they are able to take. And what imperialists take is a mirror
to their own ambition and pride.

Now, as to the ambitions of this German jingoism there is no manner of
doubt. Germans are nothing if not frank. And this kind of German does
want to conquer and annex, not only outside Europe but within it. We must
not, however, infer that the whole of Germany has been infected with this
virus. The summary I have set down in the last few pages represents the
impression made on an unsympathetic mind by the literature of Pangermanism.
Emerging from such reading--and it is the principal reading of German
origin which has been offered to the British public since the war--there
is a momentary illusion, "That is Germany!" Of course it is not, any more
than the _Morning Post_ or the _National Review_ is England. Germans, in
fact, during recent years have taken a prominent place in pacifism as well
as in imperialism. Men like Schuecking and Quidde and Fried are at least as
well known as men like Treitschke and Bernhardi. Opinion in Germany, as in
every other country, has been various and conflicting. And the pacific
tendencies have been better organized, if not more active, there than
elsewhere, for they have been associated with the huge and disciplined
forces of the Social-Democrats. Indeed, the mass of the people, left
alone, is everywhere pacific. I do not forget the very important fact
that German education, elementary and higher, has been deliberately
directed to inculcate patriotic feeling, that the doctrine of armed
force as the highest manifestation of the State has been industriously
propagated by the authorities, and that the unification of Germany by
force has given to the cult of force a meaning and a popularity probably
unknown in any other country. But in most men, for good or for evil, the
lessons of education can be quickly obliterated by the experience of life.
In particular, the mass of the people every