are, and the rest must revere and bow to. In
the Book of Genesis we are told how Joseph was thrown into a pit by his
elder brothers for talking just like this; but he meant it quite
innocently, and so do the Germans. They do not intend irreverence to God
when they call Him the good German God. On the contrary, they choose for
His praise a word that to them stands for all goodness and all
greatness. Their worship expresses itself naturally in the tribal ritual
and the tribal creed. This tribal creed, there can be no doubt, is what
they offer us for a talisman to ensure the right ordering of the world.

Patriotism and loyalty to hearth and home are passions so strong in
humanity that a creed like this, when men are under its influence, is
not easily seen to be absurd. The Saxon boy, whom I saw in his prison
camp, probably would not quarrel with it. And even in the wider world of
thought the illusions of nationalism are all-pervading. I once heard
Professor Henry Sidgwick remark that it is not easy for us to understand
how the troops of Portugal are stirred to heroic effort when their
commanders call on them to remember that they are Portuguese. He would
no doubt have been the first to admit, for he had an alert and sceptical
mind, that it is only our stupidity which finds anything comic in such
an appeal. But it is stupidity of this kind which unfits men to deal
with other races, and it is stupidity of this kind which has been
exalted by the Germans as a primal duty, and has, indeed, been advanced
by them as their principal claim to undertake the government of the
world.

This extreme nationalism, this unwillingness to feel any sympathy for
other peoples, or to show them any consideration, has stupefied and
blinded the Germans. One of the heaviest charges that can be brought
against them is that they have seen no virtue in France, I do not ask
that they shall interrupt the War to express admiration for their
enemies: I am speaking of the time before the War. France is the chief
modern inheritor of that great Roman civilization which found us painted
savages, and made us into citizens of the world. The French mind, it is
admitted, and admitted most readily by the most intelligent men, is
quick and delicate and perceptive, surer and clearer in its operation
than the average European mind. Yet the Germans, infatuated with a
belief in their own numbers and their own brute strength, have dared to
express contempt for the geni