universe, men threatened by the
enemy should be faithful to their flag, in the face of everything and
against everything--and with resolution. At no hour, therefore, have
we thought that German savants and artists could raise their voice to
repudiate their armies, when the latter were going to war with the
object of further extending their empire. But, at least, they should
keep silence, and before the horror of crimes to be judged especially
by the tribunal of the elite they should not have shown their
miserable enthusiasm. "You see," as a clear-sighted Dutch professor[5]
has well written on this point, "if these intellectuals were not
blinded they would rather have asked themselves if, in this war that
stains Europe with blood, the Prussian military authorities were not
losing for centuries the reputation of the great name of Germany." And
suppose it were even a small matter if they had lost only the great
name of Germany, that the epoch of Goethe, Kant, and Beethoven had
covered with glory. But with it they have vilified as well the noble
role of the philosopher, of the historian, of the savant, and of the
artist. In truth they have betrayed their own gods, and the
professions to which they belong can no longer be honored by them--so
far as the question of conscience goes, at least. And as for the
sacred thing called civilization, which is above our interests and our
vanities of an hour, they may have served it usefully by their
personal work in the past, but they were unequal to the task of
remaining its protectors when their mere silence would perhaps have
helped to save it.[6] They have thus shown that, with their more or
less sparkling black eagles and under the bedizenment of their Court
costumes, they are for the most part narrow fanatics or paid scribes
whose pen is only a tool in the hands of their master of a day. It is
not even sure whether through their cult of this "militarism," to
which they have given the most shameful blind-signature, they have not
hopelessly condemned it, by testifying that under the rule of the
German sabre human thought has no other course than to humiliate
itself!... But on the score of what they are worth in professional
morality and courage, agreement is certain today, everywhere.

[Footnote 5: Professor Dake.]

[Footnote 6: On the score of certain names important in Germany--names
not found under the manifesto of the Intellectuals--a question arises:
Were they not solicited a