the war is over to break up the
politico-social fabric. Now, the mere prospect of this tremendous
upheaval and of its sequel is, one would fancy, calculated to arouse
the spirited interest of all the nations affected. Yet in Great
Britain, whose very existence it menaces, it was at first received
with such unmeaning comments as "business as usual." The alertness of
the people's sensations--always inconsiderable--for volcanic outbursts
which have their centre abroad, has never been quite so blunted as
to-day.

Germany cultivates force not for its own sake but because it happens
to suit her particular purpose. For this reason she preaches the
doctrines that right and might are identical, that the end hallows the
means, that military and political necessity overrule treaties and
laws. For as violence and cunning may still gain triumphs, under the
conditions that once rendered them the only weapons of man, Germany's
first step is to bring about such conditions and to spread faith in
the teachings of the new gospel. What the success of these efforts
would involve is evident. All the ground slowly and painfully
reclaimed from the primitive state of nature, transmuted into social
order, and moralized by the altruistic accord of progressive humanity,
would be submerged by the tidal wave of Teutonism.

The first clash of the two forces which took place a generation ago
was hardly noticed. Germany stretched out her feelers tenderly, and
even when she was draining nation after nation of its life juices, she
took care to lull the patient while sucking his blood. Accordingly her
attack provoked no counter-attack, nay, there was no serious attempt
at defence. Those who directed the forces of the civilized communities
were unconscious of the counter-force that was steadily undermining
these--so unconscious that in lieu of isolating and paralysing it, the
tendency of their endeavours was to further and to strengthen it. For
they hastily assumed that it, too, was a great moral force in an
uncouth guise and should also be tended and cultivated. Their duty,
had they hearkened to its promptings, would have been to employ
towards the criminal plotters against Europe's civilized communities
coercion of the same drastic description that once enabled mankind to
substitute for the barbarous usages of savage tribes the habits of
social relationship and moral self-surrender to the weal of all. Among
the mainstays of Germany's type of society a