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The savage can not develop spiritually, because the strug-
gle with the world of nature and with his enemies for mere
Physical existence leaves him no leisure for ruch develop-
ment. He develops cunning rather than intelligence. When
he finally does, by some lucky chance, gain time to use his
wits, he advances progressively through easy stages by the
invention of weapons, tools, and other instruments and de-
vices to the condition of the modern civilized man, whose
dominion, due to machinery, extends over the whole earth-
a man, however, for whom spiritual values if they exist at
all, are tolerated for the most part merely for-the sake of
the “conquest of nature” and the material values to be de-
rived therefrom. '
Ask the average Englishman of breeding and intelligence
-the men who at present control the development and appli-
cation of English material resources-what the purpose of
education is, and he will promptly tell-you that it is for some
material advantage, “getting on in the world" and the like.
if You suggest that there may be something further than
this he does not understand what you mean; for he and his
kind have not yet come to the stage of self-consciousness
‘hill grasps higher aims than this. He believes in universi-
ties and vocational training, to be sure, but only because he
believes that these are instrumental to the realization of
greater material prosperity, and he is correspondingly
alarmed when he seems to discover that the training-process
> does not produce “efficient" men. He wants specialist-men
rather than men-specialists. Germany, on the other hand,
has attained as a nation to that stage of self-consciousness
Where the eternal values are clearly conceived, where ma-
terial wealth is consciously and unremittingly transmuted
""0 Spiritual values.
‘it may be true that Germany desires commercial expan-
Slon (and certainly this is the cause of the arraYal Of English
“ms against her), but this is a necessary economic right.
not a crime. She desires it, however, not in the interest of
hlxnrious living, as does England, but for the sake of the de-
velopment of an ever higher stage of civilization and culture;
“hi there is no modern nation whose people as a whole are
Si’ 'h‘“'0“8hly permeated with this spirit. For this reason, if
h" no other, every friend of true culture of whatever nation,
‘"97!’ Person who has grasped the sirictly’German thought
that histo is a development, and a development in self-
c0fl5Ci0usness, should find himself in warmest sympathy With
‘his noble people in this hour of fate. Patriotism is a fine
ihlhgt and it is sometimes necessary for individuals to follow
its impulse in opposition to something that is higher and
Efander than this-the devotion to that country in which
the highest ideals of the race seem most secure--but so
“"8 83 these two impulses do, not stand in Opposition. n0-
gimy ‘lhliges sympathy with higher ‘rather than with lower
lms, .
.The Psychologist of today teaches that latent possi-
ifmhles not developed in the earlier life of the child remain
0.re"'3" to him a lost inheritance, and so it is unquestionably
ymh Faces. Until it comes to be generally recognized that
3:5‘ as there are individuals in everyirace not susceptible of
S e highest development attainable by the SW93 Social SFOUP.
ho the“? are whole races belated in spiritual developfneni
cecause of Past habits, and so belated that they are n0 longef
iipabie (if they ever were capable) of identifying themselves
Emil any but the lower and lowest aims of life. Until this
00"“? i0 be recognized, international “iustice” or the dllc
idermg of the claims of nations, will continue to remain the
yea” 01 the few. Until it comes to be acknowledged loyallY
’h03f that the real purpose of civilization is not primarily
, e ahainment of physical well-being in any of its forms, but
e de"'ei0Dment of spiritual values, the H8g“5'C0nl9l'9hCe
THE FATHERLAND i 7
must surely continue to meet in vain, even thought it should
succeed in preventing war itself; for it will never settle
justly any of the important issues for which noble races,
like noble individuals‘ give up the last drop of their blood
freely and willingly. The materialist. who persitsts in his agi-
tation for universal peace, because he knows of nothing
worth fighting for, will forever be-astounded to find in his
pathway heroes whom he can not be expected to understand.
Their motives can never appeal to one for whom the joys of
the belly (for himself or for the larger whole of society)
are the paramount aims of civilization.
A Hague Conference which should take account of the
fact that some races, like some individuals, are capable
of higher forms of life and work, than are certain others;
which should, furthermore, find it expedient, in the highest
sense of the word, to allow such races the commereialand
territorial rights that belong to them (because of their mean-
ing for the civilization of the world) instead of attempting
to restrict them meanly in their development to the merely
fortuitous status quo of a previous age, might perhaps suc-
ceed; for it would give us the unselfish Christian justice
that may some day be to some extent a reality. Then, the
higher values of life would be safe-guarded without a resort
to force. Christianity, at aghigher point in its development,
may some day render war unnecessary, but it will be a.
Christianity, throbbing with higher spiritual values, and more
keenly alive than the warring creeds of the present to its
responsibility as a guardian of culture. Meanwhile we
shall continue to have both selfish wars, such as all the
recent foreign wars England has waged, and holy wars, like
Germany’s war of the present moment, waged for that which
is dearer than life itself. “Das Leben,” as Schiller said and
‘as the guiding forces of the Teutonic alliance firmly believe,
“ist der Giiter hochstes nicht.” indeed, the average German
believes this with all his heart and soul, and no one familiar
with the temper of the race can doubt that they are all of
them now standing with their beloved emperor, like Hermann
and his band in the Teutoburger Wald, or like Teias and their
Gothic brothers of yore under the shadow of Mount Vesuv-
ius, surrounded on all sides by bloodthirsty foes, but resolved ,
to die to a man for values, which they, as no thinker can
doubt, are the best fitted of any living race to conserve.
So long as patriotism leads merely to the pseudo-demo-
cratic belief that all nations are and of right ought to be con.
sidered equal in value before the parliament of man, then
some races, conscious of their superiority, will revolt from
such a levelling decision of the Viel-zu-Vielen, by force of
arms if necessary, preferring, as Schiller expressed it, to
weigh the votes instead of merely counting them. No just
decisionrol’ history will deny, as England does, Germany’s
right to commercial expansion.
War is indeed a terrible thing; for the materialist in all
his manifold and subtle disguises, or for races having only
material values to defend, it is unquestionably’ the most fear-
ful thing conceivable. But there are in fact things even
more terrible to contemplate and endure than the most
cruel war with its excruciating physical suffering and death,
and among‘ them is the cunning entanglement, subiection,
and consequent limitation and destruction of a race conse-
crated to the development of the highest spiritual values by
the infernal machinations of peoples confined strictly to a
lower plane of life-for whom culture is merely external;
the irrevocable, heart-reading reverses of history that mean
unixersals loss.
All Europe except Germany has been steadily sinking to
a plane of crass materialism, yhich has been resisted suc-
cessfully in the Fatherland by the vehement warnings of the