for Europe and made possible the civilization of the Occident, so it is probable that the world will look back upon this colossal War as the same struggle, multiplied a thousand times in the men and munitions employed, the struggle determining the future of democracy and civilization for generations, perhaps for all time.

II

THE CONFLICT OF IDEAS IN THE WAR

The world has been confused as to the issue in this War, because of the multitude of its causes and of the antagonisms it involves; yet under all the national and racial hatreds, the economic jealousies, certain great ideas are being tested out.

Apologists for Germany have told us, even with pride, that in Germany the supreme conception is the dedication of Man to the State. This was not true of old Germany. Before the formation of the Prussian empire, her spirit was intensely individualistic. She stood preeminently for freedom of thought and action. It was this that gave her noble spiritual heritage. Goethe is the most individualistic of world masters. Froebel developed, in the Kindergarten, one of the purest of democracies. Luther and German protestantism represented the affirmation of individual conscience as against hierarchical control. It was this spirit that gave Germany her golden age of literature, her unmatched group of spiritual philosophers, her religious teachers, her pre-eminence in music.

Nevertheless, the Prussian state, autocratic from its inception, received philosophic justification in a series of thinkers, culminating in Hegel, who regarded the individual as a capricious egotist, the state, incarnate in its sovereign, as the supreme spiritual entity. He justified war, regarding it as a permanent necessity, and practically made might, right, in arguing that a conquering nation is justified by its more fruitful idea in annexing the weaker, while the conquered, in being conquered, is judged of God. Here is the philosophic justification of that Prussian arrogance which in Nietzsche is carried into glittering rhetoric. Thus the Prussian state from afar back was opposed to the general spirit of old Germany.

Since 1870, it must be admitted, that spirit is gone. With the formation of the Prussian empire and for the half century of its existence, every force of social control—press, church, state, education, social opinion—was deliberately employed to stamp on the German people one idea—the subordination of the individual to the state, as the supreme and only virtue. How far has the policy succeeded? Apparently absolutely. To the outside observer the old spirit seems utterly gone. How far this policy has been helped by the cultivation of the fear of the Slav, one cannot say. Looking at the map of Europe, one sees that the geographical relation of Germany to the great Slavic empire is not unlike the relation of Holland to Germany. Thus the deliberate fostering of fear of the vast empire of the East has done much to strengthen the hands of the Prussian regime in its chosen task.

Nevertheless, when one recalls the spiritual heritage of Germany: when one thinks of Herder, Schiller and Goethe; Tauler, Luther and Schleiermacher; Froebel, Herbart and Richter; Kant, Fichte and Novalis; Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner; one feels that something of the old German heritage must survive. When the German people find out what has happened to them and why, that heritage surely ought to show in some reaction against the present autocratic regime, after the War closes, if not before, perhaps even to the extent of making Germany a republic. That would be some compensation for the waste and destruction of the War. Meantime Germany stands now, ruthlessly, for the dedication of Man to the State.

One can understand why a Prussian minister forbade the teaching of Froebel's ideas in Prussia during the latter period of the educator's life. So one understands the hatred of Goethe because he refused allegiance to a narrow nationalism and remained cosmopolitan in his world-view. Similarly Hegel, with his justification of absolute monarchy and his theory of the German state as the acme of all spiritual evolution, was the acclaimed orthodox philosopher of Prussia, while the individualist, Schopenhauer, was neglected and despised.

One must have lived in Germany to realize the absolute control of the State over the individual—the incessant surveillance, the petty regulations, the constant interference with private life. It was to escape just this vexatious control, with the arduous militarism in which it culminates, that so vast a multitude of Germans left their native land and came to the United States—not all of whom have shown appreciation and loyalty to the free land that welcomed them.

III

THE IDEAS FOR WHICH THE ALLIED NATIONS FIGHT

In contrast to the idea for which Germany now stands, the Anglo-Saxon instinctively and tenaciously believes in the liberty and initiative of the individual. We, of course, are no longer Anglo-Saxon. When De Tocqueville in 1831 visited our country, surveyed our institutions and, after returning home, made his trenchant diagnosis of our democracy, he could justly designate us Anglo-Americans. That time is past; we are to-day everything and nothing: a great nation in the womb of time, struggling to be born.

Nevertheless, Anglo-American ideas still dominate and inspire our civilization. It is, indeed, remarkable to what an extent this is true, in the face of the mingling of heterogeneous races in our population. As English is our speech, so Anglo-American ideas are still the soul of our life and institutions.

This is evident in the jealousy of authority. We resent the intrusion of the government into affairs of private life, and prefer to submit to annoyances and even injustice on the part of other individuals, rather than to have protection at the price of paternalistic regulation by the state. We resent any law that we do not see is necessary to the general welfare, and are rather lawless even then. This shows clearly in our reaction on legislation in regard to drink. The prohibition of intoxicating liquor is about the surest way to make an Anglo-Saxon want to go out and get drunk, even when he has no other inclination in that direction. In Boston, under the eleven o'clock closing law, men in public restaurants will at times order, at ten minutes of eleven, eight or ten glasses of beer or whiskey, for fear they might want them, whereas, if the restriction had not been present, two or three would have sufficed.

Not long ago we saw the very labor leaders who forced the Adamson law through congress, threatening to disobey any legislation limiting their own freedom of action, even though vitally necessary to the freedom of all.

The general behavior under automobile and traffic regulation illustrates the tendency evenmore clearly. Thinking over the list of acquaintances who own automobiles, one finds it hard to recall one who would not break the speed law at a convenient opportunity. Even a staid college professor, who has walked the walled-in path all his life: let him get a Ford runabout, and in three months he is exultant in running as close as possible to every foot traveler and in exceeding the speed limit at any favorable chance. These are not beautiful expressions of our national spirit, but they serve to illustrate our instinctive individualism.

Especially are we jealous of highly centralized authority. De Tocqueville argued that we would never be able to develop a strong central government, and that our democracy would be menaced with failure by that lack. That his prophecy has proved false and our federal government has become so strong is due only to the accidents of our history and the exigency of the tremendous problems we