had shirked
everything serious. And then Guentz's position as husband and father
must be compared with his opponent's irregular life. An absolute cypher
was opposed to a number that counted; and, moreover, to a number
doubled in its capacity.

Guentz said roundly that he regarded his life as too valuable to be
thrown into the balance of this quarrel.

Then he went more into detail with regard to the doubts which for weeks
had been harassing him and driving him towards the decision to renounce
his right to wear the uniform of an officer; the strong doubts as to
whether, under existing conditions, German officers were not
undertaking work of no benefit to the future.

He did not mean to say that the calling of an officer was an altogether
unproductive vocation. The yearly training of a large number of
soldiers, who supported the credit of the kingdom, and thereby insured
peace, was, no doubt, a positive factor in both political and social
life.

But was this bulwark, which year by year was rebuilt and strengthened
anew, really secure enough to withstand storms and assaults?

That was just what he doubted.

The organisation of the German army rested on foundations which had
been laid nearly a hundred years ago. Prussian institutions, tested by
many victories, had been transferred to the new empire, and were still
continued. Since the great war they had never seriously been put to the
proof; and during the three last decades they had only been altered in
the most trifling details. In three long decades! And in one of those
decades the world at large had advanced as much as in the whole
previous century!

The system of the military training of the men, evolved in an age of
patriarchal bureaucratic government, had remained pedantically the
same, counting on an ever-present patriotism. Meanwhile, in place of
the previous overwhelming preponderance of country recruits, a fresh
element had now been introduced: the strong social-democratic
tendencies of the industrial workers, who, it is true, did not compose
the majority of the contingents, but who, with their highly-developed
intelligence, always exerted a very powerful influence.

Now, instead of turning this highly-developed intelligence to good
account, they bound it hand and foot on the rack of an everlasting
drill, which could not have been more soullessly mechanical in the time
of Frederick the Great. And they expected this purely mechanical drill
to hold toget