Empire. The
material and economic side of this change has been already indicated
in a short summary in the quotation which closes the last chapter. But
these changes, or advances if you will, on the material side, have
been accompanied by a moral and material degeneration which has been
only very partially counteracted at present by a movement which,
though initiated before the period named, has only attained its great
development, and hence influenced the national character, since the
date in question.

It is a striking fact that in the last forty-four years--the period of
the new German Empire--there has been a dearth of originality in all
directions. In the earlier part of the period in question the
survivors from the pre-Imperial time continued their work in their
several departments, but no new men of the same rank as themselves
have arisen, either alongside of them or later to take their places.
The one or two that might be adduced as partial exceptions to what has
been above said only prove the rule. We have had, it is true, a
multitude of men, more or less clever _epigoni_, but little else.
Again, it is, I think, impossible to deny that a mechanical hardness
and brutality have come over the national character which entirely
belie its former traits. It is a matter of common observation that in
the last generation the German middle class has become noticeably
coarsened, vulgarized, and blatant.

Again, although I am very far from wishing to attribute the crimes and
horrors committed by the German army during the present war to the
whole German nation, or even to the _rank and file_ of those composing
the army, yet there is no doubt that some blame must be apportioned at
least to the latter. The contrast is striking between the conduct of
the German troops during the present war and that of 1870, when they
could declare that they were out "to fight French soldiers and not
French citizens." Such were the military ethics of bygone generations
of German soldiers. They certainly do not apply to the German army of
to-day. The popularity of such writers as Von Treitschke and
Bernhardi, respecting which so much has been written, is indeed
significant of a vast change in German moral conceptions. The
practical influence of Nietzsche, who--with his corybantic whirl of
criticism on all things in heaven above and on the earth beneath, a
criticism not always coherent with itself--can hardly be termed a
German Chauvinist in