e cult
of power; in the former, sentiment and feeling have a place as
criteria of values; in the latter the appeal is to science and to
reason.
Hobhouse (34) says that the war is a conflict of the spirit of the
West against the spirit of the East (precisely the same as the German
view, we see, but with a very different identification of the
champions). Germany has never felt the spirit of the West. The war is
for something far deeper than national freedom; it is a war to justify
the primary rules of right. Burnet (18) thinks that the great conflict
was a conflict between Kultur as nationalistic, and humanism as
something international--that Germany, in recent years, had abandoned
an ideal of culture for that of specialization in the service of the
State. England's answer to the call was not to the specific need and
appeal of Belgium, but because England felt that there was something
in Germany incompatible with Western civilization.
Le Bon (42) says that we must always remember that the Teuton is the
irreconcilable enemy of the civilization of the French and of all it
stands for, and that he must always be kept at a distance. Durkheim's
view is that Germany's ambition and energy and will antagonize the
freedom of the rest of the world, and the rest of the world felt this
and the war was the consequence. Dillon (55) says that the future for
which Germany has been striving is a future incompatible with those
ideals which our race cherishes and reveres, and that we must make a
definite choice between our philosophy and religion and our code on
one side and those of the German on the other. Drawbridge (19) says
that the war has been a conflict between the ideals of gentleness and
tact, on one side, and of brutality and ruthlessness on the other. It
is the Christian spirit against the Nietzschean.
Again we have been told that the war was simply a war of autocracy
against democracy, of mediaevalism against modern life, of progress
against stagnation, of militarism and war against peace, of the
Napoleonic against the Christian spirit. Occasionally we hear more
personal and subjective notes. Redier (30) says that France was
fighting solely to retain mastery of her own genius, in order to draw
from it noble joys and just profits.
The American point of view has been expressed in several forms by the
President of the United States. For example, he has said that we are
one of the champions of the rights of mankind. The wor
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