nerated by these armies must be fatal to liberty,
and antagonistic to those peaceful energies which produce the highest
civilization. They are fatal to the peaceful virtues. The great Schiller
has said:--

"There exists
An higher than the warrior's excellence.
Great deeds of violence, adventures wild,
And wonders of the moment,--these are not they
Which generate the high, the blissful,
And the enduring majesty."

I do not disdain the virtues which are developed by war; but great
virtues are seldom developed by war, unless the war is stimulated by
love of liberty or the conservation of immortal privileges worth more
than the fortunes or the lives of men. A nation incapable of being
roused in great necessities soon becomes insignificant and degenerate,
like Greece when it was incorporated with the Roman empire; but I have
no admiration of a nation perpetually arming and perpetually seeking
political aggrandizement, when the great ends of civilization are lost
sight of. And this is what Frederic sought, and his successors who
cherished his ideas. The legacy he bequeathed to the world was not
emancipating ideas, but the policy of military aggrandizement. And yet,
has civilization no higher aim than the imitation of the ancient Romans?
Can nations progressively become strong by ignoring the spirit of
Christianity? Is a nation only to thrive by adopting the sentiments
peculiar to robbers and bandits? I know that Prussia has not neglected
education, or science, or industrial energy; but these have been made
subservient to military aims. The highest civilization is that which
best develops the virtues of the heart and the energies of the mind: on
these the strength of man is based. It may be necessary for Prussia, in
the complicated relations of governments, and in view of possible
dangers, to sustain vast standing armies; but the larger these are, the
more do they provoke other nations to do the same, and to eat out the
vitals of national wealth. That nation is the greatest which seeks to
reduce, rather than augment, forces which prey upon its resources and
which are a perpetual menace. And hence the vast standing armies which
conquerors seek to maintain are not an aid to civilization, but on the
other hand tend to destroy it; unless by civilization and national
prosperity are meant an ever-expanding policy of military
aggrandizement, by which weaker and unoffending