iety. That for us
is liberty in its highest form._"

We may well pause to marvel at this way of talking about human "culture"
as though it were a question of asparagus and artichokes. Of this
happiness, and these advantages, this maximal output, this market-garden
culture, this liberty of artichokes subjected to a judicious forcing
process, Professor Ostwald does not wish to deprive the other peoples of
Europe. As they are so unenlightened as not to acquiesce with
enthusiasm:

"_War will make them participate in the form of this organization in our
higher civilization._"

Thereupon the chemist-philosopher, who is also in his leisure hours a
politician and a strategist, sketches in bold outline the picture of the
victories of Germany and a remodeled Europe--a United States of Europe
under the paternal sceptre of his mailed Kaiser: England crushed, France
disarmed, and Russia dismembered. His colleague Haeckel completes this
joyous _expose_ by dividing Belgium, the British Empire, and the North
of France--like Perrette of the fable before her pitcher broke.
Unfortunately neither Haeckel nor Ostwald tells us if their plan for the
establishment of this higher civilization included the destruction of
the Halle of Ypres, of the Library at Louvain, of the Cathedral at
Rheims. After all these conquests, divisions, and devastations, let us
not overlook this wonderful sentence of which Ostwald certainly did not
realize the sinister buffoonery, worthy of a Moliere: "You know that I
am a pacifist."

However far the high priests of a cult may allow their emotion to carry
them, their profession of faith still retains a certain diplomatic
reserve which does not hamper their followers. Thus the
_Kulturmenschen_. But the zeal of their Levites must frequently disturb
the serenity of Moses and Aaron--Haeckel and Ostwald--by its intemperate
frankness. I do not know what they think of the article of Thomas Mann
which appeared in the November number of the _Neue Rundschau_: "Gedanken
im Kriege." But I do know what certain French intellectuals will think
of it. Germany could not offer them a more terrible weapon against
herself.

In an access of delirious pride and exasperated fanaticism Mann employs
his envenomed pen to justify the worst accusations that have been made
against Germany. While an Ostwald endeavors to identify the cause of
_Kultur_ with that of civilization, Mann proclaims: "They have nothing
in common. The present war i