pressive realities. No one contributes more to
this than the intellectual, whose trade it is to handle them, who,
biased by his profession, is always tempted to subordinate reality to
them. Let there supervene a collective passion which completes his
blindness, and it will be cast in the form of the idea which can best
serve its purpose: it transfers its life-blood to that idea, and the
idea magnifies and glorifies it in turn. Nothing is more long-lived in a
man than a phantom which his own mind has created, a phantom in which
are combined the madness of his heart and the madness of his head. Hence
the intellectuals in the present crisis have not been overcome by the
warlike contagion less than others, but they have themselves contributed
to spreading it. I would add (for it is their punishment) that they are
victims of the contagion for a longer period: for whilst simple folk
constantly submit to the test of every-day action and of experience, and
modify their ideas without conscious regret, the intellectual finds
himself bound in the net of his own creation and every word that he
writes draws the bonds tighter. Hence while we see that in the soldiers
of all armies the fire of hate is rapidly dying down and that they
already fraternize from trench to trench, the writers redouble their
furious arguments. We can easily prophesy that when the remembrance of
this senseless war has passed away among the people its bitterness will
still be smouldering in the hearts of the intellectuals....

Who shall break the idols? Who shall open the eyes of their fanatical
followers? Who shall make them understand that no god of their minds,
religious or secular, has the right to force himself on other human
beings--even he who seems the most worthy--or to despise them? Admitting
that your _Kultur_ on German soil produces the sturdiest and most
abundant human crop, who has entrusted to you the mission of cultivating
other lands? Cultivate your own garden. We will cultivate ours. There is
a sacred flower for which I would give all the products of your
artificial culture. It is the wild violet of Liberty. You do not care
about it. You tread it under foot. But it will not die. It will live
longer than your masterpieces of barrack and hot-house. It is not
afraid of the wind. It has braved other tempests than that of today. It
grows under brambles and under dead leaves. Intellectuals of Germany,
intellectuals of France, labor and sow on the fie