is strong and cunning, and that his desires and instincts are
inconsistent with our welfare. Yet a rhinoceros is a simpler creature
than a German, and does not trouble our thought by conforming, on
occasion, to civilized standards and humane conditions.

It seems unreasonable to lay great stress on racial differences. The
insuperable barrier that divides England from Germany has grown out of
circumstance and habit and thought. For many hundreds of years the
German peoples have stood to arms in their own defence against the
encroachments of successive empires; and modern Germany learned the
doctrine of the omnipotence of force by prolonged suffering at the hands
of the greatest master of that immoral school--the Emperor Napoleon. No
German can understand the attitude of disinterested patronage which the
English mind quite naturally assumes when it is brought into contact
with foreigners. The best example of this superiority of attitude is to
be seen in the people who are called pacifists. They are a peculiarly
English type, and they are the most arrogant of all the English. The
idea that they should ever have to fight for their lives is to them
supremely absurd. There must be some mistake, they think, which can be
easily remedied once it is pointed out. Their title to existence is so
clear to themselves that they are convinced it will be universally
recognized; it must not be made a matter of international conflict.
Partly, no doubt, this belief is fostered by lack of imagination. The
sheltered conditions and leisured life which they enjoy as the parasites
of a dominant race have produced in them a false sense of security. But
there is something also of the English strength and obstinacy of
character in their self-confidence, and if ever Germany were to conquer
England some of them would spring to their full stature as the heroes of
an age-long and indomitable resistance. They are not held in much esteem
to-day among their own people; they are useless for the work in hand;
and their credit has suffered from the multitude of pretenders who make
principle a cover for cowardice. But for all that, they are kin to the
makers of England, and the fact that Germany would never tolerate them
for an instant is not without its lesson.

We shall never understand the Germans. Some of their traits may possibly
be explained by their history. Their passionate devotion to the State,
their amazing vulgarity, their worship of mechanism an