t unprecedented dangers.

The twenty months that have just lapsed into history have done much to
loosen the hold of some of the baleful insular prejudices which
heretofore held sway over the minds of nearly all sections of the
British nation. It may well be, therefore, that we are now better able
to grasp the significance of the principal events of the war, and to
seek it not in their immediate effects on the course of the struggle,
but in the roots--still far from lifeless--whence they sprang. For it
is not so much the upshot of the first phases of the campaign as the
deep-lying causes which rendered them a foregone conclusion that force
themselves on our consideration. Those causes are still operative,
and unless they be speedily uprooted will continue to work havoc with
our hopes.

It is now fairly evident that the present war is but a violent phase
in the unfolding of a grandiose ground idea--the subjugation of Europe
by the Teuton--which was being steadily realized ever since the close
of the Franco-German campaign of 1870. It is likewise clear that,
despite her "swelled head," Germany's estimate of her ability to try
issues with all continental Europe was less erroneous than the faith
of her destined victims in their superior powers of resistance. The
original plan, having been limited to the continental states, was
upset by Great Britain's co-operation with France and Russia. But,
despite this additional drag, Germany has achieved the remarkable
results recorded in recent history. And with some show of reason she
looks forward to successes more decisive still. For in her mode of
conceiving the problem and her methods of solving it lie the secret of
her progress. But there, too, is to be found the counter-spell by
which that progress may be effectually checked; and it is only by
mastering that secret and applying it to the future conduct of the
struggle that we can hope to ward off the dangers that encompass us.

Germany is like no other State known to human history. She exercises
the authority of an infallible and intolerant Church while disposing
of the flawless mechanism of an absolute State. She is armed with the
most deadly engines of destruction that advanced science can forge,
and in order to use them ruthlessly she mixes the subtlest poisons to
corrupt the wells of truth and debase the standards of right and
wrong. And this she can do without the least qualms of conscience, in
virtue of her firm belief