ingle idea, the co-ordinate parts of which were studied and
regulated, not by party chiefs, but by qualified experts, who,
although specialists, subjected them to organic treatment. In this
respect the German may be likened to a massive sombre figure who,
surrounded by a crowd of sprightly shadowy nobodies, discoursing with
easy frivolity on grave subjects, is engrossed with the task of
destroying a great part of the frame-work of the world in order to
rebuild it after his own plan. Unfortunately the extraordinary
enlargement of interest which marks the latter-day political
conceptions, and inspires the fateful action of Germany's acknowledged
leaders, breeds in the allied peoples not so much a stern resolve to
tame that revolutionary nation at all costs, as a sentimental longing
for the return of the idyllic past, and an illusive hope that by dint
of mild Christian charity it may yet be brought back.

CHAPTER VII

TEUTON POLITICS

It is this Teutonic power of looking far ahead, this profundity of
vision, this mingled comprehensiveness and concentration, and the
marked success with which these qualities have hitherto been exercised
to the lasting detriment of the Entente nations which looked on and
naively applauded, that fill the thoughtful student with misgivings
about the future. True, it may not be too late for effective counter
measures. But two conditions are manifestly essential to the
successful application of any remedy: first, that its necessity should
be felt and realized; and, second, that the scrupulosity which at
present hesitates to apply drastic measures should yield to higher
considerations than those of individual delicacy of sentiment and
over-refined humanitarianism. When an individual abuses laws and
restraints which bind his fellow-men, in order to inflict a deadly
injury on them, it is meet that they should free themselves from those
checks in their dealings with him. For example, it may be
theoretically wrong, after the conclusion of the present struggle, for
our people to bear such a grudge against the individual German as
would exclude him from communion and intercourse with the nations of
the Entente. And this principle would seem to apply with greater force
to those Germans who might be willing to abandon their nationality
and identify their aims, interests and strivings with those of the
nation in which they would fain become incorporated. But when we
reflect that almost every Ge