to be
inflicted for the good of the world, and if it assumes a form which
threatens the future safety of the world it is not wise to press it to
its extreme consequences. We have to work toward a better state of
things than that which is promised to-day. We have never hitherto kept
up old animosities unduly long, and that has been one of the secrets of
our strength in the world. The lessons of history point to the
expediency of trying to heal instead of to keep open the wound which
exists. Those who know the growth in the past of literature, of music,
of science, of philosophy, of industry and of commerce, do not wish the
German people to die out. It is only the ignorant that can desire this,
and, hitherto in the course of our history, the ignorant have neither
proved to be safe guides nor have they prevailed. To-day, as before, we
must think of generations other than our own if we would preserve our
strength.

I hope that a time is near in which we shall no longer proclaim old
grievances, but instead cease to dwell on the past in this case, just as
we have ceased in the cases of the French, the Spanish, the Russians,
and the Boers. It is best in every way that it should come to be so.

It is not with any hope that these pages will satisfy the extremists of
to-day that they have been written. They are intended for those who try
to be dispassionate, and for them only, as a contribution to a vast heap
of material that is being gathered together for consideration. It is
well that those who were in any way directly connected with the story
to which they relate should place on record what they saw. But the whole
story in its fulness is beyond the knowledge of anyone of our time. The
history of the world is, as has been said, the judgment of the world. It
is therefore only after an interval that it can be sufficiently written.
The ultimate and real origin of this war, the greatest humanity has ever
had to endure, was a set of colossal suspicions of each other by the
nations concerned. I do not mean that none of them were in the right or
that some of them were not deeply in the wrong. What I do mean is that
if there had been insight sufficient all round the nations concerned
would not have misinterpreted each other.

To us it looks as tho Germany had been inspired throughout by a bad
tradition, a spirit older than even the days of Frederick the Great. Had
she been wise we think that she would have changed her national policy