:

Germany by her repeated offences against this rule of international and private honour, has not only damaged her own reputation, but has also endangered her future place and position among the civilised nations of the world. Her punishment may be longdelayed, but it will be certain and just, for offences of this kind against the foundations upon which all civilisation and progress rest carry in themselves the seeds of the penalty that will one day have to be paid-and paid in full.

In closing this review of some of the applications of modern discoveries in chemistry and engineering to military purposes, it may be remarked that science is non-moral, and that the use which man makes of scientific knowledge depends altogether upon his own initiative and will. He may use that knowledge for the benefit of himself and mankind, or he may employ it for the destruction of all that makes life worth living, and even of civilisation itself. That many of the scientific discoveries of the past half-century, which were heralded as marking the dawn of a happier and nobler period in the history of mankind, should have been degraded by being turned to the slaughter of the race, and to the destruction of the material wealth and treasures of the nations engaged in the war, is one of the most ironic and humiliating aspects of the whole affair.

There is, however, another side to the shield, and in a second and later article the writer hopes to deal with some of those aspects of the war in which the discoveries of modern science have ameliorated the conditions of warfare, or have minimised the sufferings and saved the lives of many of those who have had the ill-luck to fall wounded in the great struggle.

JOHN B. C. KERSHAW.

ASPECTS OF TEUTONISM.

I. THE "GERMAN GOD."

WHEN, in 1813, the Prussian troops marched into the battle of Leipsic with the words "Unser alter, deutscher Gott lebt noch " upon their lips, they unconsciously presented an aspect of German national psychology which, by now, is familiar enough to everybody, but must, to many, still remain almost incomprehensible. The average Englishman finds it difficult, for example, to realise that the present German Emperor's much-advertised invocations of the Deity are not an idiosyncrasy, the mere eccentric mark of an ill-balanced mystic. They are sincere, they are by no means peculiar to the person who utters them; and, what is still more important, they are not merely shared by thousands of his subjects, but are inherited from many of the most prominent figures of post-Renaissance German history. The "old German God" of the Emperor's religious and patriotic utterances is, in short, the creation of a number of Germany's greatest men, from Luther onwards.

"2

It should be realised that one or two of the most sinister features of the modern German State are directly traceable to Luther. Treitschke's notorious description of war as a "terrible medicine for humanity," which "the living God will see to it returns again and again ”—that description is surpassed by Luther's remark : 'When we consider its end we shall see that war is of God and that its aim is as necessary to man as eating and drinking.' But Luther the proto-militarist is here of far less import than Luther the herald of German nationalism. The Reformation is always spoken of by German Protestants as being primarily a political event. For Luther, as for Bismarck three and a half centuries later, there was to be no journey to Canossa, and his "Ich kann nicht anders" was, in its essence, a political challenge thrown down to the Papacy on behalf of Germanism. It was a question of "Deutschtum' in danger" then, as it has been in all the other great religious disputes of Germany. This role of political leader of the German people against the universalising tendencies of the Catholic Church was expressly assumed by Luther. Half jokingly he called himself the "German Pope" and the "Prophet der Deutschen"; and these names have been seized upon by speaker after speaker and writer after writer, and taken to mean, (1) Politik.

(2) Whether soldiers can be in a state of salvation.

as in most respects of course they actually did mean, that Luther stood for Germanism, for the German view of the monarchy, for the German conceptions of military service and the sacredness of the State. Even in the smallest details Luther was a champion of "Deutschtum "; thus we have his objection to the word "Kirche," which he considered undeutsch "-a foreshadowing of some of the "Deutscher Sprachverein's " activities! He was, moreover, by his translation of the Bible, virtually the creator of modern High German; and here no credit can be denied him. What German patriots such as Treitschke1 would chiefly ascribe to him, however, is the conception of the State as an "Ordnung Gottes." And that doctrine, promulgated and elaborated in various forms by a long line of German philosophers and religious teachers principally, but by no means first in point of time, by Hegel has actually become what Lord Acton prophesied it would become, "the greatest danger that remains to be encountered by the Anglo-Saxon race." 2

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Political Protestantism, though not necessarily Lutheran theological doctrines, marks all the great "artisans of Germanism." In the eighteenth century the greatest were Herder and Leibnitz, a brief study of whose works will reveal the fact that to them the greatest enemy of the German race was the Catholic Church. "Deutschtum " was their religion, and since "Deutschtum" had found no more adequate religious expression than the Lutheran Church, it was to this that their main allegiance was given. The division of parties in that Church was a great cause of misgiving to Leibnitz, and he devoted a great deal of energy to an unsuccessful attempt, firstly, to unite the dissenters, and, secondly, to bring about "Nationalkirchenversammlungen," or conferences representing the National Church of Germany. Since this, in the strict sense of the word, could scarcely be said to exist, his project fell through. Treitschke, in the nineteenth century, was chiefly concerned with the Lutheran Church as a national challenge first of all to France and then to England. He did not, as many later Pan-Germanists were fond of doing, greet the Anglican Church as a Protestant twin-brother. Indeed he frequently expressed his contempt for English official religion; Anglicanism, he said in effect, was not an adequate religion for a race which held sway over the greatest of empires. Still, as a German Catholic priest argued to me just before the beginning of the present war, the Church of England may well be said to have been the salvation of England, by continuing its hold on an

(1) Treitschke: Luther und das deutsche Volk.

(2) Lectures on Modern History: The Rise of Prussia.
(3) M. Ernest Seillière's phrase.

inspiring tradition and by keeping a balance between the two extremes of Papal authority and blank scepticism. Lutheranism, by going to extremes and by cutting off a large part of Germany from all tradition, had made German official religion by comparison unimaginative, cold, barren and dangerously open to the worst of heresies. This is the religious aspect of the question from a German Catholic's point of view, and, as such, it would scarcely have had any immediate interest for Treitschke. But judging from his, namely the political, standpoint, there can be no doubt that Anglicanism is, on the whole, a far more potent force in English national life than Lutheranism in the national life of Germany.

The historical side of this whole question is excellently illustrated by a book issued a few months ago for the use of German soldiers at the front. It was published by the German periodical Die Tat, and it bears the title Deutscher Glaube. This is significant and striking; as long ago as 1865 Wagner pointed out that it was only in Germany that certain virtues were singled out and labelled "deutsch "_"deutsche Tiefe," "deutsche Treue," and so on. The contents of the booklet are still more remarkable. It consists, for the most part, of religious and patriotic quotations from Meister Eckart, Luther, Goethe, Schleiermacher, Paul de Lagarde, Artur Bonus, Wilhelm Maurenbrecher, and Pastor Jatho. The first of these was, of course, a Dominican monk of somewhat heterodox opinions. His inclusion is justified because, by his insistence upon the direct access of the individual soul to God, he is considered as having paved the way for Luther and the foremost doctrine of Protestantism. Actually his writings describe a kind of mystical Pantheism such as may be traced in Goethe and Pastor Jatho. The latter, it will be remembered, was deprived of his charge a few years ago for unorthodox preaching. Nevertheless his respect for "Deutschtum" seems to be above suspicion.

Of all the great religious teachers of Germany Schleiermacher is perhaps the most moderate representative of what may be described as the "alte deutsche Gott" conception. Several of his sermons and addresses during the time of national humiliation after Jena are among the most moving passages in all patriotic literature. The most eloquent is that entitled "A Nation's Duty in a War for Freedom," delivered in March, 1813, the closing prayer of which reaches a high level of simplicity and earnestness. It begins :

"Merciful God and Lord! Thou hast done great things for us in calling our Fatherland to fight for a free and honourable existence, in which we may be able to advance Thy work.

There is a sincerity in the whole thing beside which later some

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what similar utterances-the present Emperor's, for exampleseem mere parodies. Schleiermacher, moreover, was no reactionary such as the true-blue Prussian patriot generally tends to become; after the fall of Napoleon he, with the poet Arndt, was accused by the victorious Prussian Government of demagogic action. And yet, in spite of this sincerity and this liberalism, his most eloquent passages, including the sermon from which I have just quoted, abound in advocacy of conscription 1 and in praise of war as a thing of high spiritual moment. The total political effect of Schleiermacher's work was to deify the State still further, and to advance those doctrines which have made Prussia such a menace to the independence of smaller nations and the civilisation of the world. It is interesting to note that General Bernhardi, in his Germany and the Next War, cites Schleiermacher as an authority for the assertion that "the State alone gives the individual the highest degree of life.”

But Schleiermacher was too liberal to become a genuine "Prophet der Deutschen." The religious teacher of the nineteenth century who could most fittingly assume that title was Paul de Lagarde, whose popularity during the last few years has been considerably revived, particularly among the younger generation. A certain Paul Friedrich, in 1911, wrote a volume of essays on modern Germany entitled Deutsche Renaissance, in which he expressed a desire to see a German religion; a year later, in a book called Paul de Lagarde und die deutsche Renaissance, he appeared to have found his ideal prophet of the new faith. At last, he says, Paul de Lagarde is beginning to complete his mission. It is easy to understand what this implied. Paul de Lagarde was a German with a very exaggerated national self-consciousness which found political expression in an intense conservatism and in a bigoted anti-Semitism. "Every Jew," he once said, "is a proof of the powerlessness of our national life"; and his desire to see Germany in possession of subject territories as "verteidigungsfähige Grenzen ” was as fervent as that of any twentieth-century Junker. His influence was less narrowing in moral and religious questions ; in certain respects it was of positive value. He was a true idealist; he had a high sense of personal religion; he frequently urged that the service of humanity must have first claim, the State second. But these considerations scarcely ever come to the fore to-day when Paul de Lagarde is mentioned or quoted. His anti-Semitism is emphasised; his glorification of the State is

(1) It is a little disconcerting to the advocates of a "deutsche Religion" that Gneisenau, one of the organisers of victory in 1813, was a Catholic and thus open to the charge of being "undeutsch." A writer in the Preussische Jahrbücher some time ago took comfort from the reflection that by 1813 all Catholicism was undoubtedly extinct in him!