country, where, indeed, he himself resided for many years. He is the ostensible provocative agent most in evidence, and as the Professor regards him as practically the mouthpiece of the Government, this is only what could be expected. But the question I wished to ask was about Nietzsche. While we must agree that his writings are not especially addressed to Germany, and that he himself was not a German professor at all, nor an admirer of Treitschke, may not his remarkable works be a powerful, though indirect, cause of this war? He was an anti-socialist and did not trouble about the masses at all. His plan was to create a dominant race of absolutely anti-Christian and non-moral supermen, who by brute force should possess at any rate Europe, and it would appear that in Germany alone was this concept swallowed with avidity. These world-rulers of Nietzsche, being anti-Christian, can be called nothing but "worldrulers of darkness," and, as we know, this expression is found in St. Paul's Ephesian letter; there are those in this room who, like myself, believe that for the real cause and power behind this war we must look to the spirit world, and I would ask the Professor whether, looking at it even behind the visible, the very spirit that energized Nietzsche may not be the spirit that is prosecuting this war, using the Kaiser and others as its tools? The Rev. GRAHAM BARTON urged that the philosophers had no very great effect upon the nations at large. Thus when philosophers like Seneca were teaching, the nations amongst whom they taught were sunk in barbarism. Nietzsche was an iconoclast, desirous of destroying Christianity and civilization, and of bringing in a new condition of things. But the doctrine of force was inherent in the German people: it had been a potential energy for more than forty years, and had now become dynamic. The Rev. J. J. B. COLES said that we had no adequate explanation of the time in which we were now living. We believed that God overruled events, even when He did not directly interfere with the actions of men. In the last hundred years they had seen a great break-up of European society, a break-up which had extended to America. It seemed to him that this had been prefigured in the prophecy of the fourth beast, which was contained in the seventh chapter of the book of Daniel. Archdeacon POTTER said that they were much indebted to the Lecturer for throwing light on this important subject. K The War was not caused by the need for German expansion. She had colonies, and sent a very small German population to them. In the five years between 1908 and 1913 her total emigration averaged 23,000 per annum, while that of other nations from her ports was 215,000. Nietzsche, as the Lecturer said, had not a large influence in his time in Germany. He was a professor in Switzerland, yet he led the anti-Christian philosophy which fitted in with German materialism. He perverted Darwinism, and established as the motive force which produces the superman the principle of the Will to Power, which Germans had now adopted as their dominating guide. Nietzsche was confessedly anti-Christian, and rejoiced in making war, not only against Christian dogma, but Christian morals. Treitschke, however, was much more the paid exponent of Imperial and militarist views, having been Professor at Freiburg, Heidelberg, and Berlin from 1863 to 1896. He enunciated clearly the principle which he was paid to put forth: "that we must distinguish between private and public morality," "that duties obligatory for the individual are not to be thought of by the State," the same teaching as was enunciated by the Kaiser to his soldiers at Bremerhaven on July 27, 1900, when he said: "Quarter is not to be given, prisoners are not to be made." Treitschke called himself religious, but clearly stated that he considered religion useful mainly in keeping the "under dog" down, by holding before him the hope of compensation in a future life. The real causes of the War were (1) German materialism, fostered by commercial success and by non-moral teaching; (2) the Kaiser willed the War from the time when he dismissed Bismarck. A year after, he refused to renew the entente between Germany and Russia; and Bismarck then foretold that this would eventually lead to a union against Germany of England, France and Russia. The Kaiser and his militarist clique deliberately poisoned the German mind, with the aid of men like Treitschke. "One must seek," said Baron Beyens, "the origin and permanence of the German feeling of hatred against England and France in the historical education given in the universities at the instigation of the Prussian historical school from Niebuhr, Ranken, Mommsen, Sybel, to Treitschke, Giesebrecht, Häusser, Droysen, Lamprecht, and Delbrück." The Rev. MARTIN ANSTEY pointed out that ideas were the precursors of history. Thus the idea of the equality of men led up to the French Revolution. So Nietzsche's doctrine of the will to power had brought about the present cataclysm. There was a necessary reciprocity between thought and action, and thought was determined by the will. Mr. M. L. ROUSE remarked that the meaning frequently attached to "Deutschland ueber Alles " was unfair to the Germans. That motto did not mean that Germany was to be over all other nations, but that Germany was to be considered by Germans before all their private interests: in itself a noble sentiment for a German to entertain. Mr. Rouse then proceeded to give a number of instances from his own experience of Germany to show how in the last fifty years there uad been a great falling off from the Christian faith and a great spread of rationalism and indifference to religion. The CHAIRMAN expressed his great regret that the Lecturer had been obliged to leave before the Discussion. They were indebted to him for a most thoughtful and instructive paper, and he would ask the Meeting to return their warmest thanks. The vote was carried by acclamation, and the Meeting adjourned at 6.10 p.m. WRITTEN COMMUNICATION. Mr. EDWARD J. G. TITTERINGTON writes: The attempt has been made in some quarters (though not in this lecture) to fix the responsibility for the Great War upon the philosophers of modern Germany. If it is meant by this that the German spirit is the creation of their philosophers, the attempt seems to be in the highest degree unhistorical. We have only to read our daily press to be reminded of the Prussian excesses in warfare and diplomacy in centuries past; and even the commercial policy and business methods of Germany are no new thing. Have we quite forgotten-or are we ignorant of -the Hanseatic League? Even if the War could successfully be brought home tothe philosophers, we have not yet found the origin of the War. For the philosophers themselves require an explanation. We have the phenomenon that Germany has produced, not one, but a number of materialistic teachers, who, while differing in many important respects, yet agree in this, that there is a common trend, or perhaps rather a common spirit, pervading their teachings. If there were one or two only, they could be explained away as a kind of philosophical sport, or lusus naturae; but this is not the case. Are we not compelled to the conclusion that the philosophers of Germany are a product of the spirit of Germany, and not its cause: a natural outgrowth from among the people themselves, but reacting in greater or less degree, both directly and indirectly, upon the mass of which they form a part? What, then, is the precise measure of this reaction? A young German once informed me that the influence of Nietzsche, Treitschke, and Bernhardi was quite misconceived and exaggerated in England. Bernhardi was, until quite recently, unknown in his own country. Nietzsche appealed only to a small intellectual class. Treitschke was a "mere Prussian," the mouthpiece of a political party. Perhaps this statement errs in the other direction. Is it not true that at all times the philosophers of the world appeal directly to a limited class, and that to the mass of the people they are unintelligible? But it is those who pass their teachings on in a digested form, and popularize them, who succeed in giving them publicity, and the teachings are thus imbibed indirectly by a very large number who would never think of reading the originals. Especially is this the case when-as there seems to be some evidence has happened in Germany -systematic means are taken, through the schools and universities especially, to produce precisely this effect. If these conclusions are sound, the real influence of German philosophers would seem to be in the direction, not of the creation of a German spirit, but of giving expression to a spirit which was already in existence, and of furnishing the powers in authority with a ready tool for furthering their own ends. And this is, I think, the conclusion to which Professor Margoliouth has tried to bring us. 580TH ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING. HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL, WESTMINSTER, ON MONDAY, MAY 1st, 1916, at 4.30 p.m. THE REV. PREBENDARY H. E. Fox, M.A., IN THE CHAIR. The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed. The CHAIRMAN introduced the Rev. H. J. White, M.A., Professor of New Testament Exegesis, King's College, London, and invited him to deliver his address on 66 The Connection between the Vulgate Version of the Bible and the Theology of the Western Church." THE I THE VULGATE THE THEOLOGY CONNECTION BETWEEN HAVE ventured to speak of the connection between these two facts rather than of the influence of one upon the other; for it is difficult to say how far the Vulgate has influenced Western theology, and how far Western theology has influenced the Vulgate. Each has influenced the other; each has reacted upon the other; a translation will affect doctrine, and doctrine will affect translators. The main point to which I wish to draw attention is the intimate connection between the two; the fact that some distinctive features of Latin theology are bound up with the Latin version of the Bible, and bound up with texts where that version differs from the original, or at any rate gives but one out of several possible translations. When we speak of the Vulgate, or of Latin theology, we must bear in mind what a vast realm is embraced by the words. For more than a thousand years the Vulgate was the sole form in which the Bible was known to Western Christendom; it is still the official version of the Roman Church, and is carried by her missionaries over the whole world, and employed by them in teaching; directly or indirectly, it is the parent of all the vernacular versions of Western Europe, the Gothic version of Ulfilas |