It intoxicates
sluggish minds, to whom thought is not natural. It suppresses all the
gentler instincts of the heart and supplies a basis of orthodoxy for all
the cruelty and treachery in the world. I do not know, none of us knows,
when or how this war will end. But I know that it is worth fighting to
the end, whatever it may cost to all and each of us. We may have peace
with the Germans, the peace of exhaustion or the peace that is only a
breathing space in a long struggle. We can never have peace with the
German idea. It was not the idea of the older German thinkers--of Kant,
or of Goethe, who were good Europeans. Kant said that there is nothing
good in the world except the good will. The modern German doctrine is
that there is nothing good in the world except what tends to the power
and glory of the State. The inventor of this doctrine, it may be
remembered, was the Devil, who offered to the Son of Man the glory of
all the kingdoms of the world, if only He would fall down and worship
him. The Germans, exposed to a like temptation, have accepted the offer
and have fulfilled the condition.
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