King's Business - 1918-02

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THE KING’S BUSINESS then German scientific and philosophical and critical thought will be thrown to the winds. Perhaps no modern German philosopher has had the vogue in America that Wundt has had, but how just and fair and reliable a thinker he is may be judged by a recent utterance (1915) in his book, Die Nationen und ihre Philosophie, page 131: “The Englishman treats the foreigner, when he does not need him, as thin air, when he does need him, as a piece of goods; consequently^ when he sits in the Cabinet, he considers that, towards a foreign State, a lie is not a lie, deceit is not deceit, and a surprise attack in time of peace is a perfectly legitimate measure, so long as it serves England’s interests.” He says again in the same book, on page 32, that Puritanism leads to “that shrinking from the frank expression of emotions which, (for example) explains the fact that cultiyated England reads its great poet Shakespeare for the most part in editions in which everything is deleted that could give offense to a sensitive old maid.” Prof. Rudolf Eucken, who has probably had a greater following in America the last few years than any other German philosopher, said in October 1914, in the Internationale Monatschrift fur Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik, page 74, “Our German Kultur has, in its unique depth, something shrinking and severe, it does not obtrude itself, or readily yield itself up, it must be earnestly sought after and lovingly assimilated very often. This love was lacking in our neighbors; wherefore they easily came to look upon us with the eyes of hatred.” Any one can judge for himself of the justice of the judgment of this eminent philosopher. His modestly and reli­ ability appear in the following statement in his book published in 1914. The World-historic Significance of the German Spirit, page 23: “We have a right to say that we (i.e. we Germans) form the soul of humanity, and that the destruc­ tion of the German sort would fob world-history of its deepest meaning.” No other name in the world of science, especially in the world of evolutionary. scientific thought, is so well known in this country as that of Ernst Haeckel, professor of Zoology at Jena. How much importance Americans or English or Scotch will hereafter attach to his opinions is evident from such utterances as t h i s “One singly highly cultured German warrior, of those who are, alas! falling in thousands, represents a higher intellectual and moral life-value than hundreds of the raw children of nature whom England and France, Russia and Italy, oppose to them.” This utterance is found in his book published in 1915, entitled, Eternity: Thoughts on the World War. He says again in the same book, page 122: “We must establish ourselves firmly at Antwerp on the North Sea and at Riga on the, Baltic . . . At all events we must, at the con­ clusion of peace, demand substantial expansion of the German Empire. In this our motive will not be the greed and covetousness of world-ruling England, nor the national vanity of gloire-seeking France, nor the childish megalomania of Rome-mad Italy, nor the insatiable craving for expansion of semi-barb,arous Russia.” He says again, on page 113 of the same book, “It is certain that the present generation of continental Europe, which has been for fifteen months a daily witness of Great Britain’s barbarous and infamous conduct of the war— the unexampled massacres, the shameless political, falsity and hypocrisy, the cowardly ill-treatment of prisoners and wounded /—cannot possibly make any move toward reconciliation.” How far from scientific accuracy this description of Great Britain’s conduct is We all know, and any man who so writes utterly puts himsely out of court hereafter for reliability and accuracy of statement. He says again on the same page: “That the blood-guiltiness of this ‘greatest

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