T HE K I N G ’S B U S I N E S S
113
•“What men tower highest in the his to ry of the nation, whom does the Ger man h ea rt cherish w ith the most ard en t love? Goethe? Schiller? W agner? Marx? Oh, no— bu t B arbarossa, the g reat F rederick, Blucher, Moltke, Bis marck, th e h ard men of blood. It is to them , who offered up thousands of lives, th a t the soul of the people goes out w ith tend erest affection, w ith positively adoring g ratitude. Because they did what now we ought to do. . . Our holiest rap tu res of homage are paid to these T itans of th e Blood-Deed.”—Dr. W. Fuchs, in article on “ Psychiatrie and Politics," in Die Post, 28th Ja n uary, 1912. Nippold, D.C., p. 2. “I must assert w ith emphasis th a t the cardinal sin of our whole policy has h ith erto been th a t we have lost sight of th e etern al tru th : Politics Mean th e W ill to Power. . . The his to ry of th e world teaches us th a t only those people have strongly asserted themselves who have w ithout hesitation placed th e W ill to Power higher than the Will to Peace.”-—Gênerai Keim, at meeting of Central Comm ittee of Pan- German League, Munich, April, 1 9 1 3 , Nippold, D.C.r p. 77. Thor stood a t the m idnight end o f the world, His battle-mace flew from his hand: So far as my clangorous hamm er I ’ve hurled Mine are th e sea and th e la n d !” And onward hu rtled th e m ighty sledge O’er th e wide, wide earth , to fall At la st on the Southland’s fu rth e st edge In token th a t H is was all. Since then ’tis th e joyous German rig h t W ith the hamm er lands to win. We mean to inh erit world-wide m ight As the Hammer-God’s k ith and kin. FEL IX DAHN (1878) The foregoing quotations which could be multiplied almost indefinitely prove th is th a t Nietzsche had created an atmosphere, a background for the en tire philosophy of self-assertion which
has plunged th e world into its welter of blood. B ernh ard i’s book bears on its title page as a motto Nietzsche’s words: “W ar and Courage have done more g reat things th a n th e love to the neigh bor.” No one disputes th e iden tity of the philosophy of B ernhardi and Nietzsche, b u t the th ing th a t is not receiving th e emphasis th a t it should, is th a t th is philosophy is Evolution, stripped of all pretense. N ietzsche’s g reat m asters among the Greeks were H eraclitus who anticipated Evolution and Empedocles who antici pated Darw in’s idea of N atu ral Selec tion. E lim ination is the g reat idea of n atu ra l selection. There is a serious lack of E lim ination among men. Nietz sche believed th a t th e worst impedi m ent to elim ination was and still is the Christian church, because th is protects and preserves the unfit and the weak. It will of course be argued th a t Nietzsche does no t rep resen t modern Evolution and th a t present-day Evolu tion ists cannot be charged w ith his vagaries. But Nietzsche is a modern, living un til 1900, and th e m u ltitud e of followers who are still living and sta k ing all upon th e tru th of th is philosophy are present-day living exponents of th e ir faith in his theories. Nietzsche believed w ith many mod ern Evolutionists in th e unproven or disproven theory of th e inheritab ility of acquired characteristics. W ith Rutesmeyer, and w ith most modern Evolutionists, he believed th a t th e p resen t anthropoid monkeys and p resen t man are two divergent branches of th e same stem. Let us remember th a t th is philosophy has assumed to rew rite all history, biol ogy, geology and theology:— th a t the universities of Germany have for gen erations been train ing the leaders of American ‘liberal’ theology: th a t Well- housen, G raf and Kuenen were all Ger mans and were committed to th is Evo-
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker