In those chapters in which we have dealt with the violations of international treaties, and of the Hague Convention, we have often been led to comment on the mode of thought displayed by those who committed these crimes. But hitherto we have touched upon the subject of German mentality only in an incidental fashion; it will doubtless be interesting to consider it more closely. We shall utilize, by preference, documents of German origin. In cases where these are lacking, for example, in the case of the cruelties committed, we shall have recourse to observations which we ourselves have collected, and whose authenticity is indisputable. In place of passing in review all the peculiarities of the modern German mind, which would occupy too much space, we shall confine ourselves to those from which Belgium has suffered most cruelly; but we shall not speak--it would be superfluous--of the obscene spirit of rape, and rapacity, and drunkenness. The three psychological elements which we shall consider are pride, duplicity, and spitefulness. A.--Pride. _Some Manifestations of Pride and the Spirit of Boasting._ "The German nation is the Chosen People, and God is with us." That is the prevailing idea of the speeches and proclamations of the Kaiser. In his Speech from the Throne on the 4th August, 1914, he declared: "It is not the spirit of conquest which urges us forward; but we are animated by the inflexible determination to retain the position in which God has set us, for ourselves and for all the generations to come." In her pride Germany is unanimous. No German is permitted to doubt the indisputable superiority of his nation over all other nations. As soon as he learns to lisp his first words, his brain is steeped in the conviction that no people is comparable to his own, even remotely. This longing to exalt his own country is accompanied by a corresponding desire to abase all others. Hardly is a discovery of any kind made in a neighbouring country than a German appropriates it in order to give it a new trade-mark. One example will suffice. All the world knows that Louis Pasteur was the founder of the science of bacteriology, a science whose consequences, in the spheres of hygiene and medicine, are incalculable. Germany ignores Pasteur and has heard only of Koch. A Belgian, who attended the Berlin celebrations in honour of Koch, returned disgusted with the fact that the name of Pasteur was systematically suppressed throughout the ceremonies. In an obituary notice devoted to Koch a Belgian bacteriologist, M. Jules Bordet, remarked with great justice, in speaking of the German biographies of the scientist who had just died:--