Having entered upon war as her chief national industry, and looking with greedy eyes upon the steel plants, the looms and factories of rich Belgium; envying France her unique supremacy as the leader of the fine arts; tempted by the little states like Holland and Denmark on the west and Rumania and Poland on the east, states that seemed like purple clusters, bursting with wine for German lips, it became necessary for Germany to find a philosophy that would break down the great convictions of morality inherited from Martin Luther. All wise men trace deeds back to the thinking of the doer, just as they trace bitter water back to a poisoned spring. Of the German teaching of Prussianism we can only say, no grapes from Prussian thorns, no figs from Prussian thistles. What the Prussians thought in their hearts, that they became in their lives. What began as sparks of avarice and ambition has ended in this world conflagration, and Germany is responsible, not for the sparks, but for the world ruin. Alcibiades and Catiline and Benedict Arnold all thought in terms of selfishness, and they all did cruel deeds. The murder of Edith Cavell and Captain Fryatt, the sinking of women and children on steamers, the rape of Belgium and Northern France, the assassination of Poland, the deliberate, cold-blooded plots by the German officers with the Turkish soldiers to exterminate the Armenians, so that they could settle on the lands, are the outer exhibition in deeds of the inner philosophy of the Germans. That is why their favorite philosopher Nietzsche says that Germany's gift is brute force and not intellect. ("Ecce Homo," page 38, and page 134: "Wherever Germany extends her sway, she ruins culture. I feel it my duty to tell the Germans that every crime against culture lies on their conscience.") A philosophy therefore was concocted, called "Prussianism." This philosophy is no secret, for Germany has trumpeted it forth, from the top of the palace in Potsdam and the Dom in Berlin. For fifteen years it has been the very essence of the teaching in her universities, her pulpit, her press and her Parliament. This is its substance: Over against Martin Luther's conception of God as the All-wise and Good Father, who is righteous Himself, and demands righteousness of His children, the new philosophy sets up the political State as the be-all and end-all for the German people. Omnipotence means a Kaiser's arm, with that of a war staff, carried up to the nth degree of power by seventy millions of other arms.