More significant than the words themselves are their occasion and the occupation of the one who utters them. Outside of Germany, cavalry generals who employ philosophy to bring home practical lessons are, I think, rare. Outside of Germany, it would be hard to find an audience where an appeal for military preparedness would be reinforced by allusions to the Critique of Pure Reason. Yet only by taking such statements seriously can one understand the temper in which opinion in Germany meets a national crisis. When the philosopher Eucken (who received a Nobel prize for contributing to the idealistic literature of the world) justifies the part taken by Germany in a world war because the Germans alone do not represent a particularistic and nationalistic spirit, but embody the "universalism" of humanity itself, he utters a conviction bred in German thought by the ruling interpretation of German philosophic idealism. By the side of this _motif_ the glorification of war as a biologic necessity, forced by increase of population, is a secondary detail, giving a totally false impression when isolated from its context. The main thing is that Germany, more than any other nation, in a sense alone of all nations, embodies the essential principle of humanity: freedom of spirit, combined with thorough and detailed work in the outer sphere where reigns causal law, where obedience, discipline and subordination are the necessities of successful organization. It is perhaps worth while to recall that Kant lived, taught and died in Koenigsberg; and that Koenigsberg was the chief city of east Prussia, an island still cut off in his early years from western Prussia, a titular capital for the Prussian kings where they went for their coronations. His lifework in philosophy coincides essentially with the political work of Frederick the Great, the king who combined a regime of freedom of thought and complete religious toleration with the most extraordinary display known in history of administrative and military efficiency. Fortunately for our present purposes, Kant, in one of his minor essays, has touched upon this combination and stated its philosophy in terms of his own thought.