Although some two-thirds of the Empire’s inhabitants live in urban centres, the number of those who have been educated at universities and higher schools is only a small minority in a total of sixtyseven millions. I admit that this small minority directs the mass, in the same way as the brain directs the whole human machine; I recognize, too, that when the fatal hour struck, it had no difficulty in winning over those Socialist leaders who, tainted though they are with imperialist ideas, would never of themselves have declared war on their brethren, the working-men in other countries. Moreover, one must assume that the warlike passions, stimulated by a peculiar teaching of history and by scientific vanity, met with approval and encouragement from high quarters, from the political authority embodied in one individual. If the Imperial Government and its supreme head had sincerely wanted peace, the aggressive movement that went forth from the schools and universities might have been checked in time, or turned off into peaceful paths by the same disciplinary methods that obtain in the Prussian army. William II. was not the man to let himself be forced into a foreign war by civilian Pan-Germans, after the manner in which Alexander had yielded to Pan-Slavic pressure in 1877. By resisting, it may be argued, William II. would have lost all popularity. This would be true if the voice of the mob—the only voice that could make any impression on so self-willed a monarch—had at any time been raised for war; but the masses were peacefully inclined, or else indifferent. The Emperor has always been the autocrat, with a full sense of his rights, as may be seen from the proud motto that he wrote in the “golden book” of the Munich town-hall: “_Suprema lex regis voluntas esto!_” (“May the King’s will be the supreme law!”) He expects his wishes to be taken as commands. At a word from him, the dreams of world-dominion, born in the brains of scholars and men of science, would have been scattered to the four winds, or buried in a vast heap of unreadable books and articles. In my opinion, therefore, it is far more accurate to say, generally speaking, that the writers, the artists, and the savants who signed the famous manifesto of the “Ninety-three”—we honour them too much by still speaking of it to-day—all those who exploited the historical and intellectual glories and the great scientific renown of Germany for purposes of political ambition, were only the auxiliaries and catspaws of the Imperial policy. VII.