It is not intended to imply that there was here any conscious choice. It is remarkable enough that the rulers of Germany recognized the need for conscious direction of all the activities of a nation which proposes for itself a career; it would have been a miracle if they had understood the biological significance of the differentiation of themselves from other European peoples that they were to bring about. To them it doubtless appeared merely that they were discarding the effete and enfeebling ideals which made other nations the fit victims of their conquests. They may be supposed to have determined to eradicate such germs of degeneracy from themselves, to have seen that an ambitious people must be strong and proud and hard, enterprising, relentless, brave, and fierce, prepared to believe in the glory of combat and conquest, in the supreme moral greatness of the warrior, in force as the touchstone of right, honour, justice, and truth. Such changes in moral orientation seem harmless enough, and it can scarcely be suspected that their significance was patent to those who adopted them. They were impressed upon the nation with all the immense power of suggestion at the disposal of {171} an organized State. The readiness with which they were received and assimilated was more than could be accounted for by even the power of the immense machine of officials, historians, theologians, professors, teachers, and newspapers by which they were, in season and out of season, enforced. The immense success that was attained owed much to the fact that suggestion was following a natural, instinctive path. The wolf in man, against which civilization has been fighting for so long, is still within call and ready to respond to incantations much feebler than those the German State could employ. The people were intoxicated with the glory of their conquests and their imposing new confederation; if we are to trust the reputation the Prussian soldier has had for a hundred years, they were perhaps already less advanced in humanity than the other European peoples. The fact is unquestionable that they followed their teachers with enthusiasm. It may be well for us, before proceeding farther, to define precisely the psychological hypothesis we are advancing in explanation of the peculiarities of the German national character as now manifested.