It is perhaps natural that units within which {190} ferocity and hardness are tolerated and encouraged should depend on a correspondingly savage method of enforcing their will. The flock of sheep has its shepherd, but the pack of hounds has its _Whips_. In human societies of the same type we should expect to find, therefore, a general acquiescence in the value of discipline, and a toleration of its enforcement, because, rather than in spite of, its being harsh. This seems to be the mechanism which underlies what is to the Englishman the mystery of German submission to direction and discipline. That an able-bodied soldier should submit to being lashed across the face by his officer for some trivial breach of etiquette—a type of incident common and well witnessed to—is evidence of a state of mind in _both_ parties utterly incomprehensible to our feelings. The hypothesis I am suggesting would explain it by comparison with the only available similar phenomenon—the submission of a dog to a thrashing administered by his master. The dog illustrates very well that in a predaceous social animal the enforcement of a harsh and even brutal discipline is not only a possible but also a perfectly satisfactory procedure in the psychological sense. That other common victim of man’s brutality—the horse—provides an interesting complement to the proposition by showing that in a protectively social animal a savage enforcement of discipline is psychologically unsatisfactory. It seems justifiable, therefore, to conclude that the aggressive gregariousness of the Germans is the instinctive source of the marvellous discipline of their soldiers, and the contribution it makes to their amazing bravery. It must not be taken as any disrespect for that wonderful quality, but as a desire to penetrate as far as possible into its meaning, that compels one to point out that the theoretical considerations I have advanced are confirmed by the generally admitted dependence of {191} the German soldier on his officers and the at least respectably attested liability he shows to the indulgence of an inhuman savagery towards any one who is not his master by suggestion or by force of arms. * * * * * In the attempt I have made to get some insight into the German mind, and to define the meaning of its ideals, and needs, and impulses in biological terms, I have had to contend with the constant bias one has naturally been influenced by in discussing a people not only intensely hostile, but also animated by what I have tried to show is an alien type of the social habit. Nevertheless, there seem to be certain broad conclusions which may be usefully recalled in summary here as constituting reasonable probabilities. My purpose will have been effected if these are sufficiently consistent to afford a point of view slightly different from the customary one, and yielding some practical insight into the facts.