The ultimate object of science is foresight. It may fairly be asked, therefore, supposing these speculations to have any scientific justification, what light do they throw on the future? It would be foolish to suppose that speculations so general can yield, in forecasting the future, a precision which they do not pretend to possess. Keeping, however, to the level of very general inference, two observations may be hazarded. First, the ultimate destiny of Germany cannot be regarded as very much in doubt. If we are content to look beyond this war, however it may issue, and take in a longer stretch of time, we can say with quite a reasonable degree of assurance that Germanic power, of the type we know and fear to-day, is impermanent. Germany has left the path of natural evolution, or rather, perhaps, has never found it. Unless, therefore, her civilization undergoes a radical change, and comes to be founded on a different series of instinctive impulses, it will disappear from the earth. All the advantages she has derived from conscious direction and organization will not avail to change her fate, because conscious direction is potent only when it works hand in hand with Nature, and its first task—which the directors of Germany have neglected—is to find out the path which man must follow. Secondly, a word may be ventured about the war in so far as the consideration of Germany alone can guide us. As I have tried to show, her morale is more rigidly conditioned than that of her opponents. They have merely to maintain their resistance, to do which they have certain psychological advantages, and they must win. She must continue aggressive efforts, and if these can be held by her enemies—not more—she must go on galvanizing her weary nerves until they fail to respond. I am not for a moment venturing to suppose myself {194} competent to give the slightest hint upon the conduct of the war; I am merely pointing out what I regard as a psychological fact. Whether it has any practical military value is not in my province to decide. If one claimed the liberty of all free men, to have over and above considered judgment a real guess, one would be inclined to venture the opinion that, however well things go with the enemies of Germany, there will not be much fighting on German soil. The proposition that the strength and weakness of Germany are rigidly conditioned by definite and ascertainable psychological necessities is, if it is valid, chiefly of interest to the strategist and those who are responsible for the general lines of the campaign against her. We may well, however, ask whether psychological principle yields any hint of guidance in the solution of the further and equally important problem of how her enemies are to secure and render permanent the fruits of the victory upon which they are resolved.