For the trouble is that when reason is so far held in check that it loses its power of denial, it must have lost its power of control. The original “idea” formulated in the conscious mind has sunk so deep into the subconscious that it cannot be changed except under the influence of some stronger outside power. For nearly fifty years Germany, in her schools, her gymnasiums, her universities, her civic and her political life, has been inculcating a rigid and mentally demoralising system, and she is suffering now—as the monomaniac in private life must suffer—for her particular form of insanity. Even in the conduct of her great campaign, this weakness of hers has begun to defeat her. She has lost the power of adaptability in military matters. She repeats the faults of her original plan, despite the endless illustrations that have been afforded by her Western antagonists that that plan can be very considerably bettered. No doubt the Higher Command may realise in some instances the weakness of the old method in conditions that have been immensely modified since August, 1914, but they are impotent to change, in a year or in a decade, the effect of their own teaching on the millions of Germany’s army. The massed attack, for example, has been demonstrated to be a disastrous failure—a single well-placed machine-gun can defeat it—but Germany’s soldiers will not advance in a scattered attack. They have learnt to depend upon the nearness of their comrades. Separate a German battalion and it has neither confidence nor courage. Again, can one reasonably doubt that the German nation suffers from some form of self-hypnotism when one sees evidence of the almost pathetic belief apparently still placed in the campaign of “frightfulness”? The German people themselves are afraid—an inevitable symptom of certain forms of monomania—of the horrible devices they themselves are using, and no evidence can bring home to them the fact, that the plan of terrorising their enemies not only fails but recoils even upon their own heads. London—I speak from experience—is not intimidated by Zeppelin raids by night, nor by seaplane raids by day. The inhabitants of London do not cower under these terrible afflictions and beg for peace; on the contrary each horrible incident arouses afresh their determination to prevent, if possible, a recurrence of such savagery in the world’s history. Any sane nation must have realised this fact eighteen months ago; Germany, blind and rigid in the trance of her self-hypnosis, still staggers on to her own destruction.