If the German people had been truly civilized they would never have maintained silence before the assassination of Belgium. Even among those whose ideas are contrary to the existing political order in Germany, none has risen up against this crime admitted and proclaimed at the beginning of the war in full Parliament by the Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg himself. The universal astonishment at such a silence was so great that even today the world has not recovered from it. Apart from Liebknecht the whole of German Social Democracy is dishonored: it is desired to expel the German Socialists from the International Socialist Movement. They excuse themselves; they aggravate their fault. They say: "We should have been arrested and imprisoned." The world replies: "Are they then afraid of dying?" In the German Socialist Party everything has been reduced to method and organized as in the German universities and the German Army. There were I know not how many Socialist electors; German Socialism was thought to be already triumphant and invincible. People said: "They _are_ Germany!" The German Socialists were held up as an example to all the democracies of the earth. Those who swore by the German Socialists affirmed that they would devour Kaiserism when it should become necessary. But last August in one hour in the Reichstag it was the German Socialist Party that was devoured! When recently certain German Socialists visited the _Maison du Peuple_ of Brussels they expressed astonishment that the Socialists of Belgium should attach so much importance to the invasion of their country. "When then binds you to your country?" they asked. "Honor," was the reply. "Honor! Honor! that is a very bourgeois ideal," interrupted the Germans. Yet a true civilization has as its framework precisely honor. Honor is not a bourgeois ideal, but an aristocratic ideal. It was slowly created by the flower of humanity throughout the centuries. When force becomes educated, force opposes itself. It limits and incloses itself. It becomes intelligent and tempered by reserve and by tact. Brutal force thus changes into moral force, power becomes justice. The more a nation lends itself to such a change, the more it rises from the material plane toward the spiritual plane. The more it enshrines in its institution respect for humanity as a whole, the greater and more civilized it becomes. Such a nation remains faithful to its pledged word; neither interest nor even necessity moves it to commit felony. It loves to protect and not to oppress those who are weaker than itself. It has at heart the work of propagating throughout the world certain principles of social life which certainly are utopian, but are yet beautiful to have before the eyes and in the heart, in order to live not only for the present, but also for the future.