In truth they have betrayed their own gods, and the professions to which they belong can no longer be honored by them--so far as the question of conscience goes, at least. And as for the sacred thing called civilization, which is above our interests and our vanities of an hour, they may have served it usefully by their personal work in the past, but they were unequal to the task of remaining its protectors when their mere silence would perhaps have helped to save it.[6] They have thus shown that, with their more or less sparkling black eagles and under the bedizenment of their Court costumes, they are for the most part narrow fanatics or paid scribes whose pen is only a tool in the hands of their master of a day. It is not even sure whether through their cult of this "militarism," to which they have given the most shameful blind-signature, they have not hopelessly condemned it, by testifying that under the rule of the German sabre human thought has no other course than to humiliate itself!... But on the score of what they are worth in professional morality and courage, agreement is certain today, everywhere. [Footnote 5: Professor Dake.] [Footnote 6: On the score of certain names important in Germany--names not found under the manifesto of the Intellectuals--a question arises: Were they not solicited as well to cover up these crimes, or did they refuse? If the question were one of a simple memorial, carrying with it no abdication of conscience, this point would be without importance, for it would simply mean that a list, however long, could not bring together all the men of renown of a country, and omissions would often have to be laid to chance. But here a venomous manifesto was to be signed, made up of violent lies and of arbitrary theories; and with this in mind one may see a meaning in certain abstentions. Without any possible doubt they are the act of courageous men, who, feeling deeply where the truth is, will not ally themselves against it; and by their resistance they do it honor.] Their great affair--and that of every thinking German--is to object, when spoken to of their crimes, either that they were born of necessity or that they did not take place. As against these allegations, unsupported by any proof, the most formal denials have officially been given. But to the latter we shall now add the true description of the facts. And we think that, in spite of the power and the dogmatic authority of its elite, the activity of its emissaries in all parts of the world, and, finally, all its vast apparatus of conquest--military and civil--Germany cannot long make its stand against the humble little truth, which advances, noiselessly but also fearlessly, with the tenacious light in its hand that it received from Reality--from unquenchable and ardent Reality.