When statesmen are laying out policies, and moralists are setting up systems, it is worth their while to make certain that they are not, in fact, engaged upon an attempt to make water flow uphill; above all, that their ingenious new aqueducts will actually hold water, which in this instance they certainly did not. [1] Heinrich von Treitschke, son of a Saxon general of Bohemian-Slavonic origin; born at Dresden 1834. Deafness following upon a fever in childhood prevented him from adopting the profession of arms; 1858-1863 lectured on history at Leipzig; 1863-1866 professor at Freiburg; 1866-1874 professor at Heidelberg; 1874 until his death in 1896 professor of history and politics at Berlin. [2] "Thus it follows from this, that we must distinguish between public and private morality. The order of rank of the various duties must necessarily be for the State, as it is power, quite other than for individual men. A whole series of these duties, which are obligatory on the individual, are not to be thought of in any case for the State. To maintain itself counts for it always as the highest commandment; that is absolutely moral for it. And on that account we must declare that of all political sins that of weakness is the most reprehensible and the most contemptible; it is in politics the sin against the Holy Ghost...."--_Selections_, p. 32. [3] "That must not hinder us from declaring joyfully that the gifted Florentine, with all the vast consequence of his thinking, was the first to set in the centre of all politics the great thought: _The State is power_. For that is the truth; and he who is not man enough to look this truth in the face ought to keep his hands off politics."--_Ibid._ p. 28. [4] "... to the historian who lives in the world of will it is immediately clear that the demand for a perpetual peace is thoroughly reactionary; he sees that with war all movement, all growth, must be struck out of history. It has always been the tired, unintelligent, and enervated periods that have played with the dream of perpetual peace...."--_Selections_, p. 25. "It is precisely political idealism that demands wars, while materialism condemns them. What a perversion of morality to wish to eliminate heroism from humanity!"--_Ibid._ p. 24. [5] "... if we survey history in the mass, it is clear that all real masterpieces of poetry and art arose upon the soil of great nationalities;" and "The poet and artist must be able to react upon a great nation. When did a masterpiece ever arise among a petty little nation?"--_Ibid._ p. 19.