"The theories of the German philosophers and public men are of one piece with the collective acts of the German soldiers. The pages of the Pan-German writers are prophetic. They are not so much the precursors as the results, the echoes of a something impersonal that is vaster than their own voice. Here we have acted out the cult of force, creator of Right, practiced since its dim origins by Prussia, defended philosophically by Lasson, scientifically by Haeckel and Ostwald, politically by Treitschke, and in a military way by General von Bernhardi." The modern Germany is the victim of an obsession. Under its sentimental domestic life, its placid beergarden recreation, its methodical activities, its reveries, its emotional laxity fed on music, it was generating destructive forces. Year by year it was thinking the thoughts, inculcated by its famous teachers, until those ideas, pushed deep down into the subconscious, became an overmastering desire, a dream of world-grandeur. For once an idea penetrates through to the subconsciousness, it becomes touched with emotional life, later to leap back into the light of day in uncontrolled action. I can produce one of the original bills posted on the walls of Liège by General von Bulow. Here is the way it reads: Ordre. A la population Liègeoise. La population d'Andenne, après avoir témoigné des intentions pacifiques à l'égard de nos troupes, les a attaquées de la façon la plus traîtresse. Avec mon autorisation, le Général qui commandait ces troupes a mis la ville en cendres et a fait fusilier 110 personnes. Je porte ce fait à la connaissance de la ville de Liège, pour que ses habitants sachent à quel sort ils peuvent s'attendre s'ils prennent une attitude semblable. Liège, le 22 Août, 1914. Général von Bulow. ("The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after having testified to their peaceful intentions in regard to our troops, attacked them in a fashion the most treacherous. By my authorization, the General who commanded the troops has burned the town to ashes and has shot 110 people. I bring this to the knowledge of the town of Liège, in order that the inhabitants may know what fate they invite if they take a like attitude.") It is only in victorious conquest that the German is unendurable. When he was trounced at the Battle of the Marne, he ceased his wholesale burnings and massacres throughout that district, and continued his campaign of frightfulness only in those sections of Belgium around Antwerp where he was still conquering new territory. His dream of world conquest will die in a day, when the day comes that sends him home. In defeat, he is simple, kindly, surprised at humane treatment. He ceases to be a superman at the touch of failure. All his blown-up grandeur collapses, and he shrinks to his true stature.