“Society must unconditionally defend itself against them. Whoever believes with me that society is the natural organic form of humanity, in which alone it can exist, prosper, and continue to develop itself to higher destinies; whoever looks upon civilization as a good, having value and deserving to be defended, must mercilessly crush under his thumb the anti-social vermin. To him who, with Nietzsche, is enthusiastic over the ‘freely-roving, lusting beast of prey,’ we cry: ‘Get you gone from civilization! Rove far from us! Be a lusting beast of prey in the desert! Satisfy yourself! Level your roads, build your huts, clothe and feed yourself as you can! Our streets and our houses are not built for you; our looms have no stuffs for you; our fields are not tilled for you. All our labour is performed by men who esteem each other, have consideration for each other, mutually aid each other, and who have to curb their selfishness for the general good. There is no place among us for the lusting beast of prey; and if you dare to return to us, we will pitilessly beat you to death with clubs.’” All this sounds very well; but if Nordau believes that in this passage he has given us the true method of how to defend society against its literary and artistic enemies, he labours under a delusion with regard to his own achievements that savours somewhat of megalomania. His big words, his righteous indignation, and his manifold signs of exclamation are not a magic wand, are not a Saint Patrick’s mitre, with power to banish toads and serpents from the country. When he says that society should be defended, we can understand him. But when he says that society must defend itself, he drops into the mist of commonplace and meaningless generalities. The word “society” stands for one of those things which will serve very well as the object of an activity, but not as a subject because, while its smallest component part may be affected, action is only possible through an organized co-operation of all its parts. To a German who has never witnessed the attempt of a free democratic community to launch out into collective activity, this difference in the active and passive positions of society may never have occurred. To him the activity of society seems an easy matter, because in his mind society is represented by a concentrated, powerful, and pragmatical administration. If Nordau had said “government should defend,” instead of “society should defend,” he would at least have been logical; but this he could not do, because, though an enemy to personal liberty, he has seen enough of German forms of government to reject the postulate of the Socialists regarding the infallibility of the central power; while at the same time he has a healthy contempt for the judgment of the continental police. He therefore says that society must defend itself, and thus gives us a gratuitous piece of advice which is thousands of years old.