Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Richard J. Shiffer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. THE ARENA. No. XXI. AUGUST, 1891. [Illustration: Elizabeth Cady Stanton (signed "Sincerely yours Elizabeth Cady Stanton")] THE UNITY OF GERMANY. BY MME. BLAZE DE BURY. "THE IDEA WHENCE SPRANG THE FACT."[1] [1] "L'Allemagne lepnis, Leibniz. Essai sur le Developpement de la Conscience Nationale en Allemagne." By Prof. Levy Bruehl, Paris. 1 vol. Hachette, 1890. Since the Great French Revolution of 1789 and its immediate consequence in the military despotism of Bonaparte, nothing has occurred that has so convulsed the Old World and so altered the conditions of men and things, as the establishment of the United German Empire in 1870. The men of our time are obliged to know how this event came about, or remain in ignorance of all that has happened during the twenty years following it--that is, to ignore their own political status. Now two records of this enormous change in all our destinies exist; as yet there are but two, and modern men are bound in duty to take cognizance of them. One is the famous "History," written in Germany by Heinrich von Sybel; the other the work of Prof. Levy Bruehl, published in France. Both must be read.[2] [2] "History of the Creation of United Germany." 5 vols. Heinrich v. Sybel, Berlin, 1890. The remarkable book of M. Levy Bruehl on the reconstruction of the German Empire cannot be read by itself or separated from the scarcely less remarkable one of Heinrich von Sybel, the fifth and latest volume of which has just appeared. The two require to be studied together, for though starting from opposite standpoints, they explain each other and distinctly show the impartial reader where to recognize the _real raison d' etre_ of German unity. When Sybel speaks, as he constantly does, of the creation of Germanic unity, after the war of 1870, he, as a matter of fact, adopts the French theory, while the independent French writer exposes from a far more German point of view, what have been and what are the causes underlying the present formation of the various component parts of Germany into a State. The title of either tells sufficiently its own tale. Sybel proclaims at once the:-- "_Begruending des Deutschen Reiches durch Wilhelm!_" whilst Levy Bruehl announces the progress of the "_National Conscience as Developed in a Race._"