It must be admitted that the German ‘clerks’ led the way in this adhesion of the modern ‘clerk’ to patriotic fanaticism. The French ‘clerks’ were, and long remained, animated with the most perfect spirit of justice towards foreign cultures (think of the cosmopolitanism of the Romantics!), when already Lessing, Schlegel, Fichte, Goerres were organizing in their hearts a violent adoration for ‘everything German’, and a scorn for everything not German. The nationalist ‘clerk’ is essentially a German invention. This, moreover, is a theme which will frequently recur in this book, i.e. that most of the moral and political attitudes adopted by the ‘clerks’ of Europe in the past fifty years are of German origin, and that in the world of spiritual things the victory of Germany is now complete. It may be said that Germany, by creating for herself the nationalist ‘clerk’ and thereby acquiring the additional strength we know she has acquired, made this species of ‘clerk’ necessary to all other countries. It is undeniable that from the moment when Germany had a Mommsen, France especially was bound to have a Barrès, under penalty of finding herself in a position of great inferiority in nationalist fanaticism, and of seeing her existence seriously menaced. Every Frenchman attached to the continuance of his nation must rejoice that in the last half century France has possessed a fanatically nationalist literature. Yet one would like this Frenchman to rise for a moment superior to his interest, and, faithful in this to the honour of his race, to think it sad that the course of events in the world should force him to rejoice in such a thing. More generally, it may be admitted that a realist attitude has been imposed on the modern ‘clerks’, chiefly the French ‘clerks’, by exterior and interior political conditions which have arisen in their nations. However serious this may be, it would be much less serious if we found that the ‘clerks’ deplored it while they submitted to it, if they felt how much their own value is diminished by it, how greatly civilization is menaced by it, to what an extent the universe is rendered ugly by it. But this is exactly what we do not see. On the contrary, we see them joyfully carrying out this realism; we see them believing that they are rendered greater by their nationalist fury, that it is a service to civilization, an embellishment to humanity. Then one feels that one is confronted by something different from a function thwarted by the events of the moment, and faced with a cataclysm of moral notions in those who educate the world. I should like to point out two other characteristics in the patriotism of the modern ‘clerks’ which seem new to me, the second of which has not failed to stimulate this passion greatly among the peoples.