But the fact, we are told, admits of easy explanation. Thinking Germany has fallen a victim to the teachings of Treitschke and Nietzsche--Treitschke with his Macchiavellian doctrine that "Power is the end-all and be-all of a State," Nietzsche with his contempt for pity and the gentler virtues, his admiration for "valour," and his disdain for Christianity. This explanation is too simple to fit the facts. It may satisfy those who know no more of Treitschke's brilliant and careful work than the extracts culled from his occasional writings by General von Bernhardi and the late Professor Cramb. It may gratify those who, with so many young German students, forget that Nietzsche, like many other prophets, wrote in allegory, and that when he spoke of valour he was thinking, not of "shining armour," but of spiritual conflicts. But careful enquirers, who would disdain to condemn Macaulay on passages selected by undiscriminating admirers from his _Essays_, or Carlyle for his frank admiration of Thor and Odin and the virtues of Valhalla, will ask for a more satisfying explanation. Even if all that were said about Treitschke and Nietzsche were true, it would still remain an unsolved question why they and their ideas should have taken intellectual Germany by storm. But it is not true. What is true, and what is far more serious, both for Great Britain and for Europe, is that men like Harnack, Eucken, and Wilamowitz, who would repudiate all intellectual kinship with Macchiavelli and Nietzsche--men who are leaders of European thought, and with whom and whose ideas we shall have to go on living in Europe--publicly support and encourage the policy and standpoint of a Government which, according to British ideas, has acted with criminal wickedness and folly, and so totally misunderstood the conduct and attitude of Great Britain as honestly to regard us as hypocritically treacherous to the highest interests of civilisation. That is the real problem; and it is a far more complex and difficult one than if we had to do with a people which had consciously abandoned the Christian virtues or consciously embarked on a conspiracy against Belgium or Great Britain. The utter failure of even the most eminent Germans to grasp British politics, British institutions, and the British point of view points to a fundamental misunderstanding, a fundamental divergence of outlook, between the political ideals of the two countries. It is the conflict between these ideals which forms the second great issue between Germany and Great Britain; and on its outcome depends the future of human civilisation. §2. _Culture_.--What is the German ideal? What do German thinkers regard as Germany's contribution to human progress? The answer comes back with a monotonous reiteration which has already sickened us of the word. It is _Kultur_, or, as we translate it, culture. Germany's contribution to progress consists in the spread of her culture.