is a character that strikes one at once. It seems to be a serious and
often a solemn emotion impregnably armoured against the comic sense,
and expressed with a childlike confidence in its justness. It is
usually associated with a language of metaphor, which is almost always
florid and banal, and usually grandiose and strident. This fondness for
metaphor and inability to refer to common things by plain names affects
all classes, from Emperor to journalist, and gives an impression of
peculiar childishness. It reminds one of the primitive belief in the
transcendental reality and value of names.
The national arrogance of the German is at the same time peculiarly
sensitive and peculiarly obtuse. It is readily moved by praise or
blame, though that be the most perfunctory and this the most mild, but
it has no sense of a public opinion outside the pack. It is easily
aroused to rage by external criticism, and when it finds its paroxysms
make it ridiculous to the spectator it cannot profit by the information
but becomes, if possible, more angry. It is quite unable to understand
that to be moved to rage by an enemy is as much a proof of slavish
automatism as to be moved to fear by him. The really extraordinary
hatred for England is, quite apart from the obvious association of its
emotional basis with fear, a most interesting phenomenon. The fact that
it was possible to organize so unanimous a howl shows very clearly
how fully the psychological mechanisms of the wolf were in action. It
is most instructive to find eminent men of science and philosophers
bristling and baring their teeth with the rest, and would be another
proof, if such were needed, of the infinite insecurity of the hold of
{177} reason in the most carefully cultivated minds when it is opposed
by strong herd feeling.[Q]
[Q] I have not included in these pages actual quotations from
German authors illustrative of the national characteristics they
so richly display. Such material may be found in abundance in the
many books upon Germany which have appeared since the beginning
of the war. The inclusion of it here would therefore have been
superfluous, and would have tended perhaps to distract attention
from the more general aspects of the subject which are the main
objects of this study. During the process of final revision I am,
however, tempted to add a single illustration which happens just
to have caught my eye as being a representative and not at all an
extreme example of the national arrogance I refer to above.
In an article on “The German Mind” by Mr. John Buchan I find the
following quotations from a Professor Werner Sombart, of Berlin:―
“When the German stands leaning on his mighty sword, clad in steel
from his sole to his head, whatsoever will may, down below, dance
around his feet, and the intellectuals and the learned men of
England, France, Russia, and Italy may rail at him and throw mud.
But in his lofty repose he will not allow himself to be disturbed,
and he will reflect in the sense of his old ancestors in Europe:
_Oderint dum metuant_.”
“We must purge from our soul the last fragments of the old ideal
of a progressive development of humanity. . . . The ideal of
humanity can only be understood in its highest sense when it
attains its highest and richest development in particular noble
nations. These for the time being are the representatives of God’s
thought on earth. Such were the Jews. Such were the Greeks. And
the chosen people of these centuries is the German people. . . .
Now we understand why other peoples pursue us with their hatred.
They do not understand us, but they are sensible of our enormous
spiritual superiority. So the Jews were hated in antiquity because
they were the representatives of God on earth” (“The German Mind,”
_Land and Water_, November 6, 1915).
These passages are almost too good to be true, and give one
some of the pleasure of the collector who finds a perfect
specimen. Here we have the gusto in childish and banal metaphor,
the conception of the brutal conqueror’s state as permanently
blissful—the colonizing principle of Prussia—the naïve
generalizations from history, the confident assumption of any
characteristic which appears desirable in morals or religion, the
impenetrable self-esteem, and I think we should add the intense
and honest conviction.
If we judge from the standpoint of our own feelings and ideals
such utterances as these, we cannot ignore the maniacal note
in them, and we seem forced to assume some actually lunatic
condition in the German people. Indeed, this is a conclusion which
Mr. Buchan in the article from which I quote does not hesitate
definitely and persuasively to draw.
When we remember, however, that the definition of insanity is
necessarily a statistical one, that in the last analysis we can
but say that a madman is a man who behaves differently from the
great bulk of his neighbours, we find that to describe a nation as
mad—true as it may be in a certain sense—leaves us without much
addition to our knowledge. In so far, however, as it impresses
upon us the fact that some of that nation’s mental processes are
fundamentally different from our own it is a useful conception.
The statesman will do well to carry the analysis a stage farther.
The ravings of a maniac do not help us much in forecasting his
behaviour, the howlings of a pack of wolves, equally irrational,
equally harsh, even, in the original sense, equally lunatic,
betray to us with whom we have to deal, betray their indispensable
needs, their uncontrollable passions, the narrow path of instinct
in which they are held, enable us to foresee, and, foreseeing, to
lay our plans.
It is important, however, not to judge the functional value of these
phenomena of herd arrogance and herd irritability and convulsive rage
from the point of view of nations of the socialized gregarious type
such as ourselves. To us they would be disturbants of judgment, and
have no corresponding emotional recompense. In the wolf pack, however,
they are indigenous, and represent a normal mechanism for inciting
national enthusiasm and unity. The wolf, whose existence depends on
the daily exercise of pursuit and slaughter, cannot afford {178} to be
open to external appeals and criticisms, must be supremely convinced of
his superiority and that whoever dies he must live, and must be easily
stimulated to the murderous rages by which he wins his food.
Another difficulty in the understanding of the German mind is its
behaviour with regard to influencing non-German opinion. There can
be no doubt that it desires intensely to create impressions {179}
favourable to itself, not merely for the sake of practical advantages
in conducting the war, but also because of the desire for sympathy.
In considering the latter motive it is important that one’s attention
should not be too much attracted by the comic aspects of the searchings
of heart, publicly indulged by Germans, as to why they are not regarded
with a more general and sincere affection, and of the answers which
they themselves have furnished to this portentous problem. That they
are too modest, too true, too self-obliterating, too noble, too brave,
and too kind are answers the psychological significance of which should
not be altogether lost in laughter. That they are honest expressions of
belief cannot be doubted; indeed, there is strong theoretical reason to
accept them as such, when we remember the fabulous[R] impenetrability
of lupine herd suggestion. In default of such an explanation they seem
to be utterly incomprehensible.
[R] The use of this adjective may perhaps call to mind how
often the wolf has appeared in fable in just this mood. Usually,
however, the fabulist—being of the unsympathetic socialized
type—has ascribed the poor creature’s yearnings to hypocrisy.
In her negotiations with other peoples, and her estimates of
national character, Germany shows the characteristic features of her
psychological type in a remarkable way. It appears to be a principal
thesis of hers that altruism is, for the purposes of the statesman,
non-existent, or if it exists is an evidence of degeneracy and a source
of weakness. The motives upon which a nation acts are, according to
her, self-interest and fear, and in no particular has her “strangeness”
been more fully shown than in the frank way in which she appeals to
both, either alternately or together.
This disbelief in altruism, and over-valuation of fear and
self-interest, seem to be regarded by her {180} as evidence of a
fearless and thorough grasp of biological truth, and are often fondly
referred to as “true German objectivity” or the German “sense for
reality.” How grossly, in fact, they conflict with the biological
theory of gregariousness is clear enough. It is interesting that the
German negotiators have been almost uniformly unsuccessful in imposing
their wishes on States in which the socialized type of gregariousness
is highly developed—Italy, the United States—and have succeeded
with barbarous peoples of the lupine type, with the Turk, whose
“objectivity” and appetite for massacre remain ever fresh, patriarch
among wolves as he is, with Bulgaria, the wolf of the second Balkan War.
There is strong reason to believe that defective insight into the
minds of others is one of the chief disadvantages of the aggressive as
compared with the socialized type of gregariousness. This disadvantage
is so great, and yet so deeply inherent, as to justify the belief that
the type is the most primitive of those now surviving, and that its
present resuscitation in man is a phenomenon which will prove to be no
more than transient.
It would be of little value to enumerate the well-known instances in
which failure of insight, and ignorance of the psychology of the herd,
has been misleading or disadvantageous to Germany. It is relevant,
however, to note the superb illustration of psychological principle
which is afforded by the relations of Germany to England during the
last fifteen years. That England was the great obstacle to indefinite
expansion was clearly understood by those whom the conception of a
consciously directed and overwhelmingly powerful German Empire had
inspired. I have tried to show how great a conception this was, how
truly in the line of natural evolution, how it marks an epoch even on
the biological scale. Unfortunately for Germany, her social {181} type
was already fixed, with such advantages and defects as it possessed,
and amongst them the immense defect of the lupine attitude towards
an enemy—the over-mastering temptation to intimidate him rather than
to understand, and to accept the easy and dangerous suggestions of
hostility in estimating his strength.
There is in the whole of human history perhaps no more impressive
example of the omnipotence of instinct than that which is afforded by
the reactions of Germany towards England. An intelligent, educated,
organized people, directed consciously towards a definite ambition,
finds its path blocked by an enemy in chief. Surely there are two
principles of action which should at once be adopted: first, to
estimate with complete objectivity the true strength of the enemy, and
to allow no national prejudice, no liking for pleasant prophesying to
distort the truth, and secondly, to guard against exasperating the
enemy, lest the inevitable conflict should ultimately be precipitated
by her at her moment.
Both these principles the instinctive impulsions to which Germany
was liable compelled her to violate. She allowed herself to accept
opinions of England’s strength, moral and physical, which were pleasant
rather than true. She listened eagerly to political philosophers and
historians—the most celebrated of whom was, by an ominous coincidence,
deaf—who told her that the Empire of England was founded in fraud
and perpetuated in feebleness, that it consisted of a mere loose
congeries of disloyal peoples who would fly asunder at the first
touch of “reality,” that it was rotten with insurgency, senile decay
and satiety, and would not and could not fight. Even if these things
had been a full statement of the case, they must have been dangerous
doctrines. They were defective because the {182} observers were
unaware that they were studying different instinctive reactions from
their own, and were, therefore, deaf to the notes which might have put
them on their guard.
At the same time, Germany allowed herself to indulge the equally
pleasant expression of her hostility with a freedom apparently
unrestrained by any knowledge that such indulgences cannot be enjoyed
for nothing. She produced in this country a great deal of alarm,
and a great deal of irritation, an effect she no doubt regarded as
gratifying, but which made it quite certain that sooner or later
England would recognize her implacable enemy, though, inarticulate as
usual, she might not say much about it. . . .
* * * * *
Another feature of Germany’s social type, which has an important
bearing on her moral strength, is the relation of the individual
citizens to one another. The individual of the wolf pack is of
necessity fierce, aggressive, and irritable, otherwise he cannot
adequately fulfil his part in the major unit. Apparently it is beyond
the power of Nature to confine the ferocity of the wolf solely to
the external activities of the pack, as would obviously be in many
ways advantageous, and to a certain extent therefore it affects the
relations of members of the pack to one another. This is seen very well
even in the habits of domesticated dogs, who are apt to show more or
less suppressed suspicion and irritability towards one another even
when well acquainted, an irritability moreover which is apt to blaze
out into hostility on very slight provocation.
Most external commentators on modern German life have called attention
to the harshness which is apt to pervade social relations. They
tell us of an atmosphere of fierce competition, of ruthless {183}
scandalmongering and espionage, of insistence upon minute distinctions
of rank and title, of a rigid ceremonious politeness which obviously
has little relation to courtesy, of a deliberate cultivation by
superiors of a domineering harshness towards their inferiors, of
habitual cruelty to animals, and indeed of the conscious, deliberate
encouragement of harshness and hardness of manner and feeling as
laudable evidences of virility. The statistics of crime, the manners
of officials, the tone of newspapers, the ferocious discipline of
the Army, and the general belief that personal honour is stained by
endurance and purified by brutality are similar phenomena.
Nothing in this category, however, is more illuminating than the
treatment by Germany of colonies and conquered territories. To the
English the normal method of treating a conquered country is to
obliterate, as soon as possible, every trace of conquest, and to
assimilate the inhabitants to the other citizens of the empire by
every possible indulgence of liberty and self-government. It is,
therefore, difficult for him to believe that the German actually likes
to be reminded that a given province has been conquered, and is not
unwilling that a certain amount of discontent and restiveness in the
inhabitants should give him opportunities of forcibly exercising his
dominion and resuscitating the glories of conquest. Although this fact
has no doubt been demonstrated countless times, it was first displayed
unmistakably to the world in the famous Zabern incident. Those who have
studied the store of psychological material furnished by that affair,
the trial and judgments which followed it, and the ultimate verdict
of the people thereon, cannot fail to have reached the conclusion
that here is exposed in a crucial experiment a people which is either
totally incomprehensible, or is responding to the calls of herd
instinct by a series of reactions almost {184} totally different from
those we regard as normal. When the biological key to the situation
is discovered the series of events otherwise bizarre to the pitch of
incredibility becomes not only intelligible and consistent, but also
inevitable.
The differences in instinctive social type between Germany and England
are betrayed in many minor peculiarities of behaviour that cannot be
examined or even enumerated here. Some of them are of little importance
in themselves, though all of them are significant when the whole bulk
of evidence to which they contribute a share is considered. Indeed,
some of the less obviously important characteristics, by the very
nicety with which they fulfil the conditions demanded by the biological
necessities of the case, have a very special value as evidence in
favour of the generalizations which I have suggested. I permit myself
an illustration of this point. The use of war cries and shibboleths
doubtless seems in itself an insignificant subject enough, yet I think
an examination of it can be shown to lead directly to the very central
facts of the international situation.
Few phenomena have been more striking throughout the war than the
way in which the German people have been able to take up certain
cries—directed mostly against England—and bring them into hourly
familiar and unanimous use. The phrase “God punish England!” seems
actually to have attained a real and genuine currency, and to have
been used by all classes and all ages as a greeting with a solemnity
and gusto which are in no way the less genuine for being, to our
unsympathetic eyes, so ludicrous. The famous “Hymn of Hate” had, no
doubt, a popularity equally wide, and was used with a fervour which
showed the same evidence of a mystic satisfaction.
Attempts have been made to impose upon England {185} similar
watchwords with the object of keeping some of the direst events of
the war before our eyes, and fortifying the intensity and scope of
our horror. We have been adjured to “remember” Belgium, Louvain, the
_Lusitania_, and latterly the name of an heroic and savagely murdered
nurse. Horrible as has been the crime to which we have been recalled by
each of these phrases, there has never been the slightest sign that the
memory of it could acquire a general currency of quotation, and by that
mechanism become a stronger factor in unity determination or endurance.
An allied phenomenon which may perhaps be mentioned here is the
difference in attitude of the German and the English soldier towards
war songs. To the German the war song is a serious matter; it is for
the most part a grave composition, exalted in feeling, and thrilling
with the love of country; he is taught to sing it, and he sings it
well, with obvious and touching sincerity and with equally obvious
advantage to his morale.
The attempt to introduce similar songs and a similar attitude towards
them to the use of the English soldier has often been made, and exactly
as often lamentably failed. On the whole it has been, perhaps, the
most purely comic effort of the impulse to mimic Germany which has
been in favour until of late with certain people of excellent aims but
inadequate biological knowledge. The English soldier, consistently
preferring the voice of Nature to that of the most eminent doctrinaire,
has, to the scandal of his lyrical enemies, steadily drawn his
inspiration from the music-hall and the gutter, or from his own rich
store of flippant and ironic realism.
The biological meaning of these peculiarities renders them intelligible
and consistent with one another. The predaceous social animals
in attack {186} or pursuit are particularly sensitive to the
encouragement afforded by one another’s voices. The pack gives tongue
because of the functional value of the exercise, which is clearly
of importance in keeping individuals in contact with one another,
and in stimulating in each the due degree of aggressive rage. That
serious and narrow passion tends naturally to concentrate itself
upon some external object or quarry, which becomes by the very fact
an object of hate to the exclusion of any other feeling, whether of
sympathy, self-possession, or a sense of the ludicrous. The curious
spectacle of Germans greeting one another with “God punish England!”
and the appropriate response is therefore no accidental or meaningless
phenomenon, but a manifestation of an instinctive necessity; and
this explanation is confirmed by the immensely wide currency of the
performance, and the almost simian gravity with which it could be
carried out. It succeeded because it had a functional value, just as
similar movements in England have failed because they have had no
functional value, and could have none in a people of the socialized
type, with whom unity depends on a different kind of bond.
The wolf, then, is the father of the war song, and it is among
peoples of the lupine type alone that the war song is used with real
seriousness. Animals of the socialized type are not dependent for
their morale upon the narrow intensities of aggressive rage. Towards
such manifestations of it as concerted cries and war songs they feel
no strong instinctive impulsion, and are therefore able to preserve
a relatively objective attitude. Such cryings of the pack, seeming
thus to be mere functionless automatisms, naturally enough come to be
regarded as patently absurd.
Examples of behaviour illustrating these deep differences of reaction
are often to be met with in the {187} stories of those who have
described incidents of the war. It is recorded that German soldiers
in trenches within hearing of the English, seeking to exasperate and
appal the latter, have sung in an English version their fondly valued
“Hymn of Hate.” Whereupon the English, eagerly listening and learning
the words of the dreadful challenge, have petrified their enemies by
repeating it with equal energy and gusto, dwelling no doubt with the
appreciation of experts upon the curses of their native land.
It would scarcely be possible to imagine a more significant
demonstration of the psychological differences of the two social types.
The peculiarities of a state of the wolfish type are admirably suited
to conditions of aggression and conquest, and readily yield for those
purposes a maximal output of moral strength. As long as such a nation
is active and victorious in war, its moral resources cannot fail,
and it will be capable of an indefinite amount of self-sacrifice,
courage, and energy. Take away from it, however, the opportunities
of continued aggression, interrupt the succession of victories by a
few heavy defeats, and it must inevitably lose the perfection of its
working as an engine of moral power. The ultimate and singular source
of _inexhaustible_ moral power in a gregarious unit is the perfection
of communion amongst its individual members. As we have seen, this
source is undeveloped in units of the aggressive type, and has been
deliberately ignored by Germany. As soon, if ever, as she has to submit
to a few unmistakable defeats in the field, as soon as, if it should
happen, all outlets for fresh aggression are closed, she will become
aware of how far she has staked her moral resources on continuous
success, and will not be able for long to conceal her knowledge from
the world. {188}