After the war had fairly got going, naturally we thought a good deal
about it, and it was explained to us by Fortescue that, behind the
theory of Germany licking us, or us licking Germany, as the case might
be, there were two great psychical ideas. As I was going to be a soldier
myself, the actual fighting interested me most, but the psychical ideas
were also interesting, because Fortescue said that often the cause won
the battle. Therefore it was better to have a good psychical idea
behind you, like us, than a rotten one, like Germany. I always thought
the best men and the best ships and the best brains and the most money
were simply bound to come out top in the long run; but Fortescue said
that a bad psychical idea behind these things often wrecks the whole
show. And so I asked him if we had got a good psychical idea behind us,
and he said we had a champion one, whereas the Germans were trusting to
a perfectly deadly psychical idea, which was bound to have wrecked them
in any case--even if they'd had twenty million men instead of ten.
So that was all right, though, no doubt, the Germans think their idea of
being top dog of the whole world is really finer than ours, which is
"Live and let live." And, as I pointed out to Fortescue, no doubt if we
had such a fearfully fine opinion of ourselves as the Germans have, then
we also should want to be top dog of the world.