Emeritus Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Yale
University; Lecturer on Philosophy in India and Japan; has
received numerous decorations in Japan, where he was guest and
unofficial adviser of Prince Ito; ex-President of American
Psychological Association.
_To the Editor of The New York Times:_
It seems strange to me that a student of history with the training and
acumen of Prof. Sloane should overlook or minimize the important
distinction that must hold the chief place in enabling us to understand
the issues and appreciate the merits of the war now raging in Europe.
This distinction is that between the German people and Germanic
civilization, on the one hand, and, on the other, the present
Constitution and cherished ambitions of the German Empire under the
dominance of Prussia. The German people, by genuine processes of
self-development, have worked out for themselves a veritable spiritual
unity which manifests itself in language, laws, customs, and a large
measure of substantial uniformity in moral and religious ideals.
Germanic civilization, with its love of order, its high estimate of
education, its notable additions to science, philosophy, and art,
constitutes one of the most noble and beneficent contributions to the
welfare of mankind.
But the case is not at all the same with the German Empire as at present
constituted. It is not a historical development, a truly national
affair, as are the Empire of Great Britain, the Republics of France and
the United States, or the Empires of Russia and Japan. It is a modern
combination of politically divergent unities, forced by the ruthless but
infinitely shrewd policy of Bismarck and his coadjutors, misdirected and
perhaps driven to ruin by the man and his entourage, who, even if he is
King of Prussia "by the grace of God," is only Emperor of Germany "by
the will of the Princes."
We are diligently given to understand that all these "Princes" and all
the German people have entered heart and soul into this war, and without
the slightest doubt as to its righteousness and as to the destiny of the
empire, this modern military autocracy, ultimately to be completely
victorious. This is hard to believe, although it must be admitted that
the cowardice of the Socialists and the obsession of the professors are
remarkable phenomena. As to the latter, however, we must remember their
dependence on the Government, not only for their information and their
"call" to speak, but also for their positions in the Government system
of education.
As to the significance of the two names most prominently quoted in this
connection, I am not at all impressed, as so many of my colleagues
appear to be. An intimate friend of mine some twenty years ago was
several weeks en pension in the same house where Haeckel had his
apartment, and even then he was notorious for his hatred of foreigners
and of women. Those of us who have followed closely his career know how
often he has written with more than German professorial virulence
against those who differed from his theory of evolution, and that he is
at present scarcely more abusive of England than he has several times
been of his own Government and of the State Church because his system
was not made a matter of compulsory teaching. As to Eucken, the reasons
for his obsession are quite different. In his case the feeling and the
utterance are due to intellectual weakness rather than to virulence of
passion.
After all, however, the temper of military and imperial Germany under
the dominance of Prussia has been essentially the same from the
beginning. In illustration of this, let me quote for your readers from a
poem of Heine, written as long ago as 1842. I do this the more readily
because I have recently seen, to my astonishment, Heine placed beside
Goethe as representing the better temper of the Germanic civilization as
opposed to the blinded judgment and immoral hatred of the modern German
Empire:
Germany's still a little child,
But he's nursed by the sun, though tender;
He is not suckled on soothing milk,
But on flames of burning splendor.
One grows apace on such a diet;
It fires the blood from languor;
Ye neighbor's children, have a care,
This urchin how ye anger!
He is an awkward infant giant,
The oak by the roots uptearing;
He'll beat you till your backs are sore,
And crack your crowns for daring.
He is like Siegfried, the noble child,
That song-and-saga wonder,
Who, when his fabled sword was forged,
His anvil cleft in sunder!
To you, who will our Dragon slay,
Shall Siegfried's strength be given;
Hurrah! how joyfully your nurse
Will laugh on you from heaven!
The Dragon's hoard of royal gems
You'll win, with none to share it;
Hurrah! how bright the golden crown
Will sparkle when you wear it!
But it would not be stranger than many other things which have happened
in human history if the defeat of German military imperialism should
result in restoring to Europe and spreading more widely over the world
the beneficent influence of Germanic civilization. Certainly they are
not the same thing, and they do not stand or fall together.