Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixi. (1917), A^c". 6. 15 



the gathering strength of the people is ameliorating the lot 

 of industrial slaves. Human beings are never so cruel as when 

 they are bitten with the desire for wealth and ease, and pos- 

 sibly this desire has been the driving-force at the back of the 

 movement towards civilisation. Man has not emerged from a 

 state of savagery to civilisation and dropped his pugnacious 

 habits; his pugnacious habits are rather the result of civilisation, 

 of the exploitation of man by man, of the desire for wealth and 

 luxury. The motives which gave rise to the wars of the Egyp- 

 tians, Assyrians, and other nations of antiquity are still as 

 powerful and active to-day as they were thousands of years 

 ago ; perhaps they are more active. The desire to exploit 

 humanity has not decreased with advancing civilisation. 



What is the bearing of all this upon the problem which 

 now confronts Christendom ? The Prussian military aristoc- 

 racy is waging war. This aristocracy supplies practically all 

 the chief officers in the German army, and holds the principal 

 offices in the State. At the head of the State is a king, who, 

 if not sacred, claims to rule by Divine right. What is the 

 history of this organisation, which is similar to that of the 

 typical warrior state? Have the "children of the sun" also 

 taught the Germans to fight, to seek for a " place in the sun " ? 



The old Teutons were sun-worshippers, and they had a 

 social organisation consisting of a priest-king, supported by 

 a military aristocracy. Slaves were kept and sacrificed. As 

 among many other warrior peoples, warriors were specially 

 honoured ; they only went to Walhalla ; " to the old Norsemen, 

 to die the straw death of sickness or old age was tO' go down 

 into the dismal loathy house of Hela, the Death-Goddess; if 

 the warrior fate on the field of battle were denied him, and 

 death came to fetch him from a peaceful couch, yet at least 

 he could have the scratch of the spear, Odin's mark, and so 

 contrive to go with a blood-stained soul to the glorious 

 Walhalla.""^^ Captives of war were thrown into the graves of 

 chiefs. 



The evidence quoted goes to show that the source of the 

 social organisation of the old Germanic peoples was similar to 

 that of the other warrior peoples; the German culture displays 

 many of the typical traits : sun-cult, priest-kings, warrior 

 nobility, slavery, human sacrifices, and a special home of the 

 dead for warriors ; and it is possible that this organisation has 

 been introduced. The Prussian warrior aristocracy, in re- 

 garding war as a splendid thing, as a means of obtaining 

 wealth and p)ower, are simply furnishing another example of a 

 typical w^arrior state; and their Kaiser in claiming Divine 

 Right is completing the picture. The warlike organisation of 



4Q. Tylor, n-p. cit., II., 88. The introduction of warfare into the 

 north of Europe is a matter of conjecture at present. Nilsson states 

 that the cult of Odin and Walhalla was introduced among the Teutons 

 of Scandinavia by the Asar, a princely priest-caste. '' The Primitive 

 Inhabitants of Scandinavia,'' London, 1S68, p. 237. 



