i9io'2 A Historical Scholar 



the University of Miinster, to meet me at the Hotel 

 des Flandres in Brussels. In his extensive work, "The 

 Downfall of the Ancient World/'^ a weighty chapter 

 is devoted to the main cause of that decline — 

 namely, the extirpation of the best elements — "i/z> Reversal 

 Ausrottung der Besten' — through civil wars and °f''^''- 

 wars of conquest. Being strongly impressed with '""" 

 these studies, I had quoted from the book in ''The 

 Human Harvest," and later in "War and the Breed." 



I found my guest a sturdy, straightforward scholar 

 interested in biological matters as well as in History. 

 But his nationalism was so strong that no act of the 

 German government seemed to him open to criticism. 

 Furthermore, although the author of a telling his- 

 torical indictment against war, he appeared to have 

 no moral abhorrence of its operations. If Europe 

 should destroy herself through fratricidal conflict, 

 it would be merely an event in history, which knows 

 no right or wrong. 



Together we motored to the field of Waterloo. Waterloo 

 There the old inns of Belle-Alliance, Vieux-Amis, 

 and Mont Saint Jean still stand, as well as the 

 chateau of Hougoumont, where the fiercest hand-to- 

 hand fighting took place. The battle ground now 

 seems very small, and the conflict as a whole hardly 

 more than a skirmish compared with those being 

 fought on the Somme and the Marne as these par- 

 ticular lines are written ! 



In 191 5 I received a long letter from Seeck setting 

 forth "the great blunder made by England in bring- 

 ing on the war"; for, still having faith in official 

 Germany, he assumed that the "initial crime" lay 

 mainly with Edward VII and his "lackey," Delcasse, 



^ " Untergang der Antiken Welt." 



I 



