POWER IN CIVILIZATION 107 



Let us see if we can grasp the first outlines of a 

 position the complete understanding of which will 

 within a short space in the future be perceived to 

 have become the first necessity of all governments, 

 of all reformers, and of all masters of force in 

 civilization. The mechanism by which limitless 

 and transforming power is capable of being almost 

 suddenly embodied in advancing civilization is 

 absolutely different from that mechanism with 

 which, until quite recently, it was the almost 

 universal custom of the world to believe that 

 human progress was associated. 



Germany has been the first country of the West 

 to bring home to the minds of men, though un- 

 fortunately only in relation to the atavisms of war, 

 the fact nevertheless indisputable and of the very 

 highest significance to civilization, that an entire 

 nation may be completely altered in character, in 

 outlook, and in motive in a single generation. A 

 great number of recent books deal with the subject 

 from various points of view. But nearly all the 

 writers agree in the absolutely fundamental and uni- 

 versal nature of the change which was accomplished 

 on a whole nation in a brief period. This vast 

 transformation of a people was practically achieved 

 in some twenty years, says a writer of experience. 1 



1 Charles Tower. Changing Germany. 



