120 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



There is not an existing institution in the world 

 of civilized humanity which cannot be profoundly 

 modified or altered, or abolished in a generation. 

 There is no form or order of government or of the 

 dominion of force which cannot be removed out of 

 the world within a generation. There is no ideal 

 in conformity with the principles of civilization 

 dreamed of by any dreamer or idealist which cannot 

 be realized within the lifetime of those around him. 

 Treitschke, as a young university lecturer, speaking 

 in 1863, was prophesying further and truer than 

 he knew when he said there was no ideal which a 

 living people chose to put before themselves that 

 they had not the power of realizing in history. 1 

 If only the German people had been free to embody 

 this teaching in an ideal of civilization, what might 

 not modern Germany have accomplished in the 

 world ! 



Adolf Hausrath, Life of Treitschke. 



