Prussian Conception of the State 249 



has suggested a definition of the miHtarist as one 

 who beHeves that society is founded on force, and 

 that the basis of civilization is the soldier; while 

 the civilist believes that society is founded upon 

 co-operation and justice, and that the basis of 

 civilization is the citizen. 



In autocratic countries the conservative parties 

 are invariably militaristic, since they must rely 

 upon military force to maintain their positions 

 against the rising democratic and socialistic move- 

 ments which threaten to undermine their privi- 

 leges. This has been especially true in Germany 

 and Russia, where the ruling classes have relied 

 upon a large standing army as their chief de- 

 fence against what they regard as the disinte- 

 grating forces of the social order. On the other 

 hand an absolute government is necessary for 

 a militant state if the army is to be kept at the 

 highest pitch of efficiency and preparation for 

 war. Give us a King or Give us Peace is the 

 title of a book by Guesde, a member of the French 

 Ministry during the war, which demonstrates 

 the fundamental opposition between a republican 

 form of government and a warlike national policy. 



The philosophy of force has separated the idea 

 of the State from the conception of the highest 

 welfare of the people, and has erected the State 

 into a new kind of national god to which human 

 sacrifices must be made. The abstract ideal of 

 the State is a necessary element of the philosophy 

 of force, because the sacrifice of the community for 



