24 



E. WALTER MAUNDER, F.R.A.S., ON 



civilization and custom to which the experience of the United 

 States can furnish no analogy. 



Whatever their drawbacks, it must be admitted that the 

 Empire-States have on the whole been beneficial to their popu- 

 lations. Yet no one of them, in itself, affords the assurance of 

 permanence ; still less is there evidence of such overmastering 

 vitality as would enable one of the four to annex or assimilate 

 the others. 



But if none of the four great Empire-States is either desirous 

 or capable of extending its sovereignty over the others, is there 

 any claimant to World-Empire to be found elsewhere ? 



A Modern Claimant for World-Empire. 



A great nation, which has achieved nationhood within the 

 last half century, is making, not merely a bid for empirehood, 

 but seeks to extend that to an hegemony of the planet, so that 

 in the words of its ruler, " Nothing shall happen anywhere 

 without Germany having its say in it." The method of 

 Germany, or rather Prussia, has been, in time of peace to make 

 the most sedulous and detailed preparation for war, and then 

 suddenly to attack an unprepared opponent. Thus Prussia 

 aggrandized herself under Frederick the Great ; thus in our 

 own days it drove Austria out of the Germanic Confederation 

 and secured the hegemony to itself ; thus it overthrew France 

 in 1870, and consolidated the German Empire ; thus it has 

 been working and preparing for 43 years in order, by the 

 crushing of France, the defeat of Russia, and the conquest of 

 England, to establish itself master of Europe. It was doubtless 

 intended that the three tasks should be undertaken in succession, 

 and but for one unforeseen obstacle, it might have been effected. 

 Even as Athens threw itself in the road of the Persians, so the 

 Belgians closed their country to the Germans, and accepted for 

 the sake of Europe, nay of the world, the desolation of their 

 land and their own exile from it. 



What principle has inspired Prussia and Germany to this 

 adventure ? For though Germany is not a free nation, yet 

 that which is seen here is undoubtedly a national movement, 

 and multitudes of men are only moved to unanimous action on 

 this scale by the stirring of a principle. 



The principle is not a new one ; it is as old as Cain. Might 

 is Eight ; Cain slew Abel and therefore was the better man. 

 In ancient Athens there were those who held the same 

 doctrine : — 



