1916-17.] Darwinism and Human Civilisation. 
155 
devised and concocted by the Kaiser and his military advisers, for the 
purpose of carrying out their project of world domination ; but how it 
came to receive the sanction of the entire German population remains an 
enigma to most people. We are now well on into the third year of this 
unparalleled war, and as it progresses the Germans seem to be adding 
to the enormity of their crimes by deporting civil populations from their 
homes to work as slaves in mines and other industries, and even to compel 
them to fight in the trenches against their own countrymen. In endeavour- 
ing to trace the causes of this novel and deplorable phase of German 
civilisation, we have to take into account the overweening conceit and 
vanity of the German people, in so readily adopting the unctuous idea that 
they are the chosen people of God to uphold and spread the principles of 
a beneficent civilisation throughout the world. The arrogant assumption 
that they are superior to all other nations in science, literature, arts, and 
social culture is unblushingly taught, not only by leading statesmen, but 
by learned professors in all departments of knowledge. The idea of world 
power, which has obsessed the German people since 1870, has so saturated 
their intellectual and moral faculties with a haze of what has been called 
“ neurotic insanity,” that they are incapable of seeing things, not even the 
current events of the present war, in their proper perspective. No other 
explanation can be given of the document issued, shortly after the outbreak 
of the war, to the civilised world (especially Americans) by ninety-three 
distinguished professors from all parts of the German empire, justifying 
the extirpation of the enemy and the destruction of his property for the 
sole purpose of creating terrorism. 
But it is the doctrines taught in the works of German writers, especially 
Treitschke, Nietzsche, and Von Bernhardi, that are mainly responsible for 
so effectually educating the mass of the German people, that the entire 
population now seem to be strong defenders of the new Kultur, even of 
the latest phase of the submarine warfare, whose mission is to sink without 
warning any vessel that dares to come in sight of the British Isles. The 
following notes will give some idea of the dangerous teaching that has- 
helped to effect this astounding transformation in the social culture of a 
hitherto peace-loving and civilised nation : — 
Heinrich von Treitschke, a professor of history at Berlin from 1874 
till his death in 1890, and a member of the Reichstag from 1871, became 
latterly notorious as an advocate of Prussian militarism, a policy which 
gave him great influence in Chauvinistic circles at Berlin. In all his 
writings he expresses a bitter hatred of the British people, characterising 
them as over-rich, and “ living in the lucky aloofness of a wealthy island.’ 
