12 
LAND & WATER 
July 27, 1916 
ever flown the flag of liberalism, yet remaining a solid 
bulwark against inorganic revolutionary outbursts." 
In support of this he quotes on the one hand the Re- 
formation, which broke the spiritual yoke of tiie Church, 
and the Criluisin of Pure Reason, which put a brake 
on arbitrary philo.sophical speculation ; on the other the 
revolutionary tendencies of the peasants in the si.xteenth 
century and the attempts at political revolution in the 
middle of th(> nineteenth. " Tlu'se facts have, how- 
ever, never compromised a normal and salutary progress 
combining discipline with tlie neetl of freedom of thought." 
If we accept Bernhardi's reasoning, every people 
should have the right to proclaim itself the elect nation 
and, therefore, to dominate all others, for there is no 
people whose history is not a continual attempt to concili- 
ate the two principles of liberty and authority. But to 
presume that (Germany alone has found the solution and 
to conclude therefore that the (ierman yoke should be 
imposed by force upon all other peoples, shows to what 
a degree of blindness chauvinism can push a man other- 
wise intelligent. We can see for ourselves whither the 
principle of authority has led Germany and the invaded 
countries, but it is hard to see what remains of the principle 
of liberty, and still less of " pure reason." Perhaps these 
must be sought in the manifestos of the ninet\'-threc 
imiversities ! To continue with Bernhardi's arguments : 
'■ It has been given to no other people to combine in them- 
selves, as the Germans, the qualities which are divided 
amongst all the other peoples of humanity. Other nations 
have sometimes a greater activity in certain domains, but 
never the depth and capacity for generalisation, particular 
to the Germans, which capacity seems precisely to pre- 
destine them to act as spiritual leaders. . . . The 
Germans appear to be called to solve the difhculties that 
separate the nations, and to lead them on to the road of a 
natural progress in conformity with the laws of evolution." 
Here the General intervenes to order the march to- 
wards this higher civilisation. He marshals intellects and 
religions as if they were on the parade ground. German 
science, by strengthening and broadening the mind of 
labour, is to continue to give Germany the right of in- 
tellectual primogeniture. By scientific means Germany is 
to solve humanity's deepest problems and to lead to a 
purified conception of life. Somehow or other, though it 
is too early to describe the exact means, Germany will 
reconcile Protestantism and Catholicism into common 
action, after putting down, with the latter, Jesuitism 
and ultramontanism, and, with the forliier, orthodo.xy's 
pretension of infallibility. All this progress it is in the 
power of the German State to achieve, and she could not, 
therefore without self-depreciation, give up her claim to 
intellectual domination. 
And the method ? Simply by conquest, in the west 
over the Latins, in the east over the Slavs, outside 
liurope over the British. The (ierman army is to 
make the world happy in spite of itself, by giving it to 
(iermany. who will thus acomplish the great duties 
given by Providence to her as the greatest civilised 
people history has ever known. The Germans must 
draw the sword, therefore, as a duty to general happiness 
and to their own superiority ; the riglit to make war 
imposes on them ipso faeto the obligation so to do. 
Bernhardi, the philosopher, will explain not only their 
necessity of war. but its justice, from whatever point of 
view it be regarded. 
War is the greatest creator of life known to history ; 
it makes appeal to all that is noblest in human nature, 
especially when it gives expression to the will of a whole 
people. The individual loses himself in his membership 
of the whole and realises how little is his life compared 
with the salvation of the body to which he belongs. 
" Happy are the dead in a just war " wrote Charles 
Peguy. Bernhardi goes less far ; for him, war, in itself 
alone, is just. War is just even from the Christian 
standpoint. To love one's neighbours as oneself is 
without reference to the relations between States, for 
such love would the^ probably involve a lack of love 
towards one's own compatriots. Christian morality 
is personal and social, but it cannot become political. 
Christ said, " I came not to bring peace on earth, but a 
sword." 
From the materialist point of view, we arrive at the 
same conclusion. A State decides to_ make war if it 
believes it possible at the sacrifice of a certain number 
of human lives and a certain amount of human happiness 
to ameliorate the vital conditions of the manj'. The 
loss is, after all, limited, and (since materialism necessarily 
leads to egotism) there is, therefore, no reason why the 
maiority of citizens should not sacrifice the minority in 
their interest. " To resume, all efforts towards the 
abolition of war are not only senseless, they are frankly 
immoral, and must be stigmatised as unworthy of 
humanity." 
This is Bernhardi, of Germany and the next War, 
strategist, historian and philosopher. He is worth much 
study, for we must seek to discover to what immeasm- 
able pride the German people has fallen a victim, if it can 
produce and absorb a literature so far removed from 
the " purified conception " of the civiUsation which it 
preaches. 
An Essay in Flight 
By Joseph Thorp 
A KINDLY fate has set my dwelling-place in a 
lonely spot hedged about with beauty at the foot 
of the gentle sloping downs and not a league 
from the sea. Its loneliness perhaps it was 
whicii commended it as a site for a flying-school, and 
once the authorities had made up their mind matters 
moved forward with a secrecy and despatch which go to 
prove that not everything in this cjueer island is done 
with the dilatory incompetence which it has become the 
fashion to assume. At any rate, here is business in full 
swing, and it is certainly not many weeks since into these 
sheltered parts came two discreet folk keeping their invn 
coimsel but moving about (as I thought) with rather a 
proprietary air. Yes, certainly a well-chosen place 
with not another cottage in sight. 
So it falls out that above at my bath, and below at my 
breakfast I have the fun of looking out on this difficult 
and inspiriting job of pilot-making. .And, so far, happily, 
then^ has been no accident. I have learnt some things 
which certainly I never saw at Shoreham, Brooklands, 
or Hendon. Perhaps as a patriot I am implicitly 
pledged to silence. Yet neither the authorities here 
nor any of the young flying men that I have met have 
given lue any hint of the need for particular discretion, 
though I have imagined that there was a certain fluttering 
among the sentries when I have approached the hangars 
too closely, especially in the late evening. The school 
begins work early, before T am awake. It is a fine sight as 
I saw it two mornings since with six of these fine young 
fellows drawn up in perfect alignment rea:dy to set out 
for a trial flight. They looked so trim and lithe in their 
smart blue uniforms with that jolly patch of tawny gold 
on the collar and the spotless white aprons, a crack 
corps evidently if uniforms count for anything. 
1 here was an immense amount of timing-up, every- 
thing gone over with elaborate care twice or thrice. 
It looked like nervousness. And there was a curious bit of 
routine I had never seen elsewhere. A star pilot (evi- 
dently) steered swiftly towards the waiting line ; alighted, 
handed over something I could not (piite see (petrol, a 
map or dummy despatches ?); swung out again and banking 
steeply, climbed up and away with scarce a moment's 
halt ; was back again to the second, and so on in orderly 
rotation and without a hitch to each of the line in turn. 
And then was! off and up like a bird. 
Must I so soon confess that it was a bird — that artist 
and dandy among birds, the swallow. The discreet 
pair that had fixed upon my porch for their nest and 
nursery, and my garden for their aerodrome, had coaxed 
their team of six on to a wire which strained together 
two limbs of a crippled box tree. It'was The Day of the 
ceremony of initiation into the mysteries of flight. 
Breakfast rations were served out first, which accounted 
for the star turn as described, and the meal proved so 
