28 
Land & Water 
August 8, 1 918 
Germanism in the Fourth Year: By G. K. Chesterton 
IT is said that those who Hve in glass houses should not 
throw stones ; and it might he added that those who 
live in looking-glass houses never do throw stones. 
That, properly understood, is the reason why there 
has not been, and peihaps never will be, a real revolu- 
tion in Germany. The French certainly live in glass houses ; 
and the French certainly throw stones, and provoke stones. 
They have windows, indeed they have nothing else but win- 
dows, and their windows are broken time after time and age 
after age. They live in a Palace of Truth which may truly 
be called a Crystal Palace ; and, as in the true tradition 
about the Palace of Truth, it is a place full of scandals, quarrels, 
and even misunderstandings. But the Germans live in a 
palace painted outside with silver, so that it is full within 
only of reflections and repetitions ; a house of mirrors. All 
around him the modern German sees only the image of him- 
self ; and he does not throw a stone at himself. If once he 
did, he might break his house of dreams and come out into 
the daylight, amid the strange solidity of real things : that 
external miracle of matter which is meant to challenge the 
loneliness of mind. For when Alice really goes to Wonderland, 
she does not go through the looking-glass. She goes through 
the, window, or perhaps (as a concession to her Victorian 
conventionalitv) through the door. The distinction may 
sound somewhat mystical ; but it is the deepest division 
between the forces now arrayed against each other in the 
field ; deeper even than the huge historic conflict between 
the civilised tradition and the barbarian tribes. In- that 
ultimate metaphysical region which can only be figured in 
types and portents, as in the Hebrew prophecies, this war 
could best be symbolised as a war of windows and mirrors. 
What is the matter with the modern German is egoism ; 
of the sort which doctors sometimes describe as hysteria. 
The caricaturists always draw him as wearing glasses ; and 
they ought to draw him as wearing looking-glasses, the 
most completely blinding sort of blinkers. All his culture, 
all his discipline, all his unquestionable patriotism or even 
his unquestionable courage, are so selected and trained as to 
guard him against the sacred experience of surprise. They are 
an armour against that assault on the senses which we admit 
when we say that a thing "strikes" the eye. In the end 
the world generally tries to strike the eye, with intention to 
black the eye; when it finds it cannot strike the eye, with 
intention to enlighten it. The eyes of the modern German 
are turned inwards ; he is trying to hypnotise himself. That 
is the meaning of all he says about his "will to victory." 
Common sense might tell him that every combatant wishes for 
victory ; but what he means is that whatever he wishes 
hard enough will certainly happen. That is even what he 
means by his occasional invocations of the Diety ; which 
are not religious, in the sense of reconciling man to the will 
of God, but rather of drawing upon God for inexhaustible 
energies with which to inform, not to say inflate, the will 
of man. 
The Kaiser as god 
When the Kaiser says "God wills it" he really means 
something; but what he means is "I will it as much 
as a god could will it." This egoistic hysteria has the same 
marks we all recognise about it in private life. Thus it will 
praise itself constantly without praising itself consistently. 
The German is like the man who will shoot at people ; and 
exult in his own justice if he hits, and in his own mercy 
if he misses. He will call himself popular to prove his charm ; 
and then call himself persecuted to prove his endurance. 
He will prove that he has grown rich entirely by his talents ; 
and then that he has grown poor entirely through Ids virtues. 
We know the type in personal relations ; ,but we had scarcely 
realised that since it can be encouraged by a philosophy, 
it can be spread like a religion. The vision seems as fan- 
tastic as that of a whole population of lunatics, each believing 
he is made of glass. But these men think themselves, and 
therefore each other, to be made not' so much of glass as of 
diamond ; of something not only hard to break but too 
precious to be broken. It is the non-German world they 
believe to be madb of glass. For this is the unique mark of 
a religion of the race, as distinct from one of the altar or even 
the flag, that in merely reverencing his own blood a man 
merely v/orships his own body. He does not look to something 
above his head, even a stone fetish or a rag on a pole. All 
the idolaters are also the idols. 
In the present case, while this rigid ecstacy of self- worship 
has saved them from internal discontents, a series of accidents 
has saved them from a sense of external dangers. It may 
be questioned whether it is really a fine thing for a man not 
to know when he is beaten ; though it is unquestionably 
a fine thing for him not to care when he is beaten. Anyhow, 
it is certain that Germany in this war has often been beaten 
in such a fashion that she did not know it. The wound of 
the Marne would have been enough to warn a sare man ; 
but it was not enough to stop a madman. Moreover, there 
was really a coincidence of something inconclusive about 
all the checks to the enemy charge. A fight, in the ultimate 
sense, may be defensive and yet decisive ; but it can hardly 
look decisive. Seen from that height and distance, even the 
German defeats have looked like (ierman victories. The 
English at Ypres, or the F'rench at Verdun, showed what wise 
men would alwaysxaJl a superiority, but not what fools would 
ever call a success. Hence the second factor in German 
psychology to-day is the fact that the external peril has not 
yet pierced, or has only recently begun to pierce. The state 
of mind is not only complex but confused ; being a German 
state of mind. 
A Sliding Term 
Thus it is perfectly true to say, as the peacemakers 
say, that Germany hks long been thinking of peace ; 
certainly hoping, possibly longing and wailing for peace. 
But Germans think about peace for the excellent reason 
that the word means anything, and therefore nothing. And the 
Germans, especially since they became modern philosophers, 
wallow in words that mean anything and therefore nothing. 
The point about "peace" is that it is a sliding term that 
might stand for any stoppage at any stage. It is not even 
the word of one who wishes an end of war ; but rather of 
one who shrinks from defining anj^ end of it. Speaking about 
peace is simply a way of being silent about terms of peace. 
In this sense it is very true that the ordinary German has 
long been thinking of peace. But has he really been thinking 
of defeat ? Does he think of it really coolly and clearly, as 
a Frenchman thought of it at the very beginning of the war ? 
My own gtiess is that he will not think of it till the very 
end of the war. It is one of the converging and crushing 
arguments for making sure that the war really does end, 
and does not merely break off, or rather break down. 
One exceptional maik of this exceptional crusade is this ; 
that we are not attacking the German kingdom, or even his 
Empire, but his world ; in the unique-sense of his universe. 
That is what constitutes a religious war ; it is not between 
commonwealth and commonwealth but between cosmos 
and cosmos. Our enemies are doubtless every day more 
bewildered, and even disappointed, rather at their unsucce.ss 
than anything they would call their failure. But they can 
for a -long time feel that things are going against them, before 
they begin to feel leihai things are going against them. And 
they will find it hardest of all to feel that what is against 
them is not so much things as the nature of things. As 
men talk of an anthrcpocentric, they live in a Teutocentric 
universe. They do not claim a place in the sun in the sense 
of a place in the sunshine ; they claim to be the sun. The 
failure of Teutonic destiny would affect them as apocalyptic 
signs in the sky would affect a solid materialist who believed 
in nothing but astronomy. The old and strong sort of 
sceptic would say it must be a hoax. The new and weak 
sort of Sceptic would say it must be a hallucination. Simi- ■ 
larly the happy savage might waver between the notions, 
of fireworks and of fire-water. When the Day of Judgment 
had reached a certain acute, not to say personal, point, 
he would believe in it, but hardly before. That is what 
will happen to the Germans in those earlier stages of their 
defeat. They will find it hard to believe their eyes ; they 
will prefer to believe their eyeglasses and spectacles and 
telescopes and microscopes; for these, as I have said, are 
all made of mirrors. They will believe, as the sceptic would 
believe, at a certain stage of a Day of Judgment. The 
devils also believe and tremble. But these are not devils ; 
they are nothing worse than devil-worshippers : and for them 
it would capsize the cosmos to find that the devil is not God. 
That is the deepest of all the many reasons for driving any 
victory home ; the depth of the disease and the unearthly 
strength of the delusion. Nor will any but the shallow be 
perplexed by the paradox that it is not only a case of kill or 
cure, but of kill and cure ; and that the verv difficulty of 
doing it is part of the proof that it must begone. 
