An Answer by Prof. Ladd

Emeritus Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Yale University; Lecturer on Philosophy in India and Japan; has received numerous decorations in Japan, where he was guest and unofficial adviser of Prince Ito; ex-President of American Psychological Association.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

It seems strange to me that a student of history with the training and acumen of Prof. Sloane should overlook or minimize the important distinction that must hold the chief place in enabling us to understand the issues and appreciate the merits of the war now raging in Europe. This distinction is that between the German people and Germanic civilization, on the one hand, and, on the other, the present Constitution and cherished ambitions of the German Empire under the dominance of Prussia. The German people, by genuine processes of self-development, have worked out for themselves a veritable spiritual unity which manifests itself in language, laws, customs, and a large measure of substantial uniformity in moral and religious ideals. Germanic civilization, with its love of order, its high estimate of education, its notable additions to science, philosophy, and art, constitutes one of the most noble and beneficent contributions to the welfare of mankind.

But the case is not at all the same with the German Empire as at present constituted. It is not a historical development, a truly national affair, as are the Empire of Great Britain, the Republics of France and the United States, or the Empires of Russia and Japan. It is a modern combination of politically divergent unities, forced by the ruthless but infinitely shrewd policy of Bismarck and his coadjutors, misdirected and perhaps driven to ruin by the man and his entourage, who, even if he is King of Prussia "by the grace of God," is only Emperor of Germany "by the will of the Princes."

We are diligently given to understand that all these "Princes" and all the German people have entered heart and soul into this war, and without the slightest doubt as to its righteousness and as to the destiny of the empire, this modern military autocracy, ultimately to be completely victorious. This is hard to believe, although it must be admitted that the cowardice of the Socialists and the obsession of the professors are remarkable phenomena. As to the latter, however, we must remember their dependence on the Government, not only for their information and their "call" to speak, but also for their positions in the Government system of education.

As to the significance of the two names most prominently quoted in this connection, I am not at all impressed, as so many of my colleagues appear to be. An intimate friend of mine some twenty years ago was several weeks en pension in the same house where Haeckel had his apartment, and even then he was notorious for his hatred of foreigners and of women. Those of us who have followed closely his career know how often he has written with more than German professorial virulence against those who differed from his theory of evolution, and that he is at present scarcely more abusive of England than he has several times been of his own Government and of the State Church because his system was not made a matter of compulsory teaching. As to Eucken, the reasons for his obsession are quite different. In his case the feeling and the utterance are due to intellectual weakness rather than to virulence of passion.

After all, however, the temper of military and imperial Germany under the dominance of Prussia has been essentially the same from the beginning. In illustration of this, let me quote for your readers from a poem of Heine, written as long ago as 1842. I do this the more readily because I have recently seen, to my astonishment, Heine placed beside Goethe as representing the better temper of the Germanic civilization as opposed to the blinded judgment and immoral hatred of the modern German Empire:

Germany's still a little child,
But he's nursed by the sun, though tender;
He is not suckled on soothing milk,
But on flames of burning splendor.
One grows apace on such a diet;
It fires the blood from languor;
Ye neighbor's children, have a care,
This urchin how ye anger!
He is an awkward infant giant,
The oak by the roots uptearing;
He'll beat you till your backs are sore,
And crack your crowns for daring.
He is like Siegfried, the noble child,
That song-and-saga wonder,
Who, when his fabled sword was forged,
His anvil cleft in sunder!
To you, who will our Dragon slay,
Shall Siegfried's strength be given;
Hurrah! how joyfully your nurse
Will laugh on you from heaven!
The Dragon's hoard of royal gems
You'll win, with none to share it;
Hurrah! how bright the golden crown
Will sparkle when you wear it!

But it would not be stranger than many other things which have happened in human history if the defeat of German military imperialism should result in restoring to Europe and spreading more widely over the world the beneficent influence of Germanic civilization. Certainly they are not the same thing, and they do not stand or fall together.

GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD.

Yale University, Oct. 20, 1914.

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