Make its course forever free!
In the Code’s indwelling spirit
Let not Law o’er Duty stand;
Let them the same place inherit;
Let all men the Law command!
October 10. The Emperor of Russia has been in Vienna. From there he went to Breslau, Balmoral, Paris. The result of it is Pax et Robur. So at least some remark; others say the result is Revanche; still a third think that everything remains as it was before. But this last is not correct. It has brought about something new, to wit,—that in divided and split-up and hostile Europe the sovereign of one country travels to another and goes everywhere as a friend and is everywhere received as a friend. Indeed, if Europe were a civilized complex of states, that would be as natural and as much a matter of course as it is for a landed proprietor to make a series of visits among all the neighboring families. Not in half a century, perhaps, has the word “peace” been so frequently, so emphatically, so solemnly, so universally repeated in speeches and newspapers as it has been in consequence of this journey. That shows the tendency of the Zeitgeist; but it is still far from the peace that we mean. For the whole affair abounds in contradictions, especially the contradiction that exists between the new tendency and the old institutions, views, and political constellations still intrenched in power. Here is a monster of contradiction, such as the history of the world has never before displayed: two mutually opposed shields loaded with explosives; two hostile guardians of the peace, or two peaceable guardians of enmity,—Dreibund and Zweibund. Why not equally well Fünfbund?
October 15. Already 165,000 men in all have been sent to Cuba. The Spanish Ministry of War intend to dispatch 40,000 more, because yellow fever and other diseases have already greatly reduced the number of the effective. A loan of a milliard is planned.
October 18. Rear Admiral Tirpitz has elaborated a naval budget of 150,000,000 marks. The Post writes: “Tirpitz has made use of a long leave of absence, under orders from the supreme authority, to formulate from the strategic-technical standpoint a plan for organizing our fleet so that from the military standpoint it shall correspond to the demands of the present time.” When shall we ever plan from the ethical-humane standpoint how circumstances may be shaped so that from the standpoint of the philosopher they may correspond to the demands of a better future?
November 9. Yesterday our beloved Rudolf Hoyos departed this life at his Castle Leuterburg in Silesia. Ever more and more numerous the graves!
November 10. Telegram from Washington: “The English ambassador Pauncefote lays before Secretary of State Olney the proposals for the Anglo-American treaty pertaining to the settlement of all future controversies through arbitration.”