Service the Test of Greatness.
It is only vulgar minds that mistake bigness for greatness; for greatness is of the soul, not of the body. In the judgment which history will hereafter pass upon the forty centuries of recorded progress toward civilization that now lie behind us, what are the tests it will apply to determine the true greatness of a people? Not population, not territory, not wealth, not military power; rather will history ask what examples of lofty character and unselfish devotion to honor and duty has a people given? What has it done to increase the volume of knowledge? What thoughts and what ideals of permanent value and unexhausted fertility has it bequeathed to mankind? What works has it produced in poetry, music, and other arts to be an unfailing source of enjoyment to posterity? The small peoples need not fear the application of such tests.
The world advances, not, as the Bernhardi school supposes, only or even mainly by fighting; it advances mainly by thinking and by the process of reciprocal teaching and learning; by the continuous and unconscious co-operation of all its strongest and finest minds. Each race—Hellenic, Italic, Celtic, Teutonic, Iberian, Slavonic—has something to give, each something to learn; and when their blood is blended the mixed stock may combine gifts of both. Most progressive races have been those who combined willingness to learn with strength, which enabled them to receive without loss to their own quality, retaining their primal vigor, but entering into the labors of others, as the Teutons who settled within the dominions of Rome profited by the lessons of the old civilization.
Let me disclaim once more before I close, any intention to attribute to the German people the principles set forth by the school of Treitschke and Bernhardi—the school which teaches hatred of peace and arbitration, disregard of treaty obligations, scorn for weaker peoples. We in England would feel even deeper sadness than weighs upon us now if we could suppose that such principles had been embraced by the nation whose thinkers have done so much for human progress and who have produced so many shining examples of Christian saintliness; but when those principles have been ostentatiously proclaimed, when a peaceful neutral country which the other belligerent had solemnly and repeatedly undertaken to respect has been invaded and treated as Belgium has been treated, and when attempts are made to justify these deeds as incidental to a campaign for civilization and culture, it becomes necessary to point out how untrue and how pernicious such principles are.
Most Wars Needless and Unjust.
What are the teachings of history to which Gen. Bernhardi is fond of appealing? That war has been the constant handmaid of tyranny and the source of more than half the miseries of man; that, although some wars have been necessary and have given occasion for a display of splendid heroism—wars of defense against aggression or to succor the oppressed—most wars have been needless or unjust; that the mark of an advancing civilization has been the substitution of friendship for hatred and of peaceful for warlike ideals; that small peoples have done and can do as much for the common good of humanity as large peoples; that treaties must be observed, (for what are they but records of national faith, solemnly pledged, and what could bring mankind more surely and swiftly back to that reign of violence and terror from which it has been slowly rising for the last ten centuries than the destruction of trust in the plighted faith of nations?)
No event has brought out that essential unity which now exists in the world so forcibly as this war has done, for no event has ever so affected every part of the world. Four continents are involved, the whole of the Old World, and the New World suffers grievously in its trade, industry, and finances. Thus the whole world is interested in preventing the recurrence of such a calamity and there is a general feeling throughout the world that the causes which have brought it upon us must be removed.
We are told that armaments must be reduced; that the baleful spirit of militarism must be quenched; that peoples must everywhere be admitted to a fuller share in the control of foreign policy; that efforts must be made to establish a sort of league of concord—some system of international relations and reciprocal peace alliances by which weaker nations may be protected and under which differences between nations may be adjusted by courts of arbitration and conciliation of wider scope than those that now exist.
All these things are desirable, but no scheme for preventing future wars will have any chance of success unless it rests upon the assurance that the States which enter into it will loyally and steadfastly abide by it, and that each and all of them will join in coercing by their overwhelming united strength any State which may disregard obligations it has undertaken. The faith of treaties is the only solid foundation on which the temple of peace can be built up.
JAMES BRYCE.