Page:French Calvinism, German Lutheranism and the War.pdf/20

- 19 - is called "Curare." The effect of Curare is a very strange one. It is a poison which does not destroy the sensory nerve. If you inject Curare into the veins of a frog, the frog still suffers under dissection. Nor does it destroy the motor nerve. The muscle still reacts if you excite it. But the Curare destroys the connection, it prevents the sensory nerve from transmitting its order to the motor nerve. It paralyses the muscle.

Such exactly has been the effect of the Lutheran poison. It has not killed the speculative activities of Germany. On the contrary it has stimulated them, even as it has enormously stimulated the political activities of the German State.

I would sum up this essential point of my argument and indeed I would sum up my whole case against Lutheranism in the following way. Lutheranism has created two tremendous forces. It has produced a pure speculative idealism on the one hand and it has produced a pure political despotism on the other. For many generations the formidable potentialities of these forces have not been realised. The accidents of European history kept them both weak and kept them