Page:Rolland - The Idols.pdf/9

 from any given idea its precise contrary—war from the Sermon on the Mount, or, like Professor Ostwald, the military dictatorship of the Kaiser from the dream of an intellectual internationalism. For such conjurors these things are but child’s-play. Let us expose them, by examining the words of this Dr. Ostwald, who has appeared during the last few months as the Baptist of the Gospel of the spiked helmet.

Here is the Idol to begin with—Kultur (made in Germany), with a capital K “rectiligne et de quatre pointes, comme un cheval de frise” as Miguel de Unamuno wrote to me. All around are little gods, the children of its loins: Kulturstaat, Kulturbund, Kulturimperium.

“I am now (it is the voice of Ostwald ) going to explain to you the great secret of Germany. We, or rather the Germanic race, have discovered the factor of Organisation. Other peoples still live under the regime of individualism while we are under that of Organisation. The stage of Organisation is a more advanced stage of civilisation.”

It is surely clear that, like those Missionaries who, in order to carry the Christian faith to Heathen peoples, secure the cooperation of a squadron and a landing party which straightway establish in the idolatrous country commercial stores protected by a ring of cannon, German intelligence cannot without selfish- ness keep her treasures to herself. She is obliged to share them.

“Germany wishes to organise Europe, for Europe has hitherto not been organised. With us everything tends to elicit from each individual the maximal output in the direction most favourable for society. That for us is liberty in its higliest form.”

We may well pause to marvel at this way of talking about human “culture” as though it were a question of asparagus and artichokes. Of this happiness, and these advantages, this maximal output, this market-garden culture, this liberty of artichokes subjected to a judicious forcing process Professor Ostwald does not wish to deprive the other peoples of Europe. As they are so unlightened as not to acquiesce with enthusiasm, " “War will make them participate in the form of this organisation in our higher civilisation.”

Thereupon the chemist-philosopher who is also in his leisure hours a politician and a strategist sketches in bold outline the picture of the victories of Germany and a remodelled Europe—a United States of Europe under the paternal sceptre