Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/247

 helm's brow grows heavy with the growing cares of the superman. Buccaneer Bernhardi cries out: "My lust for blood is philosophised." The diplomats join in in chorus: "Remember Bismarck! Since France and England both want peace, let us either lie or bully them into war!"

Nietzsche said of himself: "I am a fatality!" He was. Three years before this war was thought of, in attempting to define Nietzscheanism in an introduction to Halévy's Life, I wrote as opening words: "The duel between Nietzsche and Civilisation is over...."

I was wrong; it is not over. But between Prussianism and Civilisation it is that this epical war is joined; there is not room on earth for the two.