Exchange Professor from the University of Paris at Columbia University.
By Edward Marshall.
In the American press French views of the great war's significance have been less common than British views and far less frequent than German views. Therefore, this talk with M. de Lapredelle, Exchange Professor from the University of Paris at Columbia, will have especial interest.
This very distinguished Frenchman, although but 43 years old, has won high eminence in his native land, especially in the domain of international law, which is his branch at the University of Paris. Also he is Directeur de Recuel des Arbitrages Internacioneaux, he is the editor of The International Law Review in Paris, he is a member of the Committee on International Law for the French Department of Justice, he is a member of the French Committee on Aerial Navigation, he is General Secretary of the French Society of International Law, and he occupies other important posts and bears other important scholastic honors.
He is a cautious conversationist, as might be expected of one who has so deeply delved into the most cautious of all professions, but in the mind of the thoughtful reader this should add to the value of his utterances, which, as expressed in the following columns, were carefully revised by him before going into type.
I asked M. de Lapredelle to estimate the great war's probable effect upon education.
"Of course it is too early to guess intelligently," he replied, "for the effect of the war will be dependent entirely upon the results of the war, and, while we of the Allies have no doubt of our ultimate victory, it is the fact that victory has not been won as yet by either side.
"In talking with you my impulse is to assume what I feel in my heart--the certainty of German defeat, but I must not do that, although all the letters which I get from the front and from Paris express a growing confidence in the victory of the Allies.
"But it is too early to attempt intelligent detailed prophecy as to the effect of the great struggle upon the world's philosophy, or upon any other phase of its intellectual development.
"Almost certainly, however, a reaction against certain Germanic influences will be apparent after the war ends, for the world will not want ever to risk repetition of the horrors of this struggle, and it will be plain that they were the inevitable fruit of Germany's attempt at intellectual domination.
"This German assumption was due, largely, to their victory in 1870, but it went far beyond the bounds of reason, far beyond the fields in which German achievement really had established legitimate supremacy.
"The momentum of victory often has led humanity into excess. It led Germany into excessive claims of social superiority and into an excessive assumption of intellectual supremacy. Even in the eyes of others it gave Germany an unwarranted intellectual prestige.
"Really, the German is not a big thinker; he is an immensely careful thinker.
"Above everything, the German is an observer--a very diligent observer--and his mental eyes are likely to be so close to the wall that he sees only a single brick in it, wholly failing to get a comprehensive view of the whole structure.
"Germans are very careful students. They attach a vast importance to detail. I think it is not unfair to say that, with the German, the smaller, the more minute the detail, the more it interests him. The German loves to write a big book on a small subject, and, loving it, he does it well.
"But there are more exalted tasks, as, for example, the writing of big books upon big subjects, giving the world fresh visions of new and far-flung vistas. The German loves to catalogue and catalogues almost with genius; he loves to deliver long lectures upon microcosms.
"Cataloguing and the near-sightedness which may arise from intense study of the atom, to the exclusion of the collective organism, whether that collective organism be the human individual or the social mass, may render immense service to the world, but it never will be the only service necessary, and, if pursued to the exclusion of all other investigations, such study is likely to produce an aggravated narrowness of vision. Narrow vision is certain to eventuate in selfishness.
"The Germans became selfish after this fashion. The present struggle is the war of selfishness against world advance.
"Innumerable, or at least many, individuals have furnished smaller parallels to the course which Germany has taken as a nation. The individual with the truly and exclusively scientific mind is likely to go too far into abstractions, built from a possible misinterpretation of minutiae.
"The ideal national intellectual development will combine both fact and theory, will join rationalism to idealism, and will be far more like that of certain nations which I shall not name than it will be like that of Germany. These nations which I shall not name have both.
"In other words, it seems to be the fixed idea of the German that the German civilization is the only civilization; but it is not the thought of France or England that their civilizations are the only ones.
"This very lack of what may be defined as national egotism in France and England enables these nations to work, as Germany does not, for world science and world development--the growth of civilization as a whole.
"Germany's scientific work is for German science, she thinks of civilization only as German civilization. The world's other great nations--and may I say the world's great Latin nations especially?--internationalize their science and their civilization."
Why the Philosopher Is Important.
"One must be struck by the fact that Germany's critical philosophy formed the basis of her educational system and, therefore, the basis of her social system, and that it had in it the basis of the war.
"It cannot be denied, I think, that her education, as well as her politics and militarism, directly pointed to this great conflict.
Indeed, the industrialism, the politics, the philosophy of Germany all find their logical expression in present events.
"Hegel was the first, in the beginning of the last century, to insist upon the ideas which, already being paramount in him, quickly became paramount in his followers, serving as the basis for the development of Prussia. To him this represented all and everything; to him divinity on earth was incarcerated in the State, and, therefore, the development of the State, not justice, was, in his mind, the object of all law.
"Since this beginning that has been the consistent German viewpoint, and increasingly so. The glorification of the State has included, of necessity, the sacrifice of the individual, and this has been conducted ruthlessly in Germany itself.
"Of course the State which considers it right to sacrifice the individuals of its own citizenship will be sure to consider it right to sacrifice the individuals of other nations' citizenships.
"That explains why international law never has been considered binding by the German; it explains why international law was not considered binding when Belgium stood in the path of Germany's march toward Paris.
"International law never has bound the German; it never will bind him until he changes his national psychology.
"Ihering, one of Germany's greatest theoretical jurists and a scholar in the matter of Roman law, declared, 'Right is the child of might.' He did not say exactly that right is might, but he defined it as 'the child of might.'
"That may be taken as the German keynote, for this man is of such great influence in Germany that his utterances must have an enormous effect.
"Treitschke, the historian, in his teaching in Berlin, naturally drew some of his inspiration from these two men. For him the State need consider no law save that which will promote its own expansion.
"Moral law, he holds, need not and must not stand in the way of the prosperity and growth of States, as it frequently must obstruct the prosperity and growth of individuals.
"Under this theory the State has two functions--these are, inside the country, to make law; outside the country, to make war. Germany denies the right of an extraneous law to decide upon the details of right and wrong within a country, and that is why Germany defies and even denies international law.
"If it happens that a treaty which the State has entered into later proves to be obstructive to some expansion which is thought to be a necessity of the State's destiny, that treaty may be disregarded with the full approval of Germany's national morality, although similar conduct on the part of an individual in Germany would be considered highly reprehensible.
"The State may bind itself to secure advantage, but, also, it may unbind itself to secure advantage, and this without consultation with, or the approval of, the other party or parties to the contract.
"This theory becomes confusing to the student reared in other nations under different educational influences. It indicates beyond contradiction that Germany feels no sense of duty toward other nations, but only an obligation to further her own interests.
"Germany has immense patriotism but no humanitarianism. Her only duty is to herself. Her national egotism can be characterized by no other word than selfishness.
"It is a curious phenomenon that at a time when humanitarianism in its broadest sense has become the keynote of all other of the great nations it has not become at all the keynote of German civilization."
Teutonic Superexcitation.
"It is impossible that such pride, such a sense of arrogant national superiority as that which marks Germany, should maintain among a democratic people; it is possible only to a very aristocratic country.
What has happened is its logical outgrowth in the country which it has infected.
"In Germany this sense of national pride, of intolerance of others, even of contempt for others, has been developed until it amounts to superexcitation. It not only affects Germany's relations to other peoples, but it affects the relations of Germans to one another.
"Different classes of the German population continually exhibit it in their dealings with one another.
"It is continually illustrated in those events which have been the wonder of visiting foreigners--episodes of the contemptuous ill-treatment of subordinate German soldiers by their superiors. It goes beyond that, manifesting itself in the treatment of all civilians by the lowest soldier, and, further still, in the attitude even of the lowest civilian to all foreigners, even the highest.
"The German individual may not consider himself superior to all individuals of other nationalities, but he will be sure to consider his nation so far superior to every other that there can be no comparison between it and them. His is a peculiar arrogance. It is not at all personal; it is purely national; but none the less it is arrogance, and all arrogance is dangerous.
"A hierarchy always exists in aristocratic countries; the hierarchical idea has been developed further in Germany than elsewhere.