36

An Address

give up all hopes of democracy. But we may
confirm our better belief by remembering first
that the German people are deceived, and that
the powerful machinery of a clever autocracy
has been used to stimulate their bad passions.
Their folk are by nature both rude of heart and
easily led ; and they honestly believed the lie,
when they were told they were being invaded,
and that fear was fanned to stimulate their
hatred, in order to make them fight desperately.
The worst part of the affair was the connivance
of their teachers in the plot; for that would
seem to discredit education. But again we must
remember that those professors of wisdom and
religion are not free ; they are paid agents of the
Government, and if they ventured to speak the
truth, would be clapped into prison. Their irretrievable
 and abject dishonour claims the deepest
pity. From such methodical militarism and
tyranny the worst should be expected ; and all
this has grown up under or alongside of a sceptical
 philosophy which impugns the bases of human
knowledge.

[t is no time to discuss a man’s moral principles