THE NEW EUROPE
racial, and linguistic, and carry it mercilessly to its extreme logical results—Imperare, Regnare, over all the nations and lands.
This Pangerman relapse into the law of brute force was facilitated by various scientific theories. Darwinism, for instance, was utilised to argue the rights of big and powerful nations; while Nietzsche's Darwinistic "Uebermensch" (superman) and "Herrenvolk" (ruling race) were especially accepted in a Pangerrnan sense. The will to power was proclaimed as the will to "World-Power." Marxist historical materialism also strengthened Pangermanism, by its demand for large economic territories, and by its materialistic and purely economic conception of politics. In this war the German Socialists have accepted the Pangerman ideal.
The Pangermans became intoxicated by the successes at Germany in science, industry and finances, art and literature (take, for instance, the importance of Wagnerism), philosophy and culture in general. The superiority of German culture, became an excuse, and even a justification, for dominating less educated nations—in short, for ruling the whole world.
Beside these inducements to world-power, the Pangermans were admittedly stimulated by England's example. It was England that inspired the building of a great navy; it was England's industry and commerce which incited them to competition in the world's market; it was the British Empire which roused Germany's envy and political emulation. The example of Russia, her colonisation in the East and her progressive expansion in Asia also influenced the political imagination of the Pangermans.
In France and England the folly of regarding the Pangerman movement as Utopian is only now becoming clear. The Utopia of yesterday often happens to be the reality of to-day. In every political plan which considers the distant future there is a Utopian element; but Pangerman political literature has been evolved in close connection with German history, science, and philosophy, while modern German philosophy since the 18th century is in the main historical—a philosophical interpretation of the national development.
From Herder, Fichte, Schilling, Hegel to Lagarde, Hartmann, Nietzsche, German philosophy is the philosophy of history. Kant alone is not historical. The nature of German philosophy will be understood if we remember that
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