Note 14 — I The Modern Perfecting of Political Passions

‘But what is much more important than material facts is the soul of nations. Among all races a kind of effervescence it to be noticed; some defend certain principles, others the opposing principles. By becoming members of the League of Nations, the different peoples do not abandon their national morality.’ (Speech of the German Minister for Foreign Affairs at Geneva, on the occasion of the entry of Germany into the League of Nations, 10th September, 1926.) The orator went on: ‘Yet this should not result in raising up nation against nation.’ One is surprised that he did not add: ‘On the contrary.’ How much nobler, and at the same time more respectful of the truth, is the language of Treitschke: ‘This consciousness of themselves which the nations are acquiring and which can only be strengthened by culture, this consciousness means that war will never disappear from the earth, in spite of the closer linking up of interests, in spite of the growing uniformity of customs and the exterior forms of life.’ (Quoted by Charles Andler in Les Origines du Pangermanisme, p. 223.)