Lehre und Wehre St. Louis, Missouri — September 1916, Seite 419

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Literatur. ö 419

BBELOIDUII AND GERUANIV. A Dutch View. By Dr. J. V. Labberton.
Translated by V. Z. Leonard. Open Court Publishing Co.,
Chicago. 51.00.

Diese Schrift erörtert in geistreicher Weise die ethischen Fragen, die der Ein⸗
marsch der Deutschen in Belgium aufgeworfen hat. Der Verfasser kommt zu dem
Resultat, daß, auch ganz abgesehen von den Entdeckungen in den Brüsseler Archi⸗
ven, das Verhalten der Deutschen in jeder Hinsicht gerechtfertigt sei. Obwohl
wir in der Sache dem Verfasser der Hauptsache nach zustimmen, so vermögen wir
doch seiner philosophischen Argumentation längst nicht immer zu folgen. Etliche
Aussprachen Labbertons mögen hier Platz finden. S. 2: „It is truly extraordi-
nary how hugely virtuous we all are in our publie judgments of others,
and especially on paper. In the inner reality, perhaps, our moral sense
turns out to be a rather small affair; in the market-place rigliteous in-
dignation commonly prevents reflection.“ S. 40: „It is the strife of new
Content against old Form; of bleeding, wrestling Reality against ofieial
Phrase; or, to say it roundly, of Truth against conscious or unconscious
Falsehood. How little insight and comprehension we have in these mat-⸗
ters is seen from the way in which the Voc Populi, seizing on the words
Just for à scrap of paper, — words which were a perfectly just charac-
terization of the existing circumstances as to that particular treaty which
was alone in question, — proceeded to add: For Germany all treaties are
scraps of paper. The Imperial Chancellor has said so himself.“ I faney
that it would be discréeet of the Germans to keep in check for use only
among choicer spirits this so likable and intelligible tendency (recall
Goethe, and Luther's Table-talk') to vigorous language' ISLere τποοòðñtḡn denl.
The stupid publie cannot grasp it; and the might of stupidity is enormous.
Do not the very gods contend in vain against it? Without doubt, we have
here one of the causes of the general antipathy to the Germans [Dultscher-
Hadht].“ S. 67: „The people of Eekhart, Tauler, and Luther, the people of
Kant, Schiller, and Fichte, of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, the people
Who, personified in that unfathomable marvel which dwelt in humble
Weimar as His Excelleney Privy Councillor J. W. von Goethe, mapped out
its program for generations ahead, that people, as I firmly believe, now
that it has in the last forty-four years finally achieved likewise its po-
litical unity, will form a state which in the end, in so far as it has oppor-
tunity, in so far as the natural foundation for this spiritual produet is
given, will manifest equally an ethical genius. It is my inner conviction
that Prussia is the ethically sound kernel of Europe, from which in the
end is to spring the ethieal regeneration of our deésperately ailing world.“
S. 132: „Every one who sets fresb, upward-striving, worthy content above
old, time-eaten form; every one Vbo considers it vitally deésirable, for the
self-renewal and civilizing of mankind, that the undue influence which
such form can still exereise (by virtue of the inveteracy of all forms) be
justly reduced to the real proportions of the actual content, — he must
desire with all his heart victory for Germany and defeat for England.
Both are but two sides of one matter.“

JusTICE IN WaR-TIME. By Bertrand Eussell. Open Court Publ. Co.,
Chicago. 51.00.

Folgende Überschriften charakterisieren den Inhalt dieser Schrift: 1. An Ap-
peal to the Intellectuals of Europe. 2. The Ethics of War. 3. War and
Non-Resistance. 4. Why Nations Love War. 5. The Future of Anglo-
German Rivalry. 6. Is a Permanent Peace Possible? 7. The Danger of
Civilization. 8. The Entente Policy, 1904/15. 9. Moroeco. 10. The Anglo-
Rumanian Untente. 11. Persia. 12. Whbat Our Poliey Ought to Have
Been. — Trotz mancher trefflichen Einzelausführungen, aus denen für jeden Un⸗
befangenen klar hervorgeht, daß England schon lange vor 191¹4 den Krieg wider
Deutschland gewollt und eingefädelt hat, ist der Totaleindruck dieses Buches kein
klärender, sondern vielfach ein verwirrender und verdummender. Freilich, ob⸗
wohl selber ein Engländer, sagt der Verfasser seinen Volksgenossen viele herbe

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