22 THE CLASS STRUGGLE SOCIALIST TERMS OF PEACE 23 that is the basis of the human nature theory of war. Nor is there any possibility of German nature undergoing any change in the near future at least not according to the propounders of the German nature theory of war. Nor is there any reasonable expectation of capitalism being abolished before or at the end of this war. So there we are: doomed to increased and universal militarism and the next war.
Fortunately, not one of those theories is true, no matter what the pseudo scientific apparatus brought up to its support.
Even the most cursory study of history will show that there ain no such animal as human nature. that the nature of the genus Homo is one thing in one place and another thing in another place; one thing at one time, and something else at another time. The changeability of the nature of capitalism in this respect is perhaps not so readily seen, and it may require a more intensive study of history in order to discover it; but it is there nevertheless, as have shown at some length elsewhere. The same is true of German nature. the German character, like all national or racial character, being one long string of changes in accordance with changing politico economic conditions. Far from being particularly and consistently warlike, a fairly plausible case could be made out for the German character, on the basis of the historical evidence at hand, that it was less so than that of most national or racial characters. do not insist that the case would be well founded, for confess to utter disbelief in national or racial character.
But there can be no doubt of the fact that the German national character is the least consistent of any of the great national characters of modern history, in this respect. German history does not show, for instance, such long spells of continuous and consistent autocratic and warlike character as either France or Russia, her neighbors to the West and East. And she could easily stand comparison with some of her other neighbors, friends and enemies.
Now, it is undeniably true that at the present historical juncture Germany is, with the possible exception of Japan, the most militaristic nation of the world. And this fact must, of course, be reckoned with in discussing terms of peace, and in planning for a peaceful world in the future.
But German Militarism not being a fact of nature, but merely one of the passing phases of human development, it behooves us to look into the matter carefully in order to find out whether the same course of historical development which brought about German Militarism may not also have brought with it the means wherewith it may be killed or cured.
The present war, we are told, was caused by German Militarism, and its insatiable lust of conquest. But what has caused present day German Militarism? What has turned the peaceful, beer guzzling, pipe smoking, speculative, dreamy and romantic German professor of the days of Goethe and Schiller, whom we loved so much, into the terrible monster of a boche or Hun, of the Treitschke Bernhardi Hindenburg days and persuasion that we hate and detest so much? Is there no way by which we may effect a metamorphosis of German nature, turning the German hosts now sacrificing themselves and others at the altar of the last named trinity into worshippers in the temple of Lessing, Goethe and Kant?
In order to be able to answer these questions, we must look at this German Militarism and its lust of conquest a little more closely. It is the fashion nowadays to relate present day German Militarism to the military systems and purposes of Frederick the Great and his father; as well as to those of the early days of William I, when Bismarck took up the shaping of the modern German Empire, as if they were continuous and essentially the But this is far from being historically correct. The going back of Frederick the Great and his stick plying, tallgrenadier loving father may be dismissed without further consideration: the hiatus created by that wide chasm in the center of which lies Jena cannot be bridged over even by the most deft historical engineers. There is more historical foundation for relating present day German Militarism to the Militarism of the Prussia of the sixties of the last century: there is here continuity of organization as well as of method and spirit. It is same.