the incapacity to sacrifice personal interests for great national
objects from want of patriotism and of political common sense, often,
also, by the pettiness of the prevailing ideas. Even to-day it is
painful to see how the forces of the German nation, which are so
restricted and confined in their activities abroad, are wasted in
fruitless quarrels among themselves.

Our primary and most obvious moral and political duty is to overcome
these hereditary failings, and to lay a secure foundation for a healthy,
consistent development of our power.

It must not be denied that the variety of forms of intellectual and
social life arising from the like variety of the German nationality and
political system offers valuable advantages. It presents countless
centres for the advancement of science, art, technical skill, and a high
spiritual and material way of life in a steadily increasing development.
But we must resist the converse of these conditions, the transference of
this richness in variety and contrasts into the domain of politics.

Above all must we endeavour to confirm and consolidate the institutions
which are calculated to counteract and concentrate the centrifugal
forces of the German nature--the common system of defence of our country
by land and sea, in which all party feeling is merged, and a strong
national empire.

No people is so little qualified as the German to direct its own
destinies, whether in a parliamentarian or republican constitution; to
no people is the customary liberal pattern so inappropriate as to us. A
glance at the Reichstag will show how completely this conviction, which
is forced on us by a study of German history, holds good to-day.