revolution of 1789, and everywhere in Europe, and more specially in
Germany, shattered and swept away the obsolete remnants of medievalism.
The German Empire as such disappeared; only fragmentary States survived,
among which Prussia alone showed any real power. France once again under
Napoleon was fired with the conception of the universal imperium, and
bore her victorious eagles to Italy, Egypt, Syria, Germany, and Spain,
and even to the inhospitable plains of Russia, which by a gradual
political absorption of the Slavonic East, and a slow expansion of power
in wars with Poland, Sweden, Turkey, and Prussia, had risen to an
important place among the European nations. Austria, which had become
more and more a congeries of different nationalities, fell before the
mighty Corsican. Prussia, which seemed to have lost all vigour in her
dream of peace, collapsed before his onslaught.

But the German spirit emerged with fresh strength from the deepest
humiliation. The purest and mightiest storm of fury against the yoke of
the oppressor that ever honoured an enslaved nation burst out in the
Protestant North. The wars of liberation, with their glowing enthusiasm,
won back the possibilities of political existence for Prussia and for
Germany, and paved the way for further world-wide historical
developments.

While the French people in savage revolt against spiritual and secular
despotism had broken their chains and proclaimed their _rights,_ another
quite different revolution was working in Prussia--the revolution of
_duty_. The assertion of the rights of the individual leads ultimately
to individual irresponsibility and to a repudiation of the State.
Immanuel Kant, the founder of critical philosophy, taught, in opposition
to this view, the gospel of moral duty, and Scharnhorst grasped the idea
of universal military service. By calling upon each individual to