sustained strength; threatened on all sides by dangers, compressed into
narrow, unnatural limits, she still is filled with high aspirations, in
her nationality, her intellectual development, in her science,
industries, and trade.

And now, what paths does this history indicate to us for the future?
What duties are enforced on us by the past?

It is a question of far-reaching importance; for on the way in which the
German State answers this question, depend not only our own further
development, but to some extent the subsequent shaping of the history of
the world.




CHAPTER IV



GERMANY'S HISTORICAL MISSION

Let us pass before our mind's eye the whole course of our historical
development, and let us picture to ourselves the life-giving streams of
human beings, that in every age have poured forth from the Empire of
Central Europe to all parts of the globe; let us reflect what rich seeds
of intellectual and moral development were sown by the German
intellectual life: the proud conviction forces itself upon us with
irresistible power that a high, if not the highest, importance for the
entire development of the human race is ascribable to this German