common crimes of violence and raid and lust that any drunken blackguard
can commit when the police are away, and that no mere multiplication can
dignify. As to Nietzsche, with his Polish hatred of Prussia (who
heartily reciprocated the sentiment), when did he ever tell the Germans
to allow themselves to be driven like sheep to the slaughter in millions
by mischievous dolts who, being for the most part incapable of reading
ten sentences of a philosophic treatise without falling asleep, allow
journalists as illiterate as themselves to persuade them that he got his
great reputation by writing a cheap gospel for bullies? Strictly between
ourselves, we also are an illiterate people; but we may at least hold
our tongues about matters we don't understand, and not say in the face
of Europe that the English believe that the composer of Parsifal was a
Militarist Prussian (he was an exiled revolutionist); that Nietzsche was
a diciple of Wagner (Nietzsche preferred the music of Bizet, a
Frenchman); and that the Kaiser is a disciple of Nietzsche, who would
have laughed his childish pietism to scorn.


*The Simple Answer.*

Nietzsche would certainly have agreed that we must kill the German women
if we mean business when we talk of destroying Germany. But he would
also have answered my Why not?, which is more than any consistent
Militarist can. Indeed, it needs no philosopher to give the answer. The
first ordinary anti-Militarist human person you meet will tell you that
it would be too horrible; that life would be unbearable if people did
such things. And he would be quite right; so please let us hear no more
of kicking your enemy when he is down so that he may be unable to rise
for a whole century. We may be unable to resist the temptation to loot
Germany more or less if we conquer her. We are already actively engaged