kings; Germany had been militarized by Prussia; a powerful nation was
on the spot marching forward in mechanical order. Administration and
military mechanism were only waiting to make alliance with industrial
mechanism. The combination once made, a formidable machine would come
into existence. A touch upon the starting-gear and the other nations
would be dragged in the wake of Germany, subjects to the same
movement, prisoners of the same mechanism. Such would be the meaning
of the war on the day when Germany should decide upon its
declaration.

She decided, he will continue, but the result was very different from
what had been predicted. For the moral forces, which were to submit to
the forces of matter by their side, suddenly revealed themselves as
creators of material force. A simple idea, the heroic conception which
a small people had formed of its honour, enabled it to make head
against a powerful empire. At the cry of outraged justice we saw,
moreover, in a nation which till then had trusted in its fleet, one
million, two millions of soldiers suddenly rise from the earth. A yet
greater miracle: in a nation thought to be mortally divided against
itself all became brothers in the space of a day. From that moment the
issue of the conflict was not open to doubt. On the one side, there
was force spread out on the surface; on the other, there was force in
the depths. On one side, mechanism, the manufactured article which
cannot repair its own injuries; on the other, life, the power of
creation which makes and remakes itself at every instant. On one side,
that which uses itself up; on the other, that which does not use
itself up.

Indeed, our philosopher will conclude, the machine did use itself up.
For a long time it resisted; then it bent; then it broke. Alas! it had