camps? What was this curious grouping of the West holding out in desperate
Alliance against the hordes that Prussia drove to a victory apparently
inevitable after the breakdown of the Orthodox Russian shell? Where lay the
roots of so singular a contempt for our old order, chivalry and morals, as
Berlin then displayed? Who shall explain the position of the Papacy, the
question of Ireland, the aloofness of old Spain?

It is all a welter if we try to order it by modern, external--especially
by any materialist or even skeptical--analysis. It was not climate against
climate--that facile materialist contrast of "environment," which is the
crudest and stupidest explanation of human affairs. It was not race--if
indeed any races can still be distinguished in European blood save broad
and confused appearances, such as Easterner and Westerner, short and tall,
dark and fair. It was not--as another foolish academic theory (popular some
years ago) would pretend--an economic affair. There was here no revolt of
rich against poor, no pressure of undeveloped barbarians against developed
lands, no plan of exploitation, nor of men organized, attempting to seize
the soil of less fruitful owners.

How came these two opponents into being, the potential antagonism of which
was so strong that millions willingly suffered their utmost for the sake of
a decision?

That man who would explain the tremendous judgment on the superficial test
of religious differences among modern "sects" must be bewildered indeed!
I have seen the attempt made in more than one journal and book, enemy and
Allied. The results are lamentable!

Prussia indeed, the protagonist, was atheist. But her subject provinces
supported her exultantly, Catholic Cologne and the Rhine and tamely