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[FROM] A READING OF HISTORY
by Artifex
"...My readers will object that no revival did, as a matter of fact,
take place. That is quite true. Had we had such a revival as many
people looked for we should not have had the [Great] war. Of that I am
convinced. Unfortunately, there was another spirit at work in the
world, and it proved the stronger of the two.
"As an example of that other spirit I cannot put forward anything
better than the book 'The
Foundations of the Nineteenth Century,' by Houston Stewart
Chamberlain, the man whom it was the fashion in 1914 to revile as 'the
renegade Englishman.' [...] In 1910 and until the outbreak of the war
it was extravagantly praised as its author was afterwards extravagantly
denounced. Denunciation and praise seem to me equally uncalled-for.
There was little sense in calling Chamberlain a renegade while we were
praising not a few prominent men of German extraction, who, having long
lived in this country, and married English wives, and made a place for
themselves in
our national life, threw in their lot with us in 1914. As for the book,
it seemed to me, long before war was declared, and in spite of the high
praise it received from Lord Redesdale, Mr. G. B. Shaw, and President
Roosevelt, a definitely evil book. That it was amazingly clever,
amazingly
well-written, and amazingly learned, no one could deny. Even had the
author been a native of his adopted country, his encyclopedic learning
would have been wonderful. He had done first-class original work in the
natural sciences, especially in botany. He wrote perhaps the best book
on Wagner ever written. He was a recognized authority on Kant. And all
his knowledge and all his powers were displayed in the book I am
speaking of. But it was evil. When I finished it I remember putting on
a sheet of paper what I took to be its guiding principles. They were as
follows:
"1. Whether there is a personal God or not, and that is a subject
on which the author refuses to express an opinion, it is certain that
He does not in any way operate in the world.
"2. A nation can have no duties other than its duty to its own
advancement and prosperity. Die
Welt-Geschichte ist das Welt-Gericht.
"3. The destiny of nations is determined not in the very least by
moral factors, but by the nature of their territory, the extent of
their frontiers, the number and importance of their rivers, and the
value of their natural products.
"4. The only nations that really count in the world are the
Germanic, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Great Russians. Small nations have
no history, merely 'criminal annals.'
"5. The future is with Germany alone.
"A denial of morals or, at least, an utterly materialistic
interpretation of history, denial and contempt for the doctrine of
human solidarity, and a blatant nationalism were the keynotes of this
extravagantly praised book. And they were the spiritual factors which
produced the war. Will anyone deny it? Today we are once more faced
with the choice between blatant nationalism, with materialism as its
basic philosophy, and a world revival involving active acceptance of
Christian ethics. Or am I wrong? Has the time for choice passed and are
we already too far gone down the inclined path to ruin to be able to
stop?"
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Here
under
follows the transcription of a critique of Houston
Stewart Chamberlain's book The Foundations of the
Nineteenth Century, published in the
January 1st edition, 1923 of (probably) the Manchester Guardian, written
under the pseudonym "Artifex".
