owed much to the fact that suggestion was following a natural, instinctive path. The wolf in man, against which civilization has been fighting for so long, is still within call and ready to respond to incantations much feebler than those the German State could employ. The people were intoxicated with the glory of their conquests and their imposing new confederation; if we are to trust the reputation the Prussian soldier has had for a hundred years, they were perhaps already less advanced in humanity than the other European peoples. The fact is unquestionable that they followed their teachers with enthusiasm.
It may be well for us, before proceeding farther, to define precisely the psychological hypothesis we are advancing in explanation of the peculiarities of the German national character as now manifested.
Herd instinct is manifested in three distinct types, the aggressive, the protective, and the socialized, which are exemplified in Nature by the wolf, the sheep, and the bee respectively. Either type can confer the advantages of the social habit, but the socialized is that upon which modern civilized man has developed. It is maintained here that the ambitious career consciously planned for Germany by those who had taken command of her destinies, and the maintenance at the same time of her social system, were inconsistent with the further development of gregariousness of the socialized type. New ideals, new motives, and new sources of moral power had therefore to be sought. They were found in a {172} recrudescence of the aggressive type of gregariousness—in a reappearance of the society of the wolf. It is conceivable that those who provided Germany with her new ideals thought themselves to be exercising a free choice. The choice, however, was forced upon them by Nature. They wanted some of the characters of the wolf; they got them all. One may imagine that those who have so industriously inculcated the national gospel have wondered at times that while it has been easy to implant certain of the desired ideals, it has not been possible to prevent the appearance of others which, though not so desirable, belong to the same legacy and must