THE PREMONITORY SIGNS OF COLLAPSE IN THE
OLD EMPIRE THE blow, from which the German Reich and nation are suffering, is so heavy, that they seem to have lost all power of feeling or reflection, as if seized with vertigo. It is hardly possible to recall the former heights, so dreamlike and unreal seem the greatness and glory of those times compared with the present misery ; which explains why men are only too easily dazzled by greatness and forget to seek for the premonitory signs of the great collapse, which, never¬ theless, must have been present in some form.
These signs were visibly present, although very few tried to glean any definite teaching from them. This is necessary to-day more than ever.
Most people new in Germany now recognize the German collapse merely by the general economic poverty and its results. Almost everyone is personally affected by it—an excellent reason for every individual to realize the catastrophe. The people as a whole connect the collapse with political, cultural or moral questions. Many lack both feeling and understanding for it.
That this is so with the masses goes without question ; but the fact that the intelligent sections of the com¬ munity regard the collapse first of all as an “economic catastrophe” and think that recovery must come from the side of economics is one of the reasons why, so far, no cure has been possible. Not until it is realized that economics can only come second, or even third, and that factors of ethics and race must come first, will there be understanding of the causes of the present unhappiness, or a possibility of discovering means and methods of curing it.