easily than tuberculosis. The first comes in terrifying waves of death and gives a shock to mankind, the other creeps on slowly ; the first induces terror, the other gradual indifference. The result is that men fight the first with the whole of their energy, whilst they try to stop consumption with feeble methods. Thus men conquered the plague, but tuberculosis conquers them. The same applies to diseases of the body politic.
In the long peace of the pre-war years certain evils appeared and were recognized as evils, although practically no attention was paid to the causes of them —with certain exceptions. These exceptions were, first and foremost, the phenomena in the economic life of the nation, which struck individual people more keenly than the evils which appeared in many other directions.
There were many signs of decay which ought to have induced serious thought.
The amazing increase of population of Germany before the War brought the question of providing the