natural tendency to particularism, on which it flourished luxuriantly as soon as the nation was no longer inspired with great and unifying thoughts.  Yet the heart of this people can always be won for great and noble aims, even though such aims can only be attended by danger.  We must not be misled in this respect by the Press, which often represents a most one-sided, self-interested view, and sometimes follows international or even Anti-German lines rather than national.  The soul of our nation is not reflected in that part of the Press with its continual dwelling on the necessity of upholding peace, and its denunciation of any bold and comprehensive political measure as a policy of recklessness.

On the contrary, an intense longing for a foremost place among the Powers and for manly action fills our nation.  Every vigorous utterance, every bold political step of the Government, finds in the soul of the people a deeply felt echo, and loosens the bonds which fetter all their forces.  In a great part of the national Press this feeling has again and again found noble expression.  But the statesman who could satisfy this yearning, which slumbers in the heart of our people undisturbed by the clamour of parties and the party Press, would carry all spirits with him.

He is no true statesman who does not reckon with these factors of national psychology; Bismarck possessed this art, and used k with a master-hand.  True, he found ready to hand one idea which was common to all—­the sincere wish for German unification and the German Empire; but the German nation, in its dissensions, did not know the ways which lead to the realization of this idea.  Only under compulsion and after a hard struggle did it enter on the road of success; but the whole nation was fired with high enthusiasm when it finally recognized the goal to which the great statesman was so surely leading it.  Success was the foundation on which Bismarck built up the mighty fabric of the German Empire.  Even in the years of peace he understood how to rivet the imagination of the people by an ambitious and active policy, and how, in spite of all opposition, to gain over the masses to his views, and make them serve his own great aims.  He, too, made mistakes as man and as politician, and the motto Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto holds good of him; but in its broad features his policy was always imperial and of world-wide scope, and he never lost sight of the principle that no statesman can permanently achieve great results unless he commands the soul of his people.

This knowledge he shared with all the great men of our past, with the Great Elector, Frederick the Incomparable, Scharnhorst and Bluecher; for even that hoary marshal was a political force, the embodiment of a political idea, which, to be sure, did not come into the foreground at the Congress of Vienna.