The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X | Page 4

presentiment of the life which will spring forth from your
sacrifice, you offer yourself freely on the altar of eternity."
Not even Plato and Aristotle went so far in the deification of the State
as Hegel. And if Hegel declared that the real office of the State is not to
further individual interests, to protect private property, but to be an
embodiment of the organic unity of public life; if he saw the highest
task and the real freedom of the individual in making himself a part of
this organic unity of public life, he voiced a sentiment which was fully
shared by the leading classes of the Prussia of his time, and which has
since become a part of the political creed of the Socialist masses all
over Germany.
Here we have the moral background of Bismarck's internal policy. His
monarchism rested not only on his personal allegiance to the hereditary
dynasty, although no medieval knight could have been more steadfast

in his loyalty to his liege lord than Bismarck was in his unswerving
devotion to the Hohenzollern house. His monarchism rested above all
on the conviction that, under the present conditions of German political
life, no other form of government would insure equally well the
fulfilment of the moral obligations of the State.
[Illustration: PRINCE BISMARCK From the Painting by Franz von
Lenbach COURTESY OF MR. HUGO RESINGER NEW YORK]
He was by no means blind to the value of parliamentary institutions.
More than once has he described the English Constitution as the
necessary outcome and the fit expression of the vital forces of English
society. More than once has he eulogized the sterling political qualities
of English landlordism, its respect for the law, its common sense, its
noble devotion to national interests. More than once has he deplored
the absence in Germany of "the class which in England is the main
support of the State--the class of wealthy and therefore conservative
gentlemen, independent of material interests, whose whole education is
directed with a view to their becoming statesmen, and whose only aim
in life is to take part in public affairs"; and the absence of "a Parliament,
like the English, containing two sharply defined parties whereof one
forms a sure and unswerving majority which subjects itself with iron
discipline to its ministerial leaders." We may regret that Bismarck
himself did not do more to develop parliamentary discipline; that,
indeed, he did everything in his power to arrest the healthy growth of
German party life. But it is at least perfectly clear that his reasons for
refusing to allow the German parties a controlling influence in shaping
the policy of the government were not the result of mere despotic
caprice, but were founded upon thoroughly German traditions, and
upon a thoroughly sober, though one-sided, view of the present state of
German public affairs.
To him party government appeared as much of an impossibility as it
had appeared to Hegel. The attempt to establish it would, in his opinion,
have led to nothing less than chaos. The German parties, as he viewed
them, represented, not the State, not the nation, but an infinite variety
of private and class interests--the interests of landholders, traders,
manufacturers, laborers, politicians, priests, and so on; each particular
set of interests desiring the particular consideration of the public
treasury, and refusing the same amount of consideration to every other.

It seemed highly desirable to him, as it did to Hegel, that all these
interests should be heard; that they should be represented in a
Parliament based upon as wide and liberal a suffrage as possible. But to
intrust any one of these interests with the functions of government
would, in his opinion, have been treason to the State; it would have
been class tyranny of the worst kind.
The logical outcome of all this was his conviction of the absolute
necessity, for Germany, of a strong non-partisan government: a
government which should hold all the conflicting class interests in
check and force them into continual compromises with one another; a
government which should be unrestricted by any class prejudices,
pledges, or theories, and have no other guiding star than the welfare of
the whole nation. And the only basis for such a government he found in
the Prussian monarchy, with its glorious tradition of military discipline,
of benevolent paternalism, and of self-sacrificing devotion to national
greatness; with its patriotic gentry, its incorruptible courts, its religious
freedom, its enlightened educational system, its efficient and highly
trained civil service. To bow before such a monarchy, to serve such a
State, was indeed something different from submitting to the chance
vote of a parliamentary majority; in this bondage even a Bismarck
could find his highest freedom.
For nearly forty years he bore this bondage; for twenty-eight he stood
in the