GERMAN WORLD POLICIES
INTRODUCTION
Idealism and materialism respectively control our study of history. Both accept as correct the proposition that every happening results in the selection of the fittest. But since they interpret this proposition differently, their agreement is only superficial. The materialistic historian believes that those people conquer in the struggle for existence who cleverly perfect, and selfishly, even ruthlessly, use the means provided by a world of material forces. All so-called ideas and leading personalities, all struggles and catastrophes are to him only the result of an economic process of development. Starting with such a premise, it is not possible to reach a moral valuation of the German idea, or of any other national idea, for if morality itself is merely a bubble which has risen from the turmoil of idealless happenings, and possesses so doubtful an existence that one cannot tell how long it will influence the thoughts of men, then no ordinary and transient occurrence of history deserves to be viewed from an idealistic point of view. As for ourselves, we wish to assert at the very beginning that morality is not