CHAPTER IV
STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS
We have tried thus far to present those drawbacks to our rise among the nations which have resulted from our history, and its effect upon our national character, and to give a survey of our material solvency, which is a fact in spite of those drawbacks. Before entering on the task of pointing out definite lines to the working of the German idea in the world, we must seek a clear answer to one more question, which is more important than anything else, and which will determine whether we shall be able to be a world power. It is: What can our innate ideal forces accomplish in the face of those drawbacks, and to what extent will the harmful forces retain their supremacy?
Someone may remark that it is doubtful whether even the ideal forces of our national life can lastingly counterbalance our deep-seated defect, we mean the lack of that great political virtue which prefers whatever makes for union to whatever is tending toward separation. The weight of this argument is so great that one can well understand those Germans who despair of their future in the highest sense because of it.
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