But it is still the abstract
principle of Professor Harnack which interests me most; and in following it
I have the same complexity of enquiry, but the same simplicity of result.
Comparing the Professor's concern about "Teutonism" with his unconcern
about Belgium, I can only reach the following result: "A man need not keep
a promise he has made. But a man must keep a promise he has not made."
There certainly was a treaty binding Britain to Belgium; if it was only a
scrap of paper. If there was any treaty binding Britain to Teutonism it is,
to say the least of it, a lost scrap of paper: almost what one might call a
scrap of waste-paper. Here again the pendants under consideration exhibit
the illogical perversity that makes the brain reel. There is obligation and
there is no obligation: sometimes it appears that Germany and England must
keep faith with each other; sometimes that Germany need not keep faith with
anybody and anything; sometimes that we alone among European peoples are
almost entitled to be Germans; sometimes that beside us Russians and
Frenchmen almost rise to a Germanic loveliness of character.
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