He does
not think, as the Prussian would, that he has made a new discovery in
physiology in finding that a woman is weaker than a man. If a Servian
does knife his rival without a word, he does it because other Servians
have done it. He may regard it even as piety, but certainly not as
progress. He does not think, as the Prussian does, that he founds a new
school of horology by starting before the word "Go." He does not think
he is in advance of the world in militarism merely because he is behind
it in morals. No; the danger of the Pruss is that he is prepared to
fight for old errors as if they were new truths. He has somehow heard
of certain shallow simplifications, and imagines that we have never
heard of them. And, as I have said, his limited, but very sincere lunacy
concentrates chiefly in a desire to destroy two ideas, the twin root ideas
of rational society. The first is the idea of record and promise: the
second is the idea of reciprocity.
It is plain that the promise, or extension of responsibility through time,
is what chiefly distinguishes us, I will not say from savages, but from
brutes and reptiles. This was noted by the shrewdness of the Old Testament,
when it summed up the dark irresponsible enormity of Leviathan in the
words, "Will he make a pact with thee?" The promise, like the wheel, is
unknown in Nature: and is the first mark of man.
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