The Spectator at war: What is wrong with Germany?

From ‘What is Wrong With Germany?‘, The Spectator, 30 January 1915:

If the inquiry is to be pushed to the ultimate point, what is wrong with the Germans is their dreadful, their slavish devotion to Logic— to the “Absolute” and to Abstractions. When Englishmen create an Abstraction they do not call upon all mankind to enthrone it. They treat it as something which is “there or thereabouts,” as something useful, no doubt, but not to be pressed too far. When the Germans create an Abstraction they fall down and worship it. They not only treat it with intellectual servility, but regard it as a living thing. When their Abstraction is once established, they will not place any limits on its authority. They follow it ruthlessly, relentlessly, remorselessly, and to the bitter end. The result is what we see in the world to-day—the earth reeking with blood, Belgium, Poland, and some of the fairest parts of France drinking the cup of suffering to the dregs, and millions of men by land and sea locked in a death struggle.