But to conclude from
this that the anti-moral doctrine of the Pagan Nietzsche is the chief
source of the outrages committed is one of those slipshod inferences
which make one despair of Christian literature.
In the first place, Goethe is even more popular with the troops than
Nietzsche, and, although Goethe too was a Pagan, his teaching was the
very antithesis of crime, violence, injustice, or hypocrisy. No nobler
human doctrine was ever set forth than in the pages of his _Faust_, the
first on this list of favourite books. In the second place, this fact at
once warns us of a circumstance which we might have taken for granted:
in the knapsacks of the overwhelming majority of the soldiers there are
no books at all. It is the minority who read; and it is quite safe to
assume that this thoughtful minority are not the minority who have
disgraced German militarism. Thirdly--and it should hardly be necessary
to make this observation--the sensitive and high-strung Nietzsche would
have regarded with shuddering horror these outrages which some
ignorantly attribute to his influence. It is indeed probable that, if he
still looked from his hill-top upon the fields of Europe, he would pour
out his most volcanic scorn upon the warring nations, and especially
upon Germany and Austria.
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