Service the Test of Greatness.
It is only vulgar minds that mistake bigness for greatness; for
greatness is of the soul, not of the body. In the judgment which history
will hereafter pass upon the forty centuries of recorded progress toward
civilization that now lie behind us, what are the tests it will apply to
determine the true greatness of a people? Not population, not territory,
not wealth, not military power; rather will history ask what examples of
lofty character and unselfish devotion to honor and duty has a people
given? What has it done to increase the volume of knowledge? What
thoughts and what ideals of permanent value and unexhausted fertility
has it bequeathed to mankind? What works has it produced in poetry,
music, and other arts to be an unfailing source of enjoyment to
posterity? The small peoples need not fear the application of such
tests.
The world advances, not, as the Bernhardi school supposes, only or even
mainly by fighting; it advances mainly by thinking and by the process of
reciprocal teaching and learning; by the continuous and unconscious
co-operation of all its strongest and finest minds. Each race--Hellenic,
Italic, Celtic, Teutonic, Iberian, Slavonic--has something to give, each
something to learn; and when their blood is blended the mixed stock may
combine gifts of both.
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