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But readers who enjoy vigorous writing will be glad to be rubbed the wrong way by Spengler's harsh aphorisms: "If few can stand long war without deterioration of soul, none can stand a long peace. . . . The individual's life is of importance to none besides himself: the point is whether he wishes to escape from history or give his life for it. ... Let it for once be said outright, though it is a slap in the face for the vulgarity of the age: property is not a vice, but a gift, and a gift such as few possess. . . . Liberty has always been the liberty of those who wish to obtain the power, not to abolish it. ... Christian theology is the grandmother of Bolshevism . . . Christian morality is, like every morality, renunciation and nothing else. . . . Socialism is nothing but the capitalism of the lower classes. . . . Finance-Socialists and trust magnates like Morgan and Kreuger correspond absolutely to the mass-leaders of Labour parties and the Russian economic commissars: dealer-natures with the same parvenu tastes. . . . All really great leaders in history go 'Right' however low the depths from which they have climbed."
Spengler describes himself as a "strong" pessimist. Though he considers the World War "a defeat of the white races, and the Peace of 1918 . . . the first great triumph of the coloured world," he holds out a small hope, no bigger than Hitler's hand, for the salvation of Western civilization. "There remains as a formative power only the warlike, 'Prussian' spirit—everywhere and not in Germany alone. . . . He whose sword compels victory here will be lord of the world. The dice are there ready for this stupendous game. Who dares to throw them?"
The Author. Oswald Spengler chose Germany (Blankenburg im Harz) as his birthplace, history as his province. He studied mathematics, philosophy, art and history in Munich and Berlin, wrote his doctor's thesis on Heraclitus, then subsided into the anonymity of a pedagog. When the first version of Der Untergang des Abendlandes (The Decline of the West) was finished, he could find no German publisher, brought it out in Vienna. By 1923 it had become a world affair, reached the U. S. in 1926. No longer hidden under a bushel of schoolboys' papers, Spengler's threatening light shines now from a huge-roomed Munich apartment overlooking the Isar. He has collected many a painting and objet d'art, a library of several thousand volumes. Said he once: "There are two more works that I have to write. When they are done, I am going to throw my library into the Isar." Though he is German to the marrow, Spengler has a passion for Italy, visits it whenever he can. Heavyset, strong-featured, with big ears and an impressively high bald head, Spengler at 53 still has great physical vigor, delights in tireless mountaineering and long hikes, likes to converse with peasants, whose quips and saws he collects with fervor, repeats with gusto.