scheme are these: (1) it made no provision for representation other than that of the sovereigns; (2) it gave to the Powers that constituted the League an arbitrary and dictatorial authority over its members; and (3) it aimed to establish a permanent status quo, which in the natural progress of historical events would become a fiction. Its ostensible merit, in the minds of some, consisted in the provision, if properly carried out, to organize the force of the different states into a common coercive power sufficient to guarantee the rights of each nation against infringement -such force being a sort of international constabulary.

Rousseau was so impressed with the plan of SaintPierre that he published a work in 1761 for the enforcement of its principles. "If there be any practical means of avoiding the evil of war," reasoned the French philosopher, "they must be sought for in the establishment of confederacies, by which distinct.communities may be united together in the same manner as the individual members of a particular state are now united in one society. The European public law, founded upon no fixed principles, has incessantly varied, and the general sense of insecurity has compelled even the most pacific states to maintain permanent military establishments, disproportioned to their resources and oppressive to the people."

The establishment of a European confederacy, fortified with legislative, judicial and coercive powers, did not seem to Rousseau to be attended with any insuperable difficulties. "It is only necessary," he claimed, "that statesmen should renounce the puerile prejudices of their craft; that sovereigns should abandon the uncertain objects of vugar ambition for the

certain security that would be afforded to themselves, their dynasties and their people by the proposed innovation; and that nations should relinquish those absurd prejudices which have hitherto induced them to consider the differences of language, race, and religion, as constituting insurmountable obstacles to a more perfect union among the members of the great European family."

To an idealistic thinker like Rousseau it is difficult to understand why society should not speedily conform to the requirements which he regards as so simple and so essential to the peace and happiness of mankind. But it has been well observed, "the fact that a hundred years and more have elapsed, and that these simple requirements are unattained, must be admitted as an indication that if not unattainable, they present greater difficulties than Rousseau contemplated."

It would lead us too far from our main purpose to dwell longer upon these ideal schemes for the pacification of the world. If we should examine the plan of Bentham for the disarmament of Europe, the enfranchisement of all colonial dependencies and the establishment of a common court of judicature—or the plan of Kant, in his treatise "On Perpetual Peace," for a general Congress of nations-or the more recent plan of Professor Lorimer, a Scotch publicist, for the establishment of what he calls "the international equivalents for the factors known in national law as legislation, jurisdiction and execution, we should find that, however they might differ in details, they were all characterized by one prevailing feature. They are all, to a greater or less extent, idealistic. They are largely the products of the imagination. They seek to construct an international organization based upon

preconceived ideas." (Philips, Confederation of Europe, pp. 18-32, "Earlier Projects of Peace.")

The radical defect of the method employed by the ideal projectors of international peace, has been so thoroughly exposed in the writings of political scientists that it need scarcely to be seriously considered. If state constitutions grow and are not made, much less can it be expected that an international organism can be brought into being by any sudden process of manufacture. The ideal method as applied to international politics may, in fact, be regarded as far less fruitful than that which we have called the sentimental or ethical method. The cultivation of the pacific sentiments may be regarded as furnishing at least one essential condition to the realization of a general peace; but it is not necessary to suppose that an international society must accord with the structural forms embodied in any of the theoretical projects for peace. Indeed it may be a question whether these theoretical projects have not done more to obstruct the cause of peace than to aid it. Those who have been led to repose their faith in these Utopian pictures have been doomed to sad disappointment as they have watched the passing years, and observed no sign that their artistic lines and colors were reproduced in the harmonious reconstruction of the world-and the repetition of such disappointments naturally leads to indifference, if not to despair. Noble sentiments, like those of the pacifist, and lofty ideals, like those of the philosophical thinker, may each have their place as worthy incentives to high endeavor; but it seems quite clear that neither can furnish a sufficient guide to point out the actual steps that should be taken in the course of human progress.

§ 3. HISTORICAL METHOD BASED ON SOCIAL EVOLU

TION

To those who are accustomed to more realistic modes of thinking, it must be apparent that the hope of peace, if it have any adequate basis at all, must rest upon something more substantial than mere appeals either to the sentiments or to the imagination. If the international system ever reaches a higher and more complete stage of organization, this result must doubtless be attained through a process of development, in harmony with the laws of social evolution; and by the selective utilization of agencies that already exist.

To hope for a sudden and radical transformation of the whole international system is quite as chimerical as to expect a suspension of the laws of progress in the political or industrial world. Even though such a radical change could be temporarily effected, it needs no prophetic vision to foretell its doom. Like the commonwealth of Cromwell or the revolutionary empire of Napoleon, it would soon be dissipated, and slower and more realistic methods of progression would assert themselves.

To claim that a general condition of peace, if it be attained at all, must be attained through a process of evolution, and be the result of agencies which already exist, might seem at first sight to threaten the entire fabric of hope which idealistic reformers have been at so much pains to construct. If, however, it could be shown that the progressive pacification of society was a necessary concomitant of social evolution, our hope of an ultimate peace, instead of being shattered, would become as substantial and se

cure as our faith in human progress. If, moreover, we could discover the agencies and methods by which among the lower groups of mankind hostility has gradually given place to harmony, we might perhaps obtain some idea as to the methods in which the relationship between the higher groups of mankind might also be harmoniously adjusted.

The highest stage of political development that has been attained in modern society is indicated in the national organism, or the sovereign state. So far as the internal relations of the modern normal state are concerned, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the conditions of peace have already become well nigh realized. With the exception of those instances in which political power and political freedom have not become thoroughly adjusted, it may be said that each nation, to a great extent, represents within itself a pacified area of human society. Rights are generally determined and maintained, for the most part, without an appeal to force; the hostilities of war are, in large measure, removed to the external relations between independent states. But this condition of comparative pacification, which exists within the area of the modern civilized state, it must be evident is itself the result of a slow process of development, or the successive integrations of smaller and still smaller independent groups of men.

If we should reverse the panorama of human progress for a few centuries, we should come to a condition of things quite different from that which now presents itself. Instead of a few comparatively well organized, compact nations, we should see in France fifty or sixty independent principalities, each maintaining its rights against the others by means of private war