for such quixotism. The national State must
be selfish. To be unselfish is the mortal sin of politics. Humanity,
sentimentalism, have no place in politics. Frederick William IV., the
one sentimental King in the whole history of the Hohenzollern Dynasty,
once rendered an unselfish service to his neighbours. A Prussian army
saved the Saxon monarchy from revolution and then withdrew. Treitschke
has no words strong enough to condemn this solitary instance of a
disinterested Prussian policy.

The national State is alone invested with the attributes of
sovereignty. There is nothing above it. National rights must be final.
The national State may for the time being limit its absolute
sovereignty by international agreements, but any such agreements are
only conditional and temporary--_rebus sic stantibus_. No national
State can make international agreements which are binding for the
future. The time must always come when the scrap of paper has to be
torn asunder. It is true that the national State is indirectly playing
its part in the moral education of humanity, but it will best serve
humanity by only thinking of itself.

XII.--THE HERESY OF INDIVIDUALISM.

There are many heresies which threaten the orthodox religion of the
national State. The first and the most dangerous is the heresy of
individualism. A school of modern theorists, William von Humboldt and
John Stuart Mill, have asserted the rights of the individual apart
from and above the rights of the State. They reserve for the
individual a sphere where the State may not encroach. According to
Mill, the political life is only a part and the minor part of his
social activities. His higher activities are spent in the service of
the Church, in the service of Art and Science.

Treitschke has fought this heresy of individualism in all his
writings. The interest of the individual cannot be opposed to the
interest of the State. The individual can only realize himself, he can
only realize the higher life, in and through the State. It is the
State which sets free the spiritual forces of the individual by
securing for him security, prosperity, and economic independence.

XIII.--THE HERESY OF INTERNATIONALISM.

The second deadly heresy which threatens the dogma of the national
State is the heresy of internationalism. It takes the form either of
the black internationalism of the Catholic Church or the red
internationalism of Social Democracy. Treitschke has fought Roman
C