stion whether the disappearance of
this feeling would be a mark of progress or of degeneration. At any rate
it is practically certain that the period when it will have disappeared
cannot at present be foreseen.

The abolition of war, therefore, involves the abolition of independent
States and their amalgamation into one. There are many who have hoped
for this ideal, expressed by Tennyson when he dreamed of

"The Parliament of man, the Federation of the world."

That it is the ultimate destiny of mankind to be united under a single
Government seems probable enough, but it is rash to assume that that
result will be reached either by a process of peaceful negotiation, or
by the spread of the imperfect methods of modern democratic government.
The German Empire, with its population of sixty millions, educated by
the State, disciplined by the State, relying on the State, and commanded
by the State, is as potent in comparison with the less disciplined and
less organised communities which surround it as was, in the third
century before Christ, the Roman State in comparison with the disunited
multitude of Greek cities, the commercial oligarchy of Carthage, and the
half-civilised tribes of Gaul and Spain. Unless the other States of
Europe can rouse themselves to a discipline as sound and to an
organisation as subtle as those of Prussia and to the perception of a
common purpose in the maintenance of their independence, the union of
Europe under a single Government is more likely to be brought about by
the conquering hand of Germany than by the extension of democratic
institutions and of sentimental good understandings.

Proposals for disarmament stand on an entirely different footing from
proposals to agree to arbitration. The State that disarms renounces to
the extent of its disarmament the power to protect itself. Upon what
other power is it suggested that it should rely? In the last analysis
the suggestion amounts to a proposal for the abolition of the State, or
its abandonment of its claim to represent the right. Those who propose
agreements for disarmament imagine that the suggestion if adopted would
lead to the establishment of peace. Have they considered the natural
history of peace as one of the phenomena of the globe which we inhabit?
The only peace of any value is that between civilised nations. It rests
either upon the absence of dispute between them or upon an equilibrium
of forces. During the last few centuries the