, established and maintained by diplomacy (see BALANCE OF POWER);
in so far as they have become, by international agreement, more than
mere pious opinions of theorists, they are working rules established for
mutual convenience, which it is the function of diplomacy to safeguard
or to use for its own ends. In any case they by no means cover the whole
field of diplomatic activity; and, were they swept away, the art of
diplomacy, developed through long ages of experience, would survive.

This experience may perhaps be called the science, as distinct from the
art, of diplomacy. It covers not only the province of international law,
but the vast field of recorded experience which we know as history, of
which indeed international law is but a part; for, as Bielfeld in his
_Institutions politiques_ (La Haye, 1760, t. I. ch. ii. S 13) points
out, "public law is founded on facts. To know it we must know history,
which is the soul of this science as of politics in general." The broad
outlook on human affairs implied in "historical sense" is more necessary
to the diplomatist under modern conditions than in the 18th century,
when international policy was still wholly under the control of princes
and their immediate advisers. Diplomacy was then a game of wits played
in a narrow circle. Its objects too were narrower; for states were
practically regarded as the property of their sovereigns, which it was
the main function of their "agents" to enlarge or to protect, while
scarcely less important than the preservation or rearrangement of
territorial boundaries was that of precedence and etiquette generally,
over which an incredible amount of time was wasted. The _haute
diplomatie_ thus resolved itself into a process of exalted haggling,
conducted with an utter disregard of the ordinary standards of morality,
but with the most exquisite politeness and in accordance with ever more
and more elaborate rules. Much of the outcome of these dead debates has
become stereotyped in the conventions of the diplomatic service; but the
character of diplomacy itself has undergone a great change. This change
is threefold: firstly, as the result of the greater sense of the
community of interests among nations, which was one of the outcomes of
the French Revolution; secondly, owing to the rise of democracy, with
its expression in parliamentary assemblies and in the press; thirdly,
through the alteration in the position of the diplomatic agent, due to
modern