favour of the gods, "neither our pretensions nor our conduct being
in any way contrary to what men believe of the gods, or practise amongst
themselves." There is, in fact, to be no Law between Nations but the Rule
of the Stronger.

[Footnote 1: _Thucydides_, Book v. 89 and 105.]

Sec.6. _The Principle of the Commonwealth_.--Such seems to many the meaning
of the present European situation--a stern conflict between nations and
cultures, to be decided by force of arms. The bridges between the nations
seem broken down, and no one can tell when they will be repaired. The hopes
that had gathered round international movements, the cosmopolitan dreams
of common action between the peoples across the barriers of States and
Governments, seem to have vanished into limbo; and the enthusiastic
dreamers of yesterday are the disillusioned soldiers and spectators of
to-day. Nationality, that strange, inarticulate, unanalysable force that
can call all men to her tents in the hour of crisis and danger, seems to
have overthrown the international forces of to-day, the Socialists, the
Pacifists, and, strongest of all, the Capitalists, as it overthrew Napoleon
and his dreams of Empire a hundred years ago. What Law is there but force
that can decide the issue between nation and nation? And, in the absence
of a Law, what becomes of all our hopes for international action, for the
future of civilisation and the higher life of the human race?

But in truth the disillusionment is as premature as the hopes that preceded
it. We are still far off from the World-State and the World-Law which
formed the misty ideal of cosmopolitan thinkers. But only those who are
blind to the true course of human progress can fail to see that the day of
the Nation-State is even now drawing to a close in the West. There is in
fact at present working in the world a higher Law and a better patriotism
than that of single nations and cultures, a Law and a patriotism that
override and transcend the claims of Nationality in a greater, a more
compelling, and a more universal appeal. The great States or Powers of
to-day, Great Britain, the United States, France, and (if they had eyes
to sec it) Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary, are not Nation-States but
composite States--States compacted of many nationalities united together by
a common citizenship and a common law. Great Britain, the United States,
the German Empire, and Austria-Hungary bear in their very names the
remind