fantile or immature. The world is
still unmoral. We cannot say that nationalism as the principle of the
conduct of nations is a wholly selfish principle as contrasted with a
moral or altruistic motive, since such an analogy with individual
morality fails to take into account the complex nature of nationalism,
and overlooks the social qualities of patriotism.

England's purpose in entering the war has been freely discussed in
England. The popular impression is that England declared war upon
Germany in order to defend Belgium and to keep her treaty obligations.
If we consider conduct in a certain abstraction from the practical
setting in which it is performed such a conclusion can be drawn. There
was a moral stirring in England, and several writers have commented
upon the fact that England subverted her own conscious purposes by her
unconscious and instinctive morality. There was a strong feeling
against war, even a widespread moral sense that England had become too
civilized to wage war. There was a shrinking from the economic
hardships that war would entail. Against these strong tendencies there
prevailed, at least in popular sentiment, a profound feeling that in
some way Germany's civilization was incompatible with England's, and
this feeling was in part of the nature of moral aversion. Dillion
(55), at least, sees a profound ethical motive in Italy in the late
war. After a pro-German party had won out in favor of war, he says, a
_deus ex machina_ in the shape of an indignant nation descended upon
the scene. But after making allowance for all moral feeling and the
unusual and dramatic manner in which moral issues, to a greater degree
than ever before in modern history, were brought to the front, we must
admit that the political and diplomatic interests and manners of
nations have taken their usual course in the war. Nations have been
governed by the motives that have always dominated the relations of
groups to one another.

Germany presents the most glaring example of the contrast between
public opinion and expressed motives and political facts. Such
expressions as these: that Germany's ideal is one that does violence
to no one; that humanity and all human blessings stand under the
protection of German arms; that, where the German spirit obtains
supremacy, there freedom reigns; that in regard to England's downfall,
there can be but one opinion--it is the very highest mission of German
culture; that Germany's war is a