whole helpful, but not in case there is any other
practicable method of removing grave obstacles to human amelioration;
and in any event their tendency is socially disintegrating. The
destruction or the weakening of nationalities for the ostensible benefit
of an international socialism would in truth gravely imperil the bond
upon which actual human association is based. The peoples who have
inherited any share in Christian civilization are effectively united
chiefly by national habits, traditions, and purposes; and perhaps the
most effective way of bringing about an irretrievable division of
purpose among them would be the adoption by the class of wage-earners
of the programme of international socialism. It is not too much to say
that no permanent good can, under existing conditions, come to the
individual and society except through the preservation and the
development of the existing system of nationalized states.

Radical and enthusiastic democrats have usually failed to attach
sufficient importance to the ties whereby civilized men are at the
present time actually united. Inasmuch as national traditions are
usually associated with all sorts of political, economic, and social
privileges and abuses, they have sought to identify the higher social
relation with the destruction of the national tradition and the
substitution of an ideal bond. In so doing they are committing a
disastrous error; and democracy will never become really constructive
until this error is recognized and democracy abandons its former
alliance with revolution. The higher human relation must be brought
about chiefly by the improvement and the intensification of existing
human relations. The only possible foundation for a better social
structure is the existing order, of which the contemporary system of
nationalized states forms the foundation.

Loyalty to the existing system of nationalized states does not
necessarily mean loyalty to an existing government merely because it
exists. There have been, and still are, governments whose ruin is a
necessary condition of popular liberation; and revolution doubtless
still has a subordinate part to play in the process of human
amelioration. The loyalty which a citizen owes to a government is
dependent upon the extent to which the government is representative of
national traditions and is organized in the interest of valid national
purposes. National traditions and purposes always contain a large
infusion of