ral preference for German
methods of governing as compared with democracy, turned the scale
against us. In Ireland, in Canada and in Spain the Catholic priests have
been formidable enemies of our cause. As for the other Churches, they
have not the same power of arbitrating in national quarrels. The Russian
Church has never been independent of the secular government; and the
Anglican and Lutheran Churches can hardly be expected to be impartial
when the vital interests of England or Germany are at stake. Lovers of
peace have not much to hope for from organised religion. National
Christianity, as Mr. Bernard Shaw says, will only be possible when we
have a nation of Christs.

The downfall of the medieval European system, though in truth it was a
theory rather than a fact, has removed some of the restraints upon war.
The determining principle of the medieval political theory was the
conception of a 'lex Dei,' which included the 'lex Mosis,' the 'lex
Christi,' and the 'lex ecclesiae,' but which also, as 'lex naturae,'
comprised the law, science, and ethics of antiquity. These laws were
super-national, and no nation dared explicitly to repudiate them. They
formed the basis of a real system of international law, resting, like
everything else in the Middle Ages, on supposed divine authority.

This theory, with its sanctions, was shattered at the Renaissance; and
the Machiavellian doctrine of the absolute State, accepted by Bacon and
put into practice by Frederick the Great, has prevailed ever since,
though not without frequent protests. The rise of nationalities, each
with an intense self-consciousness, has facilitated the adoption of a
theory too grossly immoral to have found favour except in the peculiar
circumstances of modern civilisation. The emergence of nationalities was
often connected with a legitimate struggle for freedom; and at such
times _esprit de corps_ seems to be almost the sum of morality, the
substitute for all other virtues. Loyalty is one of the most attractive
of moral qualities, and it necessarily inhibits criticism of its own
objects, which has the appearance of treason. But, unless the aims of
the corporate body which claims our absolute allegiance are right and
reasonable, loyalty may be, and often has been, the parent of hideous
crimes, and a social evil of the first magnitude. The perversion of
_esprit de corps_ does incalculable harm in every direction, destroying
all sense of honour and justice, of