art
without time to learn their lines.

The case of the English-speaking peoples, who have gone over this course
of experience in more consecutive fashion than any others, teaches that
in the long run, if these modern economic conditions persist, one or the
other or both of these creatures of the modern era must prevail, and
must put the dynastic establishment out of commission; although the
sequel has not yet been seen in this British case, and there is no
ground afforded for inference as to which of the two will have the
fortune to survive and be invested with the hegemony. Meantime the
opportunity of the Imperial establishment to push its enterprise in
dominion lies in the interval of time so required for the discipline of
experience under modern conditions to work out through the growth of
modern habits of thought into such modern (i.e. civilised) institutional
forms and such settled principles of personal insubordination as will
put any effectual dynastic establishment out of commission. The same
interval of time, that must so be allowed for the decay of the dynastic
spirit among the German people under the discipline of life by the
methods of modern trade and industry, marks the period during which no
peace compact will be practicable, except with the elimination of the
Imperial establishment as a possible warlike power. All this, of
course, applies to the case of Japan as well, with the difference that
while the Japanese people are farther in arrears, they are also a
smaller, less formidable body, more exposed to outside forces, and their
mediaevalism is of a more archaic and therefore more precarious type.

What length of time will be required for this decay of the dynastic
spirit among the people of the Empire is, of course, impossible to say.
The factors of the case are not of a character to admit anything like
calculation of the rate of movement; but in the nature of the factors
involved it is also contained that something of a movement in this
direction is unavoidable, under Providence. As a preliminary
consideration, these peoples of the Empire and its allies, as well as
their enemies in the great war, will necessarily come out of their
warlike experience in a more patriotic and more vindictive frame of mind
than that in which they entered on this adventure. Fighting makes for
malevolence. The war is itself to be counted as a set-back. A very large
proportion of those who have lived through it will necessa