already under way; though with no indication that any consequent
disintegrating habits of thought have yet invaded the sacred close of
Japanese patriotic devotion.

Again, it is a question of time and habituation. With time and
habituation the emperor may insensibly cease to be of divine pedigree,
and the syndicate of statesmen who are doing business under his
signature may consequently find their measures of Imperial expansion
questioned by the people who pay the bills. But so long as the Imperial
syndicate enjoy their present immunity from outside obstruction, and can
accordingly carry on an uninterrupted campaign of cumulative predation
in Korea, China and Manchuria, the patriotic infatuation is less likely
to fall off, and by so much the decay of Japanese loyalty will be
retarded. Yet, even if allowed anything that may seem at all probable in
the way of a free hand for aggression against their hapless neighbours,
the skepticism and insubordination to personal rule that seems
inseparable in the long run from addiction to the modern industrial arts
should be expected presently to overtake the Japanese spirit of loyal
servitude. And the opportunity of Imperial Japan lies in the interval.
So also does the menace of Imperial Japan as a presumptive disturber of
the peace at large.

* * * * *

At the cost of some unavoidable tedium, the argument as regards these
and similar instances may be summarised. It appears, in the (possibly
doubtful) light of the history of democratic institutions and of modern
technology hitherto, as also from the logical character of this
technology and its underlying material sciences, that consistent
addiction to the peculiar habits of thought involved in its carrying on
will presently induce a decay of those preconceptions in which dynastic
government and national ambitions have their ground. Continued addiction
to this modern scheme of industrial life should in time eventuate in a
decay of militant nationalism, with a consequent lapse of warlike
enterprise. At the same time, popular proficiency in the modern
industrial arts, with all that that implies in the way of intelligence
and information, is indispensable as a means to any successful warlike
enterprise on the modern plan. The menace of warlike aggression from
such dynastic States, e.g., as Imperial Germany and Imperial Japan is
due to their having acquired a competent use of this modern technology,
while