war for its own sake or for purely ambitious ends. Yet in his Machiavellism its author faces the un-ideal state of things that actually existed: he takes count of the selfishness of mankind; and gives precepts as to how, given the psychological and physiological facts of human nature, the bark of the State is to be steered with safety and success.

Thus do we find in Machiavelli, first of all Machiavellism in the most cold-blooded and inhuman sense of the word; but afterwards the germ and promise of a state-craft inspired by more human and spiritual ideals. To Machiavelli the former was a necessary constituent of the latter, and in his highest flights of idealism he would not have denied those maxims of selfish, worldly wisdom, simply because to have done so would have been, for him, not to deny an immoral principle, but to deny a non-moral fact.

Actually, is not all state-craft even yet in the same predicament? Can statesmen, of whatever country, safely and patriotically act on the assumption that men in general are good and unselfish and disinterested? Can a diplomatist successfully eschew all vulpine wisdom? Can a general restrain, in himself or his soldiers, all that savours of the ferocity of the lion? Can war be waged without fraud and violence or without the sacrifice of the innocent and helpless? Must a government put blind trust in even the best of its own citizens? Must not the most gentlemanly of our politicians sacrifice, at times, their own high code to the exigencies of diplomacy? Do not half-measures prove as fatal now as they did in the days of Machiavelli? Is not a disregard for unpleasant and immoral facts as disastrous as ever in its results? Is not ruthlessness, now as then, sometimes more merciful in its results than a half-hearted severity? To sum up these questions in one, Can or does any State, even in our more civilised days, behave in its corporate capacity as a man of perfectly noble character can behave in his individual capacity? Can it exercise meekness, altruism, brotherly love in its dealings with neighbouring States, or even with its own citizens? Can a State behave like a perfect Christian or even like a perfect gentleman ?

We know quite well what is the only truthful answer to such a question, but what we are persistently unwilling to admit is that, in so far as state-craft precludes the acceptance of an

unreservedly human and a wholly Christian* ideal, so far also does it necessitate an admixture of Machiavellian principles and practice.

That another political attitude is possible and imperative is the claim of Christian idealists, first among whom may be named Tolstoi, who has followers, nowadays, amongst the genuine conscientious objectors.† To this school the human ideal so entirely transcends all claims of mere patriotism that they would ask of their country, as they would ask of an individual, the sacrifice of life for so noble a cause. The early Christians were, in the opinion of Roman politicians, a danger to the State from their contempt of the State religion. Therefore the State endeavoured to exterminate them, as it would now exterminate those who prize their own moral judgments above their duties of citizenship. The early Christians proved that men could be good citizens, and even good soldiers, without belief in the Pagan religion of the State; but the misgivings of their rulers were justifiable, for indeed Rome, without her religion, was bound to become, at last, another Rome. Christianity was an enemy to the Pagan State.

So, too, is the full spirit of Christianity hostile to the modern State, and the Tolstoyan, or genuine conscientious objector, is a proof of the fact. The State cannot do with him, for the State is not wholly Christian; it has as much right to persecute him as he has a right to maintain his own principles at the cost of his life as a citizen.

Yet the conscientious objector, or the unqualified pacifist, is probably not the one who does best for the promotion of his own ideals. Good is not worked in isolation, and there are truer forms of humanism, humbler forms of Christianity, more hopeful forms of pacifism, which do not wholly deny the fact and the duties of citizenship; which accept the moral resulting obligations of having drawn life and education and nurture from a certain country; and which therefore admit of the corresponding necessity to share the moral inadequacies, even the sins of that country.

* I use here the word Christian in a moral sense, as denoting a principle of unselfish love and devotion.

I believe that such exist, though not all who refuse military service on those grounds deserve the name.

'Justum est bellum quibus necessarium, et pia arma quibus ' nisi in armis nulla spes est.'

Such pacifism will not allow of abstention in the hour of our country's need; though it will unrestingly endeavour to transform the politics of the world in accordance with its ideal.

But, on the other hand, I would urge that pacifists, whether of the former or of the latter category, are consistent: just as those who admit that the prevailing state-craft inevitably contains certain non-Christian and non-human elements are consistent. But those, on the contrary, who would maintain that state-craft can admit of diplomacy, in the classical sense, without any admixture of Machiavellism, or of warfare that can be termed Christian, are not consistent nor sincere; and they justify the position of the unqualified pacifist, as those do not who confess that the best of us are yet far from the attainment of a purely human and Christian ideal in politics. To deny Machiavellism is to deny facts.

But as in the philosophy of Machiavelli, so in modern statecraft, the question is not, does it actually and always set forth a wide and human and disinterested policy? but does it admit of it? The philosophy of Machiavelli did-the philosophy of his Machiavellian disciple Bismarck did not; for the former aimed at the formation of a free, self-contained State, with an army for defensive purposes, and citizens whose pride it would be to govern and to serve; while the latter set himself to constitute a powerful autocratic government, strong for purposes of world-dominion.

Even the Mid-Europe policy, as set forth by Friedrich Naumann, which is not indeed wholly and heartlessly Machiavellian, is yet exclusive of any widely human policy. Not a great wall, but a great ditch, is to include the German State of the future, and all its dependent States, and to exclude the rest of the world from a share in German wealth and power.

The ideal citizen of Naumann is, indeed, to live for the State, but not as the austere and disinterested citizen of Machiavelli, who has his ever active share in the shaping of her destiny. For Naumann's citizen it is a question of commercial success : 'For the sake of personal interest he becomes a member 'of an impersonal institution and works for it as for him

'self. . . . Individualism is fully developed, but it is then 'carried up into the next higher form of economic co-operative 'existence.'

The State, on the other hand, uses individuals for her purpose, as those same individuals seek their purpose in her. For it is only by means of healthier, better edu'cated, and better nourished masses that the military, financial, and civilised Mid-Europe of which we dream can 'come into existence.'

Mr. Bertrand Russell, in Principles of Social Reconstruc'tion,' has divided the impulses of political life into two groups: 'the possessive and the creative, according as they aim at acquiring or retaining something that cannot be shared, 'or at bringing into the world some valuable thing-such as 'knowledge, or art, or goodwill-in which there is no private 'property.'

'Ecco chi crescerà i nostri amori,' said Machiavelli's great countryman, in describing that love which knows not envy nor rivalry. To act as though such love could be the law of political life, before its sun has risen above our horizon, is the dangerous mistake of the idealist without a sense of facts. But this same idealist would be less excusable if our State philosophers had the candour to confess the Machiavellism they cannot avoid. Then would they be justified in demanding of the citizen that he should not be too good for the country to which he owes the protection of his life and his interests; that he should work along with her, but not apart from her, in the pursuit of a greater international ideal.

That ideal has at last found expression in the mouth of a statesman who has not disregarded facts, on the lips of a pacifist who has accepted the necessity of war:

'We are glad [said President Wilson] now that we see facts with no veil of false pretence about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world. . . . The world must be safe for democracy. . . . We desire no conquests and no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, and no material compensation for sacrifices we shall freely make. . . . Right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things we have always carried nearest our hearts-for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for the universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as will bring

peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.'

It would be rash to take these words as the absolute due of our own cause, just and righteous as that cause may be. It is through a higher fatality than our own statesmanship that we are now fighting alongside of an emancipated Russia, and not a Czar. We are yet in a state of confusion in regard to national and international ideals which is significant of effort rather than attainment. In all our talk of a new Europe there has been, as yet, but little preoccupation with the ideal of a new Africa, with a new standard for the treatment of native races. Until Russia found her soul there was yet the danger that her alliance might be rewarded regardless of the true interests of some of the lesser nations.

These words of the American President are rather the noble expression of a deep and universal human aspiration than of the actual policy of any one of us, and we should be nearer the attainment of that higher policy if we believed it. As George Tyrrell writes in his Essays on Faith and Immortality':

'This is the meaning of Christ Crucified-man agonising for goodness and truth even unto death, and thereby fulfilling the universal law of God in Nature and in himself. . . . Hence, instead of hell-fire, I should preach the hollowness of the self-life in and out, up and down, till men loathed it and cried "Quis me liberabit?"

Such cannot yet be the spirit of diplomacy; but for those who believe in the union of nations, and in a world-wide policy inspired by human love, it is on these lines that their ideal is to be sought.

It is a frightening thought that a few men will, by and by, sit round a table to settle the welfare of the world. It would be a still more alarming thought if we believed that they really would settle it, and that the visible actors on the world's stage were as potent as they appear to be. Yet their opportunity is a great one, and could we hope that fifty per cent. of the future Peace Conference would be inspired by the temper of President Wilson's speech; that disinterestedness, altruism, humanity, and a pride magnanimous but not boastful, would be their characteristics; then, indeed, their efforts, seconded. by a greater fate and by the pressure of those nobler aspirations that are stirring in the heart of the world, might bring