the evolution of a national character and of national fortunes, and many efforts have been made to identify and describe these factors and to appraise their relative values. In recent times there has been a tendency to undervalue the influence of religion. But thoughtful men have always seen that from the beginning of history national ideals have been closely associated with religious faith. No doubt the material and outward side of a nation's history acts on its religion, and that in more ways than the churches usually realize. But the highest religion has an independent life of its own, is a distinct fountain of energy in human nature, originates history as well as receives influence from history. Hence no nation can live well and move toward the best forms of national character and international influence whose religion has lost grip upon the conscience and intelligence of its people. It is those who worship God most sincerely, who know best His will, those who possess in fullest measure and are most completely surrendered to the divine spirit, who do most to sustain the nobler side of the national life. It is from them that the severest rebukes, in them that the intensest hatred, of crime and vice and all materialistic habits arise. They are, of course, objects of derision and hatred on the part of those who live in these things which they condemn; but, in spite of their defects-the unwisdom of their methods, the partial nature of

their own visions, and the imperfections of their character-they are always the springs of the loftiest patriotism, the real directors and sustainers of the noblest will of the State.

In the nation whose citizens consciously receive the blessings of orderly government, and render to the State the truest service, there arises that spirit of patriotism which in dignity, in fulness of meaning, and in range of power is second only to the claims of the religious life. No doubt patriotism, like all other human affections or operations, has its dangers; but he knows nothing of the deep life of man nor of the history of nations who does not see that in patriotism there is a force at work which has contributed some of the richest elements to the moral and spiritual elevation of the human race. It is in the name of patriotism that men give themselves to the service of their country, unselfishly, willingly; it is in the name of patriotism that they are willing to die that the nation may live.

7. It has been a defect in many students of political science that they have considered the State too much as if it grew in isolation, functioned in isolation as to the interests of its own people, then suddenly found itself confronted with other States. No wonder it has seemed to such students as if the primary relation of one State to another, thus conceived as exclusive of each other in origin, organization, and growth, must be one of friction.

People seem to think that nations must have grown up saying of each other only this, "We are natural enemies because we are different States.' There are signs already that the World War will compel many scholars to revise their whole manner of thinking at this point. As a matter of fact, modern nations are born, and grow, and die in a community of nations. Even the United States sprang from another nation, and grew in the colonial period to a measure of power and self-consciousness in relation with the aborigines of this country and the nations of Europe from which the colonists had come. For nearly a hundred years some statesmen have tried, always in vain, to maintain the life of the United States in isolation from the lives of other countries. But the efforts of the Government in this direction have been continuously counteracted by the whole life of the people. Immigration and travel, commerce and culture, religion and art, have all combined their forces to keep America in the family of nations and to develop her life in continuous contact with the life of foreign peoples.

As there is no such thing as a mere individual man, so there is no such thing as a mere individual State. Hence there always has been a wide range of conduct in which nations have dealt with one another, and a less wide range of conduct in which their governments have formally acted in relation to each other. These relations are much more

than those which can be covered by such words as "alliance" and "war." Treaties have been formed and honorably observed, whose breach could never have led to war. The observance of such treaties has rested upon the fact that there are moral relations which bind States together as individuals are bound together, and that a sense of honor can be kindled in the heart of one nation in its dealings with another. The laws of honesty and even of generosity obtain in the international field, as in the field of private business and individual life. Instinctively all people have realized that the State as an expression of the moral unity of a nation must act in the name of the character of that nation. If the nation is composed of men of honor, the State will act with honor. If the nation is composed of people who seek to convey blessings of education and religion to each other, the State will be impelled to think of other nations in terms of a like benevolence. The nation that has created foreign missions will gradually inspire its government with the will to lift up dependent races, over whom it has in the course of history obtained control. America reflects the religious spirit and morality of her people by her dealings with the people of the Philippine Islands. It was a great missionary who first moved the Government of India to establish a system of education for the people of that land. And it was the develop

ment of the love of constitutional government and of individual freedom in Great Britain which made that people the leaders of the world in the sublime task of lifting up primitive races by the very methods of their government and the spirit of their national dealings with them.

There is, then, a morality of nations, of which the prescriptions of international law are but imperfect expressions, just as the statute laws of any people are but a partial reflection of the total moral consciousness and behavior of the individuals who compose it.

8. Reference already has been made to the divergent forms which the State has assumed at different periods of history, and in different parts of the world at any one period. Today the varieties of state organization have made it exceedingly difficult to say exactly what the limitations of nationality actually are. The national con

sciousness itself assumes various forms and is realized in varying degrees of intensity, according to the range of relationship in which each community stands towards the rest of the world. Thus before 1871 each portion of the German Empire existed as a separate State, and yet people spoke of the German nation, though there was no State embracing all the German peoples. Switzerland is a nation which comprises a number of self-governing cantons differing in race, language, and religion,