them. If we are led astray by princes or demagogues our loyalty to them is only a pretension, compelled by fear.

The theory of Hobbes that warfare is the natural state of man is far from proved.1 The argument for racial and national loyalties is more reasonable. We may well believe that blood is thicker than water; but to-day unanimity is a stronger bond than consanguinity, and it frequently happens that people on opposite sides of a border are drawn into closer intimacies by mutual interests and purposes than unlike people in the same country. In the matter of personal habits and characteristics, we emphasise to-day the influence of environment above heredity. Much the same thing is true as to national and racial inheritance. It is far less important than social environment and moral ideals. The time may come when we will be ready to say "the world is my country, to do good is my religion," but that time has not come yet, and forced growth often means premature death.

1 See The Forks of the Road, by Washington Gladden. 2 Alfred Russel Wallace, Letters and Reminiscences.

CHAPTER XVII

SOULS IN REVOLT

THE fifth article in the creed of force says that Might Makes Right; in a word, Materialism. War is universal sabotage. As far back as the record of human history goes, one group seems to have taken a malicious delight in throwing its wooden boot into the machinery of another group. Slowly it dawned upon the intelligences of men that all this was very stupid, that it was, in fact, social suicide. Men looked about them and saw that individual advance was dependent upon personal will. They observed that so long as they believed in the omnipotence of Nature they were bound to worship her might and crouch in abject fear. Just as soon as their wills awoke to consciousness they began to conquer and control the forces of environment and to remake the world to suit their fancy. It did not demand any considerable skill in reasoning to infer from this that social progress also must wait upon the integration of the social will.

It was seen that society would go ahead faster

if it could catch a ride. And so it was that institutions were invented the vehicles of progress. The earliest form of social co-operation, the first state, was no doubt a clumsy and rickety affair. But the state has not remained static. The business of reformers has been to improve the model of the vehicle year after year, age after age. Revolutionists, losing their temper, have tried to smash the car of progress, while, on the other hand, impatient idealists have talked and acted as if they thought progress ought to be a joy-ride to Elysium. Again and again these vehicles have broken down, or their engines have gone dead, with the result that instead of helping us along they have blocked the traffic and hindered advance. This, in brief, is the history of the State, the Church, and the School.

Is government a necessary evil and is that gov ernment therefore best which governs least? Perhaps this is still a moot question. We may have our choice of several theories. We may, if we prefer, believe in philosophical anarchy, which is the notion that an ideal society would be a voluntary association of absolutely independent individuals. This idea, reductio ad absurdum, means that the best possible government would be no government

at all. Or, we may go all the way to the other extreme, and believe that society is more important than any individual, and that therefore we should forget ourselves and work always for the greatest good of the greatest number, symbolised in the State. A corollary of this proposition is the axiom that the seat of authority is a sovereign State. Or, again, we may not go to either extreme, but may put our faith in practical democracy, in government of, by, and for the people, to the end that Freedom, with Responsibility, may be denied to none. This is the doctrine of democracy and implies the fundamental principle of politics, which is compromise. The first and most important article in the creed of democracy is the belief that the pearl of great price is personality, and that the state, or government, is merely a means to an end, which end is the enhancement of all individuals by co-operative enterprise. This must be what Edmund Burke meant when he called government a partnership.

Florence Nightingale used to say that hospitals should not spread disease and make people sick. It is equally true that governments should not spread misery and make people unhappy. The perversion of government is privilege. It is now

and always has been. That is why progress has been so painfully retarded. Governments have been used by designing individuals or cliques to satisfy the lust for personal power and the greed for private gain. But how can one know that government is perverted unless one first knows the true purpose and proper function of government? What is government for? One answer is that given by Treitschke when he says, "The State must have the most emphatic will that can be imagined.. The State is the most extremely real person, in the literal sense of the word, that exists.. We cannot imagine the Roman State humane, or encouraging Art and Science. . . . The State would no longer be what it has been and is, did it not stand visibly girt about with armed might. . . . The State is, above all, Power." 1 If this is the accepted notion of what constitutes and characterises a true State, then certain consequences follow and one of them is almost sure to be war. One who spake not as the scribes said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath; that the individual is greater than any institution. This is as true in respect

to government, and the instruments of government, 1 Politics, Vol. I, pp. 17, 18, 22, 23.