and social progress in the world, and it would have been the ideal policy for them to give a united lead to the rest of the world.  The war has altered that, but it cannot abolish the fundamental facts on which the civilization of the West is based, science, power over nature, and social organization.  In these the same three countries will still have a certain primacy, though the position of the United States will be enormously strengthened.  No peace can, of course, be permanent which contemplates the excommunication of a leading member of the human family.

Italy in science, philosophy, and literature, is a worthy colleague, and Russia makes a great stride forward by allying herself with the forces of progress and European unity.

Now it is clear that there are two distinct lines of approach to our goal of a united mankind.  We may cultivate for ourselves, as an ideal based on love and reason, the notion of all men as brothers working together, helping one another even when unknown, strengthening one another’s powers, and gradually advancing towards a higher goal.  This, though not a complete religion for most people, at least partakes of the nature of religion.  The other line is concerned with the practical task of reconciling actual difficulties, bringing nations together for various purposes—­arbitration, international trade, boards of conciliation and the like.  This is the slow and thorny path, and on account of its very difficulty is apt to engross the thoughts and energy of the best brains which devote themselves to the cause.  But the first line, of self-cultivation and the promotion of a favourable spirit among others, though open to any one and easy of approach, is apt to be neglected.  Such ‘mere idealism’, like pure benevolence, runs some risk of being choked by the multiplicity of details and agencies and organizations which beset the modern world.  Humanity, as an idea, was perhaps more easily apprehended in the days of Turgot and Condorcet than it is with us when the implements of a united mankind have been immeasurably augmented and improved.  All the greater, then, the need to re-integrate the notion.  Just as in science the dispersive effect of specialism has led many thinkers to desire another order of minds specially devoted to generalism, to knitting together the results of the detailed investigations of others, so in conduct, morals and politics, it is more and more imperative to recall men’s minds, and, in the first place, our own, to the large governing ideas by which after all our lesser rules and objects must stand or fall.  For who will dispute that all our alliances and international action and the war itself can only be ultimately justified if they are seen to serve the highest interests of mankind as a whole?