her at Tilsit.  It is true that the Congress of Vienna attempted to revive the old dynastic system.  But for the steady opposition of England, the clique of despots might have reimposed the old yoke upon their subjects.  The settlement of 1815 also left the entire centre of Europe in a state of chaos; and it was only by slow degrees that Italy and Germany attained national unity.  Poland, the Austrian Empire, and the Balkan States still remain in a condition to trouble the peace of the world.  In Austria-Hungary the clash of the dynastic and the nationalist ideas is strident; and every citizen of that empire has to choose between a wider and a narrower allegiance.

Europeans are, in fact, far from having made up their minds as to what is the organic whole towards which patriotic sentiment ought to be directed.  Socialism agrees with despotism in saying, ’It is the political aggregate, the state,’ however much they may differ as to how the state should be administered.  For this reason militarism and state-socialism might at any time come to terms.  They are at one in exaggerating the ‘organic’ unity of a political or geographical enclave; and they are at one in depreciating the value of individual liberty.  Loyalty to ‘the state’ instead of to ‘king and country’ is not an easy or a natural emotion.  The state is a bloodless abstraction, which as a rule only materialises as a drill-sergeant or a tax-collector.  Enthusiasm for it, and not only for what can be got out of it, does not extend much beyond the Fabian Society.  Caesarism has the great advantage of a visible head, as well as of its appeal to very old and strong thought-habits; and accordingly, in any national crisis, loyalty to the War-lord is likely to show unexpected strength, and doctrinaire socialism unexpected weakness.

But devotion to the head of the state in his representative capacity is a different thing from the old feudal loyalty.  It is far more impersonal; the ruler, whether an individual or a council, is reverenced as a non-human and non-moral embodiment of the national power, a sort of Platonic idea of coercive authority.  This kind of loyalty may very easily be carried too far.  In reality, we are members of a great many ‘social organisms,’ each of which has indefeasible claims upon us.  Our family, our circle of acquaintance, our business or profession, our church, our country, the comity of civilised nations, humanity at large, are all social organisms; and some of the chief problems of ethics are concerned with the adjustment of their conflicting claims.  To make any one of these absolute is destructive of morality.  But militarism and socialism deliberately make the state absolute.  In internal affairs this may lead to the ruthless oppression of individuals or whole classes; in external relations it produces wars waged with ‘methods of barbarism.’  The whole idea of the state as an organism, which has been emphasised by social reformers as a theoretical refutation of selfish individualism,