that, in the estimation of all countries-of England no less than of Germany-those qualities of valour and selfsacrifice which are honoured with the name of heroism, and which war demands and elicits, occupy a high rank amongst the recognised moral virtues. How, then, can we reconcile this fact with a repudiation of the doctrine that war, as a means to national power, and as an expression of it, does not justify every act which, whether on the part of the nation as a whole, or of the citizens whose services are invoked by it, may conduce to making the power of such a nation prevail?

The proper answer to this question cannot be comprised within the limits of a single formula, but may in outline be briefly set forth thus. In the first place, the peculiar virtues elicited by the exigencies of war, however exalted may be the place which the moral judgment assigns to them, are in practical life not virtues at all unless they exist in combination with others. Courage is a virtue if exercised to protect a woman from a brigand. It is no virtue as exercised by a brigand in the gratification of his appetites or the perpetration of robbery. We call such a man, not a hero, but a desperado; that is to say, if we take men as concrete beings, their moral characters are not mechanical aggregates of so many separate characteristics, any one of which can be judged on its own merits, but are the joint results of their interaction, just as gunpowder is a compound which has qualities different from those of any one of its constituent parts. Now all action, says Aristotle, is necessarily a means to some end. Thus the labour of boat-building has for its end a boat. A boat, however, is not an end in itself. It is but an implement for transporting goods or passengers. Indeed, of all the ends at which human action aims, one only is final; and this, whatever may be its nature, is what men mean by ' happiness.'

But between the intermediate ends and the final end there is one radical difference. The former are definite, and can only be achieved by action which aims directly at their achievement. The latter is indefinite, and eludes direct endeavour; but when, in respect of the proximate ends of action, all the moral faculties harmoniously work together, the final end is reached by not directly seeking

it, and happiness emerges as a by-product, 'like the bloom on the cheek of health.' The case of the virtues which are developed by the translation of patriotism into Power is analogous. It is impossible that States shall in the long run continue to exist unless they have Power at the back of them; and Power is the logical end of those moral virtues and moral actions which make for Power, just as happiness is the logical end of individual action generally. But these particular actions, if they are to possess the quality of virtues, must not aim at Power considered directly and in isolation. Modified by, and in co-operation with others, they must aim at some end of which Power is only one ingredient, and which is not in its totality recognisable as mere brute power at all. Only by not thus aiming at it, but by aiming at something else, will such actions by any State, or on behalf of it, represent Power in any civilised or tolerable form, or acquire that moral character which the apostles of Power claim for them, and which distinguishes heroism and its kindred virtues from barbarism.

In view of the fact that Treitschke regarded Aristotle as the greatest political thinker that the world has ever known, this statement of the case in terms of Aristotelian logic is particularly pertinent here; for it enables us by contrast to realise the futility of Treitschke's own attempts to associate the exercise of mere brute power by a nation with subjection to the moral imperative of some supernational principle. The logic of Aristotle deals with composite facts. In relation to supernational morality, the logic of Treitschke deals with mere abstractions; and these abstractions are absolutely inconsistent with the principles on which his entire reasoning as to concrete facts is based. As we have seen already, in his very definition of a State, he sets out with declaring that no State can exist, unless it is one State co-existing with, and therefore distinct from, others. A 'World-State embracing all Humanity' would, according to him, not be a State at all. But, when he attempts to elaborate some conception of a supreme authority which shall regulate and moralise the conduct of one State towards another, the nearest approach he can make to it is a moral World-State, which, if it is not a 'World-State,' is nothing; and which, as he explicitly says, is an authority Vol. 226.-No. 448.

only for the reason that 'all humanity is embraced by it,' and must for that very reason be lacking in that exclusiveness which he himself describes as essential to a State's existence. The only way in which, even metaphorically, such a moral World-State could be said to exist would be as a symbol of certain views with regard to national conduct, in which, as foregone conclusions, all States actually agree. But how could an authority which represents nothing but permanent agreements settle quarrels which arise out of conduct with regard to which States differ, and which are the only questions demanding any settlement at all? In whatever way we look at the matter, Treitschke's arguments with regard to national or supernational ethics are arguments in the air, and they are also arguments in a circle.

But, in condemning both his doctrines-his doctrine of Power as shown to be intolerable by its consequences, and his doctrine of a supernational morality as empty of any power to mitigate them-we must recognise that their mutual antagonism is not due wholly to the fact that both are incorrectly stated by him. However they may be reconstructed, there will always remain an antagonism between the two which cannot be completely harmonised. The practical reason has its antinomies no less than transcendental reason. Evolution, if careful of the type,' is careless of the individual. There are paradoxes inherent in human nature itself. This was recognised by Paul, who, in exalting chastity as a virtue, admitted that its universal practice would leave nobody alive to practise it. And here, again, we are brought back to Aristotle, whose philosophy in this respect was the secular counterpart of Paul's. With regard to morality, as applicable to mankind at large, the principle Aristotle formulates is the principle which Paul suggests. It is this-that for mankind at large every practicable virtue is a compromise. It is a mean, or a point which lies somewhere between two extremes, and which, like the apex of a triangle, is at the same time above them. And he bases this principle, not on any appeal to an imaginary moral World-State in the clouds, but on the common experience and the instinctive judgment of mankind. Thus true temperance is recognised by all men when they see it, as a mean between the profligacy

which sacrifices all to pleasure, and the grotesque asceticism of the cynic, who rejects the luxury of a house, and makes his home in a barrel. Everybody recognises the ideal virtue of bravery as a mean between the temper of the bully and that of the cringing coward, who in order to avoid a blow is willing to do anything. And here we have a standard which is applicable to nations or States no less than to individuals. A nation which has no power to use, or is too invertebrate to use what power it has, will decay through its own impotence, and merits no other fate. A State which regards the mere possession of power as justifying any act which mere power is able to perpetrate, is a State which, in the interest of civilisation, deserves to have its power destroyed.

Such, if we except the case of Germany as it is to-day, has always been implicitly the opinion of the whole civilised world; and the fact that the Germans themselves have sought to deny many of the atrocious acts of power' ascribed to them, and have expended so much ingenuity in an attempted justification of others, is a sign that even in Germany itself this opinion is not extinct. This fact points the way to one reasonable hope at all events. It has here been observed already that, in the case of Treitschke personally, the philosophy of Power, which gradually increased in ferocity as he himself matured it, was an expression of the concurrent development of German Power as a fact; and that the same thing holds good of the German people in adopting it. German militarism is not the result of this philosophy, but the philosophy is the expression of the accomplished fact of militarism, and of the inordinate ambitions which a consciousness of mere military power has engendered. Whatever may be the immediate consequence of the present struggle otherwise, it may be hoped that by imposing on that Power a consciousness of its own limitations, it may by degrees restore the German people to a philosophy and a temper more consonant with the practical demands of civilisation, and more worthy of their own traditions.

M.

Art. 11.-CONGRESS AND THE WAR.

Congressional Record. Sixty-Fourth Congress, First Session. Vol. LIII, Nos 1 to 86. Government Printing Bureau, Washington, D. C., 1916.

ONLY by a plebiscite could it be determined how the men and women of the United States stand on the war. Small hazard, however, would be incurred in making the statement that ninety or ninety-five per cent. of those who are of American stock, and of English or Scottish ancestry, are whole-hearted in their sympathy with the Allies. Despite this fact it cannot be said that the official reports of proceedings in Congress on questions raised directly or indirectly by the war are pleasant reading for sympathisers with the Allies. In the first part of the first session of the Sixty-Fourth Congressin the period from Dec. 6, 1915, to the end of March 1916 -the questions arising out of the war that had come before the Senate and the House of Representatives were the proposed embargo on the export of munitions, the British blockade, the censorship of mails exercised by the British Government, and Germany's threat of Feb. 10, 1916, that she would treat all armed enemy merchantmen as war vessels, and torpedo them without warning. In the discussion of these questions there were singularly few expressions of sympathy with the Allies; and, as was obvious in the discussions and divisions on the Gore and McLemore resolutions, there were, in both the Senate and the House, large groups of members who readily associated themselves with a movement which, had it succeeded, would unmistakably have been to the advantage of Germany in her submarine warfare, and with two or three other movements that, whatever may have been the domestic reasons for their origin, would greatly have hampered the Allies in equipping their forces, and hindered Great Britain in the blockade of Germany.

President Wilson's neutrality proclamation of Aug. 20, 1914, sufficiently explains the fewness and the guarded character of expressions of sympathy with the Allies in the Senate and the House. The President, it will be recalled, urged that the citizens of the United States, 'drawn from many nations, and chiefly from the nations