conquest becomes a morally objectionable encroachent, a national sin. But by that time the aboveentioned condition-the desire of the population to reunited with their old fatherland-will presumably a rule have ceased to exist.

What here in many cases renders the moral verdict difficult, is that so much can be adduced politically r the rights of both parties. One side fights to heal d compensate an old amputation and to collect the tional elements under that common form of Statevernment which will best promote their developent; the other fights to retain the position of power nich it has secured, and to protect itself against a eakening which would perhaps hinder it in its civilising ission. Both parties may be subjectively convinced of eir political and moral right. But, if we believe at in a moral system of the world, we must concede at, from an objective point of view, only one of the arties can have the moral right on his side. Nor must e difficulty of deciding where this right lies lead us to making the bankrupt declaration that the moral ght must be left for arms to decide. A conflict may be avoidable; but the moral right is in any case entirely dependent of its result. The contrary assertion-that Le conqueror proves his right by the victory itself partly supported as it is by a misconception of the w of natural selection, is nothing more nor less than rbarism, club-law, raising its head again.

I may mention another case in which the position om an ethical standpoint may often be uncertain, viz. colonial policy, and the attitude to be adopted towards civilised peoples. But it would take too much space enter upon these difficult questions. And, whatever swer be given to them, it may safely be asserted at the subjection of other nations which are practically the same level of civilisation, or the misappropriation occupation, by force or threats, of territories belonging them, will hardly bear trial by such a tribunal, but 1st be condemned as a national sin.

Of course the aggressive and conquering State will vays adduce reasons for its action which may appear ite plausible. At one time, the pretext will be insults ich in the name of national honour and prestige

cannot be left unavenged. At another, it will be pointed out that threatening armaments or alliances make necessary preventive measures which may lead to war. In the abstract, it is possible that aggressive steps, leading to occupation and conquest, can be defended on these and similar grounds. So long as States, in their disputes with one another, are subject to no international coercive authority, with unquestioned power of decision the State which is offended or threatened in its interests may be compelled to assert its own rights against or to punish, a State which refuses to yield to milder measures. But such an assertion of rights by a stronge State against a weaker will always be reprehensibl from the point of view of strict justice, and wil as a rule illustrate only too well the fable of the wol and the lamb. Furthermore, even though we have a yet no international coercive authority, still we hav come a fair distance on the way to international lega decision and adjustment of disputes. A State whic really desires nothing except to obtain its clear righ will in our day seldom be reduced to the necessity of violent action. And a State with a sound and awakene moral consciousness, which seriously desires only t promote right and equity and to defend its own posses sions, would hardly ever adopt aggressive measures wit a view to obtaining these things.

Thus we find that the line of thought, which defend the right of expansion and conquest by the stronger & the expense of the weaker, does not rest satisfied wit apologetics of the above-mentioned, more externa character. It probes deeper, and goes, if you will, mor brutally to work, in that it extols the policy of expansion and conquest as such, when adopted by the great State the highly organised people. It designates extension o power at the expense of others as a legitimate, indee natural and necessary, outcome of such a people's vitalit and need for development, and as an indispensabl means to promote its world-historic civilisatory mission or else it holds the alleged stagnation or decline of othe nations to be a sufficient reason why such nations mus give place to a more vigorous State. Then, on th foundation, there is constructed an argument for th

necessity of war-including also wars of conquest-as & stage in the evolution of human society. Speaking figuratively, war is considered as a means to suit the garment to the growing body, or-leaving metaphorto correct the disproportion which has arisen in the course of time between the boundaries of a State and its real condition of power.

This latter argument belongs, however, more to the world of hoary theory than of reality. In other words, do not believe that the wholly unbiassed historian can point to a single instance where such a disproportion as justified a stronger State in attacking a weaker eighbour-State. And this reasoning steadily loses its pplicability, according as the boundaries of States cease o form impassable barriers for human enterprise, and as mankind discovers other means than war for solving he conflict of interests between States.

With regard more especially to the strong emphasis vhich is laid upon the large State's need of selfxpansion and its civilising mission, in preference to thers', such reasoning involves the peculiar and susicious-circumstance that its ability to bring convicion, when applied to a concrete case, does not as a ule extend very far beyond the limits of the conquering State in question. It will not win many adherents Futside that people which employs it as a cloak for its wn lust for power and its egotistical efforts to acquire he greatest possible advantages at the expense of thers. Outside that people, it is much more likely that uch pretensions will be rejected with the strongest rotests. First and foremost, of course, it will be rejected y the State-society which is directly injured by the ccupation or conquest, and which will consider its own ight of self-expansion to be just as inviolable, and its wn civilising mission to be just as important, as that f the conquering State. But this defence of the ight of conquest will also be rejected by all impartial pectators, who will not be able to see why the one ivilised nation should claim a greater right to expand r to set the stamp of its national culture on the world, han is possessed by others.

These spectators will therefore regard every attempt -o elbow a way in the world at other people's expense

as a violation of the great fundamental laws of morality, which apply to all the domains of human intercourse, to States as well as to individuals. Nor will they be impressed, in such a case, by the circumstance that one State is greater and stronger than the other. For they know that the small State-societies, such as the Jewish and the Greek, have been to the full as indispensable for the development of culture as the large ones. And they know that the right to live one's own national life, unimpeded by aggression from without, rests upon inner, qualitative essentials, and is independent of any quantitative valuation dependent on size or power.

When looked at more closely, the defence of a policy of conquest built upon the great State's need of selfexpansion and its civilising mission stands revealed as the expression of an egotism and over-estimation of self which is frequently found in other fields of human life. There exists a State- and community-egotism which is as narrow as individual egotism. This is sometimes overlooked, because the two ways in which individual egotism may expand-the organic and the mechanical way, so to speak-are confused. Egotism may expand into family-instinct, tribe-instinct, patriotism and universal sympathy, through an organic process of transformation in the direction of altruism. But it may also expand mechanically when two or more combine in the endeavour to appropriate to themselves common advantages, or when members of a family, a tribe or a nation support each other mutually in competition with others for power and wealth. Fellowship in a struggle inherently selfish does not make egotism less egotistical or the heart less narrow.

Bound up with this community-egotism is also an over-estimation of self. This latter is also, in the case of the community, of essentially the same sort as the over-estimation of self which occurs in the individual. The 'Superstate' views its need of expansion, its right to rule, its civilising mission, its right to set aside the ethical laws which apply for others, in the same light as that in which the 'Superman' sees his supposed unique position. Who does not know the typical politician with his mixture of unselfish desire to serve his country and his personal ambition? He also may

sily come to look at his political mission, and conseent right to rule, through a magnifying glass. If he es morally dubious methods to win the favour of the ectors or to injure his opponents, he will appease his nscience by urging the necessity of winning that osition of power which will enable him to do his untry the greatest service.

The difference between the position of a Superman ad a Superstate, in such a case, is simply that the rmer is easier to see through than the latter. Human mprehension has reached a higher stage in the region individual than in that of State morality. Where the dividual man is concerned, every one with an awakened oral sense feels that it is not permissible to do wrong en to serve a good cause, and that no good is thereby ined in the long run. Jesuit morality is out of date. at conscience is not yet equally awakened in regard to tional sins, partly because the very conception of the ate's responsibility is so vague, partly because the nse of responsibility in the nation is weakened through ing distributed among so many, partly, in fine, because triotic feelings, which in themselves are noble, interre with the verdict upon the foreign policy of one's untry, and by suggestion render the great majority ther unable to see what is unjust and aggressive and shonourable in that policy, or cause them to cover up I this by representations regarding the higher necessity, e Superstate's civilising mission, its rightful need of pansion, and so forth.

On the whole I suppose it cannot be denied that the olution of the morality of States in international tercourse still lags far behind the evolution of invidual morality. The evolution of morality moves in is respect parallel to the evolution of law, just as w on the whole crystallises to a large extent out of orality; and the two categories stand in deep inner lation and interaction. As regards law, the line of olution passes from national law, regulating the interurse of individuals, to international law, regulating e intercourse of States. And the growing recognition the great fundamentals of morality as valid for the tercourse of mankind follows the same line.

But should we not by this time have reached the