Page:Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations (1919).djvu/213

 interests, and that all division arises from an antagonism of interests. Reason would ask: Why leave so much, and so much that is vital, to mere chance and to the unceasing hazard of things that in themselves are most trivial? Reason would say: When there is a society there must needs be a compulsory power to order and regulate the movements of its members; without this power thus applied the community of interests and all reciprocal compacts can have no stability; and we are thrust back on a state of contradictions, uncertainties, insecurity, unlaw, and war. Let no one make the grave error of a false hope where so much is at stake: let no one imagine that this state of violence will pass away from the sheer force of things and without calling in the aid of art and of political thought which must guide that art. 'The system of Europe has precisely that degree of stability which suffices to maintain it in perpetual agitation without entirely overthrowing it; and if the evils we have thus to endure cannot be augmented, still less should we look forward to an end being put to them by any great revolution.'

Howsoever the existing balance of power in Europe has come about—whether from geographical necessity and thus by nature, or by art—we have to reckon with it, and to recognize that it is self-existing, self-supporting, for do we not see that when it is disturbed in one part it gives way only to re-establish itself forthwith in another? Princes who have been charged with aiming at universal monarchy have shown therein, if the charge is well-founded, more ambition than genius. A moment's reflection shows how absurd is the project. No European potentate can hope to vanquish the rest of the Powers of Europe in their existing state of development, military, economic, and political, and with the facilities they possess for co-operation against the ambitions of the aggressor; nor can we imagine a combination of great Powers sufficiently