Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/247

 of striving after it;—to maintain the Balance of Power when it is in danger of being disturbed by another; and, in secret, for power that it may eventually disturb it itself.

This is the natural and necessary course of things, whether it be confessed or not,—whether it be even recognised or not. That a State, even when taken on the very point of warfare, should solemnly assert its love of peace and its aversion to conquest, is nothing;—for, in the first place, it must make this averment and so hide its real intention if it would succeed in its design; and the well-known principle, ‘Threaten war that thou mayest have peace,’ may also be inverted in this way—‘Promise peace that thou mayest begin war with advantage;’—and, in the second place, it may be wholly in earnest with this assurance at the time, so far as it knows itself: but let the favourable opportunity for aggrandizement present itself and the previous good resolution is forgotten. And thus, in the ceaseless struggles of the Christian Republic do weak States gradually raise themselves first to an equality, and then to a superiority, of power; while others which before had boldly strode onwards to Universal Monarchy, now contend only for the maintenance of the Balance of Power; and a third class, who perhaps have formerly occupied both of these positions, and still remain free and independent with respect to their internal affairs, have yet, in their external relations, and as regards their political power in Europe, become mere appendages to other and more powerful States. And so, by means of these vicissitudes, Nature strives after, and maintains, an equilibrium, through the very struggles of men for superiority.

A less powerful State, simply because it is less powerful, cannot extend itself by foreign conquest. How then shall it attain any considerable importance within this necessary limitation? There is no other means possible but the cultivation of internal strength. Should it not even acquire a single foot of new ground, yet if its ancient soil