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 partial. At its best it gave us in the international system only an organized disunion, an ameliorated anarchy; at its worst it tended towards a sort of Chinese isolation. The impulse to expansion, on the other hand, has saved Europe from the stagnancy of isolation; it has brought the civilization she has evolved by a long process of self-discipline within the reach of humanity at large, and has broadened her own horizon till it includes the world in its sweep. This impulse, indeed, has had a certain affinity to the Roman Imperialism of conquest, which, if unchecked, would have led us back to Roman despotism. Yet in their several ways both the expansive impulse and the movement of national enfranchisement have been leading us to a larger atmosphere; both have been preparing our minds for the reception of a broader ideal; both have been clearing the ground for a reconstruction of society on ampler lines than any that were possible in the past. By drawing all classes into a share in the life or the civilized State on the one hand, and drawing all races and countries into the orbit of civilization on the other, they have, at all events, given to the problem of reconstruction a universal statement, and provided us with the broadest foundations for the edifice which future generations will erect. The State is no longer the organ of a privileged few, still less of an intrusive alien element. The system of States is no longer merely European, but cosmopolitan; the field of diplomacy has now become as wide as the world, and problems have acquired a world-wide range and significance.

VII. Now let us try if we can discover in existing political conditions any germs of the new and more comprehensive order, any faint suggestions of the larger ideal of the future. We see a world practically divided between a few great States—the six so-called great Powers of Europe, the American Republic, and Japan, the Asiatic