ABSTRACT
Raison D’État is the fundamental principle of national conduct, the State’s first Law of Motion. It tells the statesman what he must do to preserve the health and strength of the State. The State is an organic structure whose full power can only be maintained by allowing it in some way to continue growing; and raison d’état indicates both the path and the goal for such a growth. This path and this goal cannot be chosen quite at random; but neither can exactly the same ones be prescribed for all States. For the State is also an individual structure with its own characteristic way of life; and the laws general to the species are modified by a particular structural pattern and a particular environment. So the ‘intelligence’ of the State consists in arriving at a proper understanding both of itself and its environment, and afterwards in using this understanding to decide the principles which are to guide its behaviour. These principles are always bound to be at the same time both individual and general, both constant and changeable. They will change subtly as alterations take place in the State itself and in its environment. But they must also tally with what is lasting in the structure of the individual State, as well as with that which is permanent in the laws governing the life of all States. Thus from the realm of what is and what will be, there constantly emerges, through the medium of understanding, a notion of what ought to be and what must be. The statesman must, if he is convinced of the accuracy of his understanding of the situation, act in accordance with it in order to reach his goal. The choice of path to the goal is restricted by the particular nature of the State and its environment. Strictly speaking, only one path to the goal (i.e. the best possible one at the moment) has to be considered at any one time. For each State at each particular moment there exists one ideal course of action, one ideal raison d’état. The statesman in power tries hard to discern this course, and so too does the historian surveying the past in retrospect. Any historical evaluations of national conduct are simply attempts to discover the true raison d’état of the States in question.
