ABSTRACT
The German socialists only united for political action in 1875; their union was cursed by Karl Marx as a betrayal of principle. The effect of humanitarian feeling can be studied in projects less grand than those of a federation of European states in the cause of universal peace. Universal peace might seem impossible of realisation; but if wars were to be fought, they might be fought humanely, and without the brutalities of the wars of religion in Germany. The consolidation of the territories of the Powers made the right of passage less important; the careful indifference of the United States to the quarrels of Europe introduced an ever-present neutrality of great maritime importance. The view that the peasantry of the continental states were able to pronounce any useful judgment upon high political questions might well seem absurd at a time when the greater proportion of the inhabitants of Europe were illiterate.
