ABSTRACT
The ancient race-hatreds of the Balkan nations are at the bottom of the present war, as of many an older one. Differences of religion and material interests still further intensify the hatreds which are natural to the various races, for they are strong enough to create violent antipathies even between men of the same country. The mentality of a race helps to decide its political system, or at all events that which it is willing to accept. The German conscience is a collective conscience ruled by the State, while that of the Englishman or American is an individual conscience which surrenders only a very small part of itself to the collectivity. The future political basis of Europe will be a very difficult matter to settle, because the nationalities at present united under one and the same monarchy are so extremely unlike that, as soon as they have separated into their component parts, they will indubitably end by fighting one another.
