The ultimate interpretation of these spiritual realities must be found in a spiritual background, although it may be freely admitted that economic facts and economic motives furnish the environment, the conditions, in which these possessions and experiences of man’s spirit are realized. To the possession of such a scientific spirit, however, economic historians can make no prior or exclusive claim. Economic history leaves to the moral philosopher, to the political historian, the deeper question as to the ultimate justification for war, and deals only with the economic consequences. That, after the Revolution of 1688, a permanent debt for war purposes became in England, as it had been in Holland and Genoa, a leading factor of economic development, is a commonplace of history. These spiritual activities of man are the ends in themselves for which politics and economics ought to supply the means.