It has been urged already that it is erroneous to regard force as the essence of the State ; but it has been conceded that the possession of force is one of its essential features. That that force is to be used for the support of its life, and of all that is valuable within that life, is obvious enough. What is not obvious is, that it m ay legitimately

1 9 3 be used for this purpose in contravention of every other obligation. It m ay be conceded that circumstances are conceivable in which the object in view would be of such supreme importance as almost to override every other consideration. If we could conceive a country with so high and unique a civilization that it would be to the obvious advantage of the world to have it universally imposed, and if it were clear that it could be imposed b y force, it might be difficult to point to any obstacle that should be allowed to stand in its way. Some peoples in the past would appear to have been animated b y such a conviction. In ancient times, the Jews seem to have thought that any amount of violence against neighbouring peoples was justified b y the supreme value of their religion and its associated customs. The Mohammedans appear to have had a somewhat similar persuasion ; and, indeed, a belief of this kind would seem to be implied in almost all wars that have a distinctively religious character. The Romans, again, based their claims-not altogether without reason-on the excellence of their government and their system of laws, and conceived that, on these grounds, regere imperio populos could be taken as their legitimate mission. Alexander the Great probably believed that he was spreading what was best of the civilization of Greece among the barbarians ; and Napoleon may have set out with the object of establishing the humane principles of the French Revolution. Many modern nations have felt themselves entitled to take up what has been called “ the white man's burden.” Now, it is certainly arguable that, if the ends thus aimed at could have been successfully achieved b y violence, and could not have been achieved in any other way, almost any amount of violence might have been justified b y the achievement of some of them. In like manner, if any individual were so much wiser and better than all the other people in the world that it would be for the general advantage that he should become their absolute ruler, one might pardon almost any device that he might adopt to attain that position. But to argue in this w ay is to

ignore the actual conditions of human life. It would be rather absurd, in any age, to suppose that any one nation or any one man has so great a superiority over others as to justify so extreme a measure ; and, the more the world advances in its general civilization, the more absurd does such an attitude become. In the modern world at least, the civilization of any one country and the excellence of any one individual are in evitably shared with others, to a very large extent, without the use of violence. When their advantages become apparent, our means of communication carry them rapidly from one to another; and, in some cases at least, they are only too readily appropriated. Sometimes, no doubt, their adoption is resisted b y vested interests and b y the power of selfish individuals or classes, and against these some force m ay have to be applied; but the application of such force would be limited b y the nature of the purpose in view. It would not be a force that " knows no law.” Finer manners, for instance, can hardly be promoted b y methods that are brutal. In a world in which peoples mix so freely and may understand one another so readily, it seems clear that any nation that seeks to impose its civilization on others, without restraint or scruple, cannot be regarded as benefactor, but rather as the enemy of the human race, even if it be true (of which, at any rate, it can hardly be entitled to be the sole judge) that its civilization is, on the whole, superior to that of others. Indeed, a claim of this kind is in pretty manifest contradiction to the general principle from which it sets out-viz. that every state has the right to maintain and defend its own civilization. It may, of course, be admitted that there are circumstances in which a state may lose this right, through some failure to fulfil the corresponding obligations. If its government were so flagrantly unjust that it could not properly be regarded as a state at all, it can hardly be denied that other states would have the right to interfere and, if necessary, to apply force for the restoration of order; and it must be confessed that the precise circumstances

in which this becomes legitimate cannot be easily deter­ mined. This is one of the problems of international law to which some reference will be made in the following section.