the conclusion that, certain traditions of theirs notwithstanding, they resemble us more than they differ from us. If this be so, the sooner we take advantage of our present victory by seeking to turn our eyes from the past as far as can be, and to look steadily toward a future in which the misery and sin which that past saw shall be dwelt on to the least extent that is practicable, the better it will be for ourselves as well as for the rest of the world.

That world has been reminded of a great truth which had been partly forgotten by those whose faith lay in militarism. It is that to set up might as the foundation of right may in the end be to inspire those around with a passionate desire to hold such might in check and to overcome it. Democracy is not a system that lends itself easily to scientific preparation for war, but when democratic nations are really aroused their staying power, just because it rests on a true General Will, is without rival. The latent force in humanity which has its foundation in ethical idealism is the greatest of all forces for the vindication of right. German militarism managed to fail to understand this. Let us take pains to show our late enemies that if they make it clear that they have extinguished such militarism in a lasting fashion, the quarrel with them is at an end.

I am far from thinking that we here are perfect in our habits as a nation. We are apt not to keep in view how what we do is likely to look to others. We are somewhat deficient in the faculty of self-examination and self-criticism. Want of clarity of ground-principle in higher ideals is apt to prove a hindrance to more than the individual only. It generally brings with it want of clarity in the sense of social obligation. And this sometimes extends even to our relations to other countries.

It leads to our being misinterpreted as a nation. We have suffered a good deal in the past from having attributed to us motives which were not ours. The reason was the assumption that the apparent absence of definiteness in national purpose must have been designed as a cover for hidden and selfish ends. It is not true. We are indeed very insular, and what has been called the international mind is not common among the people of these islands. But we are kindly at heart, and when we have seemed self-regarding it has been simply because we were not conscious of our own limitations and had not much appreciation of the modes of thought of other people. We have paid the penalty for this defect at periods in our history. At one time France suspected us, I think in the main unjustly. Later on Germany suspected us, I think of a certainty unjustly. Now these things arise in part at least from our reputation for a particular kind of disposition, our supposed habitual and deliberately adopted desire to wait until the particular international situation of the moment should show how we could profit, before we gave any assurance as to the way in which we should act. What has given rise to this misunderstanding of our attitude in our relations to other countries is simply an exemplification of what has prevented us from fully understanding ourselves. It is our gift to be able to apply ourselves in emergencies, at home and abroad, with immense energy, and our success in promptly pulling ourselves together and coping with the unexpected has often suggested to outsiders that we had long ago looked ahead. This has been said of us on the Continent. It is not so. We do not study the art of fishing in troubled waters. The waiting habit in our transactions, domestic as well as foreign, arises from our inveterate preference for thinking in images rather than in concepts. We put off decisions until the whole of the facts can be visualized. This carries with it that we often do not act until it is very late. Our gifts enable us to move with energy, if not always with precision. To predict what we will do in a given case is not easy for a foreigner. It is not easy even for ourselves. We have few abstract principles, and reliable induction from our past is not easy. We are often guided by what Mr. Justice Wendell Holmes has called "the intuition more subtle than any particular major premise." Nor is help to be derived from any study of our general outlook on life, for that outlook is hard to formulate even to ourselves.

Now all this, our peculiar gift, if kept under control, may well have its practical advantage, but, as the case stands, it is apt to bring in its train a good deal of disadvantage. In periods when nations are trying to render firm the basis of peace by remolding and giving precision to their aims, so that these can be made common aims, lack of definiteness in national ideals is a sure source of embarrassment. At a time when democracy is more and more claiming in terms to occupy the whole field it becomes increasingly desirable that the higher purposes of democracy should become clear to the people themselves. For the practise of a country can never be wholly divorced from its theory of life. The tendencies of the national will are bound up with the nation's science, with its literature, with its art, and with its religion. These tendencies are affected by the capacity of the nation to understand and express its own soul. Beyond science, literature, art and religion there lies something that may be called the national philosophy, a disposition rather than a definite creed. This sort of philosophy is different in France from what it is in Germany, and in Germany from what it is in the English-speaking countries. The philosophy of a people takes shape in the attitude its leaders adopt in their estimation of values and of the order in which they should be placed. And this turns on the conceptions and ideas which are current in the various departments of mental activity. It is thus that a philosophy of life has to be given some sort of place in his professions even by the statesman who has to address Parliament and the public. He is driven to make speeches in which a good many conceptions and ideas have to be brought together. And it gives rise to a great difference of quality in such utterances if the general outlook of the speaker be a large one. But this requires that he should know himself and be aware of the conceptions and ideas which dominate his mind, and should have examined their scope before employing them.

How some of those who were deeply responsible for the conduct of affairs tried to think in the anxious years before the war, and how they endeavored to apply their conclusions, is what I have endeavored to state in the course of what follows. They doubtless made mistakes and fell short of accomplishment in what they were aiming at. It is human so to do. But they tried what seemed to them the wisest course, and I have yet to learn that it was practicable to have followed any different course without a failure worse than any that occurred. After all, in the end the British Empire won, however hard it had to fight.

DIPLOMACY BEFORE THE WAR

CHAPTER IIToC

DIPLOMACY BEFORE THE WAR

If in this chapter I speak frequently in the first person and of my own part in the negotiations which it records, it is not from any