ty of nations, the difficulty that is of the danger of the power of
an individual or a group? They have met it by determining that no
individual or group shall exercise physical power or predominance over
others; that the community alone shall be predominant. How has that
predominance been secured? By determining that any one member attacked
shall be opposed by the whole weight of the community, (exercised, say,
through the policeman.) If A flies at B's throat in the street with the
evident intention of throttling him to death, the community, if it is
efficient, immediately comes to the support of B.

And you will note this: that it does not allow force to be used for the
settlement of differences by anybody. The community does not use force
as such at all; it merely cancels the force of units and determines that
nobody shall use it. It eliminates force. And it thus cancels the power
of the units to use it against other units (other than as a part of the
community) by standing ready at all times to reduce the power of any one
unit to futility. If A says that B began it, the community does not say,
"Oh, in that case you may continue to use your force; finish him off."
It says, on the contrary, "Then we'll see that B does not use his force;
we'll restrain him, we won't have either of you using force. We'll
cancel it and suppress it wherever it rears its head." For there is this
paradox at the basis of all civilized intercourse: force between men has
but one use--to see that force settles no difference between them.

And this has taken place because men--individually--have decided that
the advantage of the security of each from aggression outweighs the
advantage which each has in the possible exercise of aggression. When
nations have come to the same decision--and not a moment before--they
will protect themselves from aggression in precisely the same way--by
agreeing between them that they will cancel by their collective power
the force of any one member exercised against another.

I emphasize the fact that you must get this recognition of common
interest in a given action before you can get the common action. We have
managed it in the relations between individuals because, the numbers
being so much greater than in the case of nations, individual dissent
goes for less. The policeman, the judge, the jailer have behind them a
larger number relatively to individual exceptions than is the case with
nations. For the existence