sorrow of every
other human being, alive to-day or to be alive to-morrow, as something
like his own. Moreover, in all civilized society, we have gone far
enough to renounce the right to private vengeance and adjustment of
quarrels: we live under established courts of law, with organized civil
force to carry out their judgments. This gives relative peace and
security, and a general, if imperfect, application of the moral law.

V

THE PRESENT STATE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The astounding anomaly of modern civilization is the way we have lagged
behind in applying to groups and nations of men the moral laws,
universally recognized as binding over individuals. For instance, about
twenty years ago we coined and used widely the phrase, "soulless
corporation," to designate our great combinations of capital in industry
and commerce. Why was that phrase used so widely? The answer is
illuminating: we took it for granted that an individual employer would
treat his artisans to some extent as human beings and not merely as
cog-wheels in a productive machine; but we also took it for granted that
an impersonal corporation, where no individual was dominantly
responsible, would regard its artisans merely as pieces of machinery,
with no respect whatever for their humanity.

The supreme paradox, however, is in the relation of nations: it is there
that we have most amazingly lagged behind in applying the moral laws
universally accepted in the relations of individuals. For instance,
long before this War began we heard it proclaimed, even proudly, by
certain philosophers, in more than one nation, that the state is the
supreme spiritual unit, that there is no law higher than its interest,
that the state makes the law and may break it at will. When a great
statesman in Germany, doubtless in a moment of intense anger and
irritation, used the phrase that has gone all across the earth, "_scrap
of paper_," for a sacred treaty between nations, he was only making a
pungent practical application of the philosophy in question.

Do we regard self-preservation as the highest law for the individual?
Distinctly not. Here is a crowded theater and a sudden cry of fire,
with the ensuing panic: if strong men trample down and kill women and
children, in the effort to save their own lives, we regard them with
loathing and contempt. On the other hand, it is just this plea of
national self-preservation that the German regime has used in cyni