stance has been so conquered by the telegraph, the railway, and the
steamboat, that in fact the annual assembly of a world-parliament would
be no impossibility, and in any case a world-government, wherever its
seat might be, would be able to secure almost immediate obedience to its
behests in the uttermost parts of the earth. There is, indeed, only a
quantitative and not a qualitative difference between a command issued
by the British government in London to the remotest part of India or
Africa, and such a command as, in a federal state comprising the whole
world, would issue to the remotest part of the earth from the central
government. Moreover, the ever-increasing international intercourse and
its results--the expression 'internationalism', to denote this, is found
to-day in all languages--has brought the populations of the various
states so near to one another, and has so closely interwoven their
interests, that on this ground also the theoretical possibility of
erecting and maintaining a world-state of the federal type cannot be
denied. But its theoretical and physical possibility prove absolutely
nothing as regards its utility and desirability. In spite of all my
sympathy with the efforts of my idealistic pacificist friends, it is my
firm conviction that the world-state is in no form practically useful or
desirable, for it would bring death instead of life. So far as we can
foresee, the development of mankind is inseparably bound up with the
national development of the different peoples and states. In these
conditions variety brings life, but unity brings death. Just as the
freedom and competition of individuals is needed for the healthy
progress of mankind, so also is the independence and rivalry of the
various nations. A people that is split up into different states may
attain its national development better in a federal state than in a
unitary state, and smaller nations and fragments of nations may (let us
admit) develop better when combined into one state which has grown up
historically out of several nationalities, than each would do in a state
of its own, but the rule nevertheless remains, that strong nations can
develop successfully only in an entirely independent and self-supported
state of their own.

[Sidenote: The world-state would not exclude war.]

19. Further, it is by no means sure that war would necessarily disappear
from a world-state. The example of the duel is instructive here.
Although forbi