ity of
states must take as its starting-point the full sovereignty and the
absolute equality of states, and must preserve these characters intact.
There can, therefore, be no talk of a political central authority
standing above individual states; and so the organization in question
must be _sui generis_ and cannot frame itself on the model of state
organization.

[Sidenote: Impossible to draft a plan for the complete organization of
the family of nations.]

23. It is, however, impossible to draft at the present time the plan of
such a complete organization in its details or even in mere outline. The
growth and final shaping of the international organization will go hand
in hand with the progress of the law of nations. Now the progress of the
law of nations is conditioned by the growth of the international
community in mental strength, and this growth in mental strength in its
turn is conditioned by the growth in strength and in bulk, the
broadening and the deepening, of private and public international
interests, and of private and public morale. In the nature of the case
this progress can mature only very slowly. We have here to do with a
process of development lasting over many generations and probably
throughout centuries, the end of which no man can foresee. It is enough
for us to have the beginning of the development before our eyes and, so
far as our strength and insight extend, to have the opportunity of
trying to give it its appropriate aim and direction. More we cannot do.
Much, if not all, depends on whether the _international_ interests of
individual states become stronger than their _national_ interests, for
no state puts its hand to the task of international organization save
when, and so far as, its international interests urge it more or less
irresistibly so to do.

[Sidenote: The Permanent Court of Arbitration the nucleus of the future
organization of the family of nations.]

24. I said, we have the beginning of the development before our eyes. It
consists in the erection of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The
Hague, and in the permanent Bureau attached thereto. Here we have an
institution belonging not to the individual contracting states but to
the international society of states in contrast to the individual
members, and it is open to the use of all the individual members. If the
Declaration of London be ratified, and if (which scarcely admits of
doubt) it be adopted by all the states w