ing the foundations of the good life was
neglected. Not only Liberty but Justice and Order were largely in
abeyance and the range of State action which we to-day describe as
'social legislation' was not even dreamed of. Absorbed in theory or
wrapped in ignorance, men forget the practical meaning of Statehood and
its responsibilities. Central Europe languished for centuries, under a
sham Empire, in the unprogressive anarchy of feudalism. 'The feudal
system', it has been said,[65] 'was nothing more nor less than the
attempt of a society which had failed to organize itself as a State, to
make contract do the work of patriotism.' It is the bitter experience
which Germany went through under the anarchy of feudalism and petty
governments, lasting to well within living memory, which by a natural
reaction has led the German people, under Prussian tutelage, to cling to
the conception of the State as Power and nothing more.

The study of politics had to become secular before it could once more
become practical, and, by being practical, ministering to practical
ideals and enlisting practical devotion, become, as it were, sacred
once more. Where the well-being of our fellow men is concerned it is not
enough to be well-meaning. Government is an art, not an aspiration: and
those who are concerned with it, whether as rulers or voters, should
have studied its problems, reflected on its possibilities and
limitations, and fitted themselves to profit by its accumulated
experience.

Since the close of the Middle Ages, when politics became secular, the
art of government has advanced by giant strides. Invention has followed
invention, and experiment experiment, till to-day skilled specialists in
the Old World and the New are at hand to watch and to record the latest
devices for dealing with a hundred difficult special problems--whether
it be the administration of justice or patronage, the organization of
political parties, the fixing of Cabinet responsibility, the
possibilities and limits of federalism, the prevention of war. There
has, indeed, been as great an advance in the political art in the last
four centuries and particularly in the last century, as in the very
kindred art of medicine. The wonderful concentration of energy which the
various belligerent powers have been able to throw into the present war
is at once the best and the most tragic illustration of this truth.
Man's common life in the State is more real, more charged with m