insinuated into the legislation of any
civilized nation if the popular intelligence were not so clouded with
patriotic animosity as to let a prospective detriment to their foreign
neighbors count as a gain to themselves.

So that the chief material use of the patriotic bent in modern
populations, therefore, appears to be its use to a limited class of
persons engaged in foreign trade, or in business that comes in
competition with foreign industry. It serves their private gain by
lending effectual countenance to such restraint of international trade
as would not be tolerated within the national domain. In so doing it has
also the secondary and more sinister effect of dividing the nations on
lines of rivalry and setting up irreconcilable claims and ambitions, of
no material value but of far-reaching effect in the way of provocation
to further international estrangement and eventual breach of the peace.

How all this falls in with the schemes of militant statesmen, and
further reacts on the freedom and personal fortunes of the common man,
is an extensive and intricate topic, though not an obscure one; and it
has already been spoken of above, perhaps as fully as need be.

CHAPTER III

ON THE CONDITIONS OF A LASTING PEACE

The considerations set out in earlier chapters have made it appear that
the patriotic spirit of modern peoples is the abiding source of
contention among nations. Except for their patriotism a breach of the
peace among modern peoples could not well be had. So much will doubtless
be assented to as a matter of course. It is also a commonplace of
current aphoristic wisdom that both parties to a warlike adventure in
modern times stand to lose, materially; whatever nominal--that is to say
political--gains may be made by one or the other. It has also appeared
from these considerations recited in earlier passages that this
patriotic spirit prevails throughout, among all civilised peoples, and
that it pervades one nation about as ubiquitously as another. Nor is
there much evidence of a weakening of this sinister proclivity with the
passage of time or the continued advance in the arts of life. The only
civilized nations that can be counted on as habitually peaceable are
those who are so feeble or are so placed as to be cut off from hope of
gain through contention. Vainglorious arrogance may run at a higher
tension among the more backward and boorish nations; but it is not
evident that the advance guard