e shown to be absolutely ineffective.

It is sometimes assumed that every war represents an infringement of
rights, and that not only the highest expression of civilization, but
also the true welfare of every nation, is involved in the fullest
assertion of these rights, and proposals are made from time to time on
this basis to settle the disputes which arise between the various
countries by Arbitration Courts, and so to render war impossible. The
politician who, without side-interests in these proposals, honestly
believes in their practicability must be amazingly short-sighted.

Two questions in this connection are at once suggested: On what right is
the finding of this Arbitration Court based? and what sanctions insure
that the parties will accept this finding?

To the first question the answer is that such a right does not, and
cannot, exist. The conception of right is twofold. It signifies,
firstly, the consciousness of right, the living feeling of what is right
and good; secondly, the right laid down by society and the State, either
written or sanctioned by tradition. In its first meaning it is an
indefinite, purely personal conception; in its second meaning it is
variable and capable of development. The right determined by law is only
an attempt to secure a right in itself. In this sense right is the
system of social aims secured by compulsion. It is therefore impossible
that a written law should meet all the special points of a particular
case. The application of the legal right must always be qualified in
order to correspond more or less to the idea of justice. A certain
freedom in deciding on the particular case must be conceded to the
administration of justice. The established law, within a given and
restricted circle of ideas, is only occasionally absolutely just.

The conception of this right is still more obscured by the complex
nature of the consciousness of right and wrong. A quite different
consciousness of right and wrong develops in individuals, whether
persons or peoples, and this consciousness finds its expression in most
varied forms, and lives in the heart of the people by the side of, and
frequently in opposition to, the established law. In Christian countries
murder is a grave crime; amongst a people where blood-vengeance is a
sacred duty it can be regarded as a moral act, and its neglect as a
crime. It is impossible to reconcile such different conceptions of
right.

There is yet another caus