circle, therefore, of the Mediterranean world which was enlarged by the
discoveries of the sixteenth century, finds its completion to-day in
new states across the Atlantic, which are on the whole enormously
preponderant on the side of peace, and wish to hold their own in Western
civilization by force of wealth and industry, and not by arms. To us,
too, it is clear, and will be one day to the Germanic Powers, that the
British Empire, the largest political aggregate on the globe, is
essentially a league of free peoples, under no compulsion from the
centre, but responsive to attack upon their power or liberty by any
third party, strong from their general contentment with the conditions
and institutions of their life, and not through any systematic
regulations imposed from above. Even India and other protected states
and dominions, though not yet self-governing, are moving steadily in the
direction of responsibility and of willing association with the British
Empire or Commonwealth as a whole.

Such is the much vaster community of nations which has succeeded to the
Western Europe of the sixteenth century; and no mention has been made of
the place of Russia or the countries still further east. The picture
does not suggest a welter of conflicting passions and ambition
throughout the world. On the whole a mass of men and women labouring
with fair contentment at their daily task, not concerned that their
state or nation should extend its boundaries, least of all that it
should provoke attack; little conscious of the historic debt of nations
to one another, but wishing well to others except when they cross the
path of a personal desire; gaining rapidly more sense of actual
community among living men, but hardly realizing yet how man's power has
been built up in the past and how infinitely it might be advanced and
the world improved by harmony and steadily directed efforts in the
future. That the sense of brotherhood has gained ground in the world,