The present cannot be understood if we do not keep in mind the past, the immediate past at least. Not that the present necessarily should be a continuation of the past, the result of a natural evolution the origin of which is to be found in the immediate past. The present can be a sort of reaction against the past. Qualis pater, talis filius does not apply to nations, it does not even apply always to father and son.

Take the present state of things in Europe. Democracy is either dead or questioned in most of the Continental nations; yet President Wilson wanted to “make the world safe for democracy.” After-war statesmen felt the acute need for an international economic organization; yet economic nationalism is rampant everywhere; Herr Hitler last month uttered a speech in which he announces his determination of making Germany an entirely self-supporting country. Article 8 of the Covenant of the League of Nations reads as follows: “The Members of the League recognize that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations”; yet competition in armaments is active throughout Europe, including Great Britain.

Has the Great War been fought in vain? Have we done away with autocrats, emperors and kings, only to throw ourselves into the arms of dictators? Have we improved in so notable a way all means of transport, making the earth smaller and smaller, in order eventually to pen up all nations within the narrow limits of a sort of economic wall of China?