THE WARS with which we are concerned in the present study are those which had their beginning with the American wars of Independence and in Europe with those of the French Revolution, after-wars followed by the Napoleonic campaigns. From that time up to the present—a period of more than a century and a half—all the wars waged by states and peoples called civilized, though differing from one another by reason of military technic, by reason of political and moral motives, by reason of extent and importance, have had certain characteristics in common, which from the sociological point of view enable us to group them together. For that reason, we call them all modern wars.

TO MAKE a fresh start, let us ask about the meaning of pleasure as a criterion of preference. Precisely what does the student mean when he says that he prefers A to B because A pleases and B displeases, or because A pleases him more than B?

The student may be somewhat bewildered by this question, for he has already told us that such judgments as “A pleases me more than B” are equivalent to saying “I like A more than B.” In fact, he confesses, much of the discussion we have had so far has seemed to him to consist in making verbal substitutions of this sort. We started out by admitting that the fact of preference was equivalent to the judgment of “A-better-than-B-for-me” and that in turn became equivalent to two other forms of statement: “A pleases me more than B” and “I like A more than B.” What has been gained by saying the same thing over and over again in different words? Pleasure and displeasure, it would seem, do not explain the fact of preference; far from explaining it, the fact of being pleased (or displeased) seems to be identical with the fact of preferring (or not preferring).

One thing the student says is false, but one thing is true. The falsity arises from his failure to remember that something was gained by introducing the notion of pleasure into our discussion.

The development of nationalism during the past century and a half is increasingly recognized as one of the major phenomena calling for careful study by historians. To comprehend all the implications of this growth, the interrelations of the political, cultural and, in particular, linguistic forms of nationalism must be investigated. This is especially necessary in the case of separatist movements—the efforts of subject peoples to achieve political independence. The motives and aims of cultural and political nationalism are not always identical. The two may exist together or apart; they may develop coevally or one may precede the other. In parts of Switzerland and to some extent in Wales, cultural and linguistic distinctness and homogeneity endure without political separation. When separatist forces, both political and cultural, develop coincidentally, the question arises as to the relative strength of the two factors. In the case of the modern Irish state, now scarcely twenty years old, a common culture existed long before political statehood established itself. It was partly because of the reëmphasis early in this century upon Ireland's ancient civilization, a civilization which included a different language, that sympathy for her political aspirations was aroused. Ireland's consciousness of her Gaelic past, her golden age, survived six centuries of assault when she was deprived of political power. In the knowledge of distinctive speech of her own, in the remembrance of cultural preeminence during Europe's Dark Ages, and in the possession of tangible relics, the Irish people kept alive their sense of unity after repeated rebellions failed.

MOST MEN are content to believe that politics deals with the practical problems of the administration of the state. But the term can have a greater and wider significance. It can also mean, as it meant for Aristotle, the whole character of men's life in society. In the past as well as in the present, poets and novelists of every country have often devoted themselves not merely to the good of their art but directly and especially, in varying degrees, to the problem of the good of the state and of society. In an older England, for example, William Langland, Skelton, Dryden, Samuel Butler, Shelley, and William Morris, to mention only a few, have struck into political themes and preoccupations; and today the problem, from manifold aspects, of the relation of the individual to society has not been ignored by T. S. Eliot, J. M. Murry, C. Day Lewis, Stephen Spender, and even Mrs. Virginia Woolf, among others. And the “reform” of an afflicted twentieth-century America has engaged talents and humors as dissimilar as those of, say, Sinclair Lewis, John Dos Passos, Hart Crane, and Maxwell Anderson. The seriousness of such people no one would question, although the agitations of a few, particularly in periods of crisis, for a specific good polity or a specific good economy sometimes interferes gravely with what should be their chief end: good art.