And herein appears the difference between the point of view taken in this chapter and the political doctrine of the eminent Swiss publicist Bluntschli. He too recognizes the development of the national character as the aim of the state; and in so far as he does this he is in advance of writers who limit the state’s functions to the protection of life and property, to defense against foreign aggression, promotion of prosperity, and of power and prestige. Bluntschli has the insight to perceive that a nation is a collective entity, having a certain defined character, and the development of the distinctive national gifts is in his eyes the supreme purpose of national life, the political organization of the state being a means to this end. But he falls into a grave error by identifying the empirical with the spiritual character of the nation, and setting up the former as an end worthy on its own account. The empirical character of a collective entity is in this respect no more worthy of honor, and no more fit to be a ground of obligation, than the empirical character of the individual. And the conclusions at which Bluntschli arrives are a sufficient proof of the ethical inadequacy of his vision. Some nations, a very few he thinks, possess political capacity, and they are to rule other peoples. Here we have the “White Man’s Burden”—an obvious violation of the ethical principle of national independence. Further, the world state, which is to include all nations, is to concern itself only with their common interests. Bluntschli thus accepts the uniformity principle in ethics, excluding the idea of the reaction of differences which is of the very essence of the ethical relation; while the ideal future as he sees it is that of nations coexisting peacefully side by side, competing peacefully with each other, and doubtless borrowing from one another the best fruits produced by each. But it is idle to expect peaceful coexistence so long as the strong exist by the side of the weak without there being acknowledged an _intrinsic_ spiritual tie between them; and competition between peoples will result, like competition between individuals, in strife and exploitation; while the mere borrowing by each of the fruits produced by the rest omits the vital point, upon which I lay the greatest stress, of the eliciting of the fruits in each by the spiritualizing influence of the rest.