The upshot of all this recital of considerations appears to be that a neutral peace compact may, or it may not, be practicable in the absence of such dynastic States as Germany and Japan; whereas it has no chance in the presence of these enterprising national establishments. No one will be readier or more voluble in exclaiming against the falsity of such a discrimination as is here attempted, between the democratic and the dynastic nations of the modern world, than the spokesmen of these dynastic Powers. No one is more outspoken in professions of universal peace and catholic amity than these same spokesmen of the dynastic Powers; and nowhere is there more urgent need of such professions. Official and "inspired" professions are, of course, to be overlooked; at least, so charity would dictate. But there have, in the historic present, been many professions of this character made also by credible spokesmen of the German, and perhaps of the Japanese, people, and in all sincerity. By way of parenthesis it should be said that this is not intended to apply to expressions of conviction and intention that have come out of Germany these two years past (December 1916). Without questioning the credibility of these witnesses that have borne witness to the pacific and genial quality of national sentiment in the German people, it will yet be in place to recall the run of facts in the national life of Germany in this historical present and the position of these spokesmen in the German community. * * * * * The German nation is of a peculiar composition in respect of its social structure. So far as bears on the question in hand, it is made up of three distinctive constituent factors, or perhaps rather categories or conditions of men. The populace is of course the main category, and in the last resort always the main and decisive factor. Next in point of consequence as well as of numbers and initiative is the personnel of the control,--the ruling class, the administration, the official community, the hierarchy of civil and political servants, or whatever designation may best suit; the category comprises that pyramidal superstructure of privilege and control whereof the sovereign is the apex, and in whom, under any dynastic rule, is in effect vested the usufruct of the populace. These two classes or conditions of men, the one of which orders and the other obeys, make up the working structure of the nation, and they also between them embody the national life and carry forward the national work and aim. Intermediate between them, or rather beside them and overlapping the commissure, is a third category whose life articulates loosely with both the others at the same time that it still runs along in a semi-detached way. This slighter but more visible, and particularly more audible, category is made up of the "Intellectuals," as a late, and perhaps vulgar, designation would name them.