We forgot our nursery-rime, I say. Some of us had no intention of actually letting Humpty Dumpty fall to pieces, and all of us thought we could put him together again according to our own plan and in a way that would suit us. But when we entered the fray idealistic principles and formulæ became weapons and not goals. Before November 11, 1918, we used our principles solely to break down the morale of our enemies; and since the defeat of Germany instead of making peace we have continued to juggle with our ideals as we did in war-time. So the world is still actually at war. The treaties forced upon the vanquished enemies have not been taken seriously. One of them has already come up for drastic revision and the others are not being fully enforced. In justification of their unwillingness to apply in making peace the principles they had solemnly pledged themselves to use as the basis of the treaties, Entente statesmen had no grounds for claiming either (a) that the American President and his nation, late comers in the war, wrongly interpreted and formulated the Entente war aims, or (b) that the fulfilment of their promises was contingent upon American coöperation. Self-determination, the resurrection of subject nations, the rectification of frontiers to satisfy irredentist aspirations, may have been doctrines promulgated in a small measure as a gallery appeal to public opinion at home and abroad; but the main reason was to break down the internal military unity of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. These doctrines were not inspired by President Wilson or other American ideologues, nor were they proclaimed with the idea that the United States would help to carry them out. It was not intended that they should be carried out. But the new forces set loose were too strong to control. Peoples all over the world clamored for rights and privileges that it was the purpose to grant only to peoples that had been subject to the vanquished powers. To this cause of confusion, unrest, conspiracy, and open rebellion, were added the falling out of the victors over the spoils of war and the determination of France and some of the smaller nations to apply the law of retaliation to their now defenseless oppressors. These are the three reasons why Europe since 1918 has not found peace. The League of Nations is impotent, with or without the United States as a member, to restore Europe to peace until the three Furies--Vanity, Greed, and Revenge--cease raging.