But, without returning to the Middle Ages, two men of the nineteenth century, Cattaneo and Mazzini, prove that Italian thought led, and that the other nations followed the furrow we were the first to plough. This war may be divided into two periods: the first, from the outbreak of hostilities to the American intervention; the second, from the American intervention up to to-day. In the first, the war has a national and territorial character. The names of Metz, Trento, Fiume and Zara occur frequently, and can be said to sum up our aims. The territorial questions come first. The systemised jurisdiction of the world is not yet spoken of; the war is world-wide in its direct and indirect repercussion in as far as England has already made use of her colonies, since Australians and Indians came to fight in Europe, but it is not yet world-wide in its extension and aims. The second period began with the April of ’17. Already, in the first period, English politicians had begun to disregard the territorial problems; but this process was shaped, hurried on and definitely settled by the intervention of America. But in my modest opinion, the national and territorial questions must not be underrated too much; that would be to play into the hands of the anti-war agitators and the Germans. These are questions of justice. It is a good thing to remember that Wilson, in all his messages, though he certainly made a transposition of values, never failed to establish that vindication of national rights, without which the settlement of Europe and the world of to-morrow in general could have no definite meaning. When we speak of a League of Nations we must take into account certain dispositions. Cesare Lombroso used to divide men into two categories: the “misoneists” and the “philoneists”: the misoneists, who accept the revealed truths, lean upon them and sleep upon them; the philoneists, who are restless, impatient spirits and as necessary to the world as the wheels and shafts to a cart. For the first the so-called kingdom of the impossible has always extensive boundaries, but the war has enormously reduced that kingdom. That which yesterday was a misty, fantastic Utopia, to-day has become reality and fact. Our enemies talk too much about the League of Nations. There are furious “Wilsonites” of the latest kind in Austria and in Germany. Now I must say that seeing this kind of people bleating like lambs makes a certain impression on me. (The simile is that of a Republican German paper printed at Berne.) They are the same who burnt the cities of Belgium, who sank ships without leaving a trace, or gave orders to that effect; they are the same who carried off men and women in their retreat. They shout “League of Nations,” but we cannot be mixed up with them. There is evidently an underlying motive. But they will be unmasked by the victorious armies of the Entente.