The modern world makes distracting claims upon us. Shall we go with our family and class, or break away in pursuit of a larger humanitarian ideal? Is it better to “mind our own business” and go in for technical excellence, or to try for culture? Shall we follow the morals of our church or those of our profession? Shall we be national patriots or international socialists? There is no way out but to strive for a synthesis of these ideas in an organic whole, in some supreme and inclusive allegiance, perhaps in some conception of a God to whom one may look for leadership above the divisions of nation, race, and sect. So long as we are conscious only of our country, our family, our class, or our business, we may make a kind of god of that, but conflicting ideals force us to seek a larger unity. In the heat of war we may be all one flame of patriotism; but after a while the rest of life asserts itself, and we ask what we are fighting for, demanding that it be something for the good of all mankind. CHAPTER XXIII SOCIAL CONTROL IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS RECENT GROWTH IN ORGANIZATION; COMMUNICATION, NATIONALISM—DEMOCRACY, DIFFUSION OF ORGANIZING CAPACITY—LESSONS OF THE WAR—WILL NATIONS BEHAVE LIKE PERSONS?—NATIONS AS MEMBERS OF A GROUP ARE SOCIAL AND MAY BECOME MORAL—NATIONAL HONOR IN THE PAST—AN ORGANIC INTERNATIONAL LIFE—ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS OF SUCH A LIFE; FORCE What ground have we for hoping that a society of nations has become possible in our time, when all previous history shows failure to attain it? Mankind has always cherished this aspiration, and if it is at last to be realized, there must be some general change in conditions, making practicable what has heretofore been merely visionary. I wish, therefore, to recall certain developments in the social situation which have taken place during the past century and seem to me to justify our belief that the problem of international order may be not far from solution. They are in the nature of a general growth in that organization of human life of which international order is but one phase. I may note first that there has been a revolutionary change in the social mechanism. The means of communication have been transformed, enlarging and animating social relations and making possible, so far as mechanism is concerned, any degree or kind of unity that we may be able to achieve. In this respect alone we have a new world since the failure of Prince Metternich’s scheme of pacification after the Napoleonic Wars.