If I have convinced the reader of this he will, I think, feel no difficulty in following me to a further conclusion. Since the causes of this war, and of all wars, lie so deep in the whole international system, they cannot be permanently removed by the "punishment" or the "crushing" or any other drastic treatment of any Power, let that Power be as guilty as you please. Whatever be the issue of this war, one thing is certain: it will bring no lasting peace to Europe unless it brings a radical change both in the spirit and in the organization of international politics. What that change must be may be deduced from the foregoing discussion of the causes of the war. The war arose from the rivalry of States in the pursuit of power and wealth. This is universally admitted. Whatever be the diversities of opinion that prevail in the different countries concerned, nobody pretends that the war arose out of any need of civilization, out of any generous impulse or noble ambition. It arose, according to the popular view in England, solely and exclusively out of the ambition of Germany to seize territory and power. It arose, according to the popular German view, out of the ambition of England to attack and destroy the rising power and wealth of Germany. Thus to each set of belligerents the war appears as one forced upon them by sheer wickedness, and from neither point of view has it any kind of moral justification. These views, it is true, are both too simple for the facts. But the account given in the preceding pages, imperfect as it is, shows clearly, what further knowledge will only make more explicit, that the war proceeded out of rivalry for empire between all the Great Powers in every part of the world. The contention between France and Germany for the control of Morocco, the contention between Russia and Austria for the control of the Balkans, the contention between Germany and the other Powers for the control of Turkey--these were the causes of the war. And this contention for control is prompted at once by the desire for power and the desire for wealth. In practice the two motives are found conjoined. But to different minds they appeal in different proportions. There is such a thing as the love of power for its own sake. It is known in individuals, and it is known in States, and it is the most disastrous, if not the most evil, of the human passions. The modern German philosophy of the State turns almost exclusively upon this idea; and here, as elsewhere, by giving to a passion an intellectual form, the Germans have magnified its force and enhanced its monstrosity. But the passion itself is not peculiar to Germans, nor is it only they to whom it is and has been a motive of State. Power has been the fetish of kings and emperors from the beginning of political history, and it remains to be seen whether it will not continue to inspire democracies. The passion for empire ruined the Athenian democracy, no less than the Spartan or the Venetian oligarchy,