Yet the truth here indicated is perpetually being disregarded, particularly by those who pique themselves on being 'practical.' In the choice of risks by men of the world and realist statesmen the choice which inevitably leads to destruction is for ever being made on grounds of safety; the choice which leads at least in the direction of security is for ever being rejected on the grounds of its danger. Why is this? The choice is instinctive assuredly; it is not the result of 'hard-headed calculation' though it often professes to be. We speak of it as the 'protective' instinct. But it is a protective instinct which obviously destroys us. I am suggesting here that, at the bottom of the choice in favour of the Balance of Power or preponderance as a political method, is neither the desire for safety nor the desire to place 'might behind right,' but the desire for domination, the instinct of self-assertion, the anti-social wish to be judge in our own case; and further, that the way out of the difficulty is to discipline this instinct by a better social tradition. To do that we must discredit the old tradition--create a different feeling about it; to which end it is indispensable to face frankly the nature of its moral origins; to look its motives in the face.[68] It is extremely suggestive in this connection that the 'realist' politician, the 'hard-headed practical man,' disdainful of Sunday School standards,' in his defence of national necessity, is quite ready to be contemptuous of national safety and interest when these latter point plainly to a policy of international agreement as against domination. Agreement is then rejected as pusillanimous, and consideration for national interest as placing 'pocket before patriotism.' We are then reminded, even by the most realist of nationalists, that nations live for higher things than 'profit' or even safety. 'Internationalism,' says Colonel Roosevelt, 'inevitably emasculates its sincere votaries,' and 'every civilisation worth calling such' must be based 'on a spirit of intense nationalism.' For Colonel Roosevelt or General Wood in America as for Mr Kipling, or Mr Chesterton, or Mr Churchill, or Lord Northciffe, or Mr Bottomley, and a vast host of poets, professors, editors, historians, bishops, publicists of all sorts in England and France, 'Internationalist' and 'Pacifist' are akin to political atheist. A moral consideration now replaces the 'realist.' The metamorphosis is only intelligible on the assumption here suggested that both explanations or justifications are a rationalisation of the impulse to power and domination.