as long as there is no success in bringing about a change of moral attitude on the part of the classes concerned. But by degrees obsolete moral positions are undermined by all kinds of influences, then they are abandoned and higher positions are adopted in their stead. [Sidenote: Importance of pacificism.] 21. It is here that the importance and value of the modern pacificist movement emerge with clearness. Wide circles are caught by this movement, even the governments of all countries are no longer able to hold aloof from its influence, and its opponents too can no longer fight it with nothing but scorn and ridicule. Whoever is a believer in the unlimited progress of civilization will also believe that a time must come when all states will freely bind themselves to submit all disputes to judicial or arbitral decision. General disarmament will not hasten the dawn of this day, for it can only arrive through the deepening of the public sentiment with reference to international relations. General disarmament will not make wars to cease, but the ceasing of war will bring about general disarmament! As already said, not to-day nor to-morrow will this time come; we stand now only at the very beginning of the developments that make for the realization of this ideal. It cannot come to pass unless and until international society develops an organization of a kind ever tending to perfect itself. [Sidenote: Impossible for the family of nations to organize itself on the model of the state.] 22. How then must and will this organization take shape? The proposals which hitherto have been made for the organization of the world are freaks of fancy. Of notable value as indications of idealistic speculation in the midst of an adverse world, they crumble into dust immediately they are soberly scrutinized. All proposals which aim at the organization of international society after the pattern of the organization of the state--whether a unitary state or a federal state, or a system of confederated states--are either impracticable or do not meet the needs of the case. Every organization of the community of states must take as its starting-point the full sovereignty and the absolute equality of states, and must preserve these characters intact. There can, therefore, be no talk of a political central authority standing above individual states; and so the organization in question must be _sui generis_ and cannot frame itself on the model of state organization. [Sidenote: Impossible to draft a plan for the complete organization of the family of nations.]