23. It is, however, impossible to draft at the present time the plan of such a complete organization in its details or even in mere outline. The growth and final shaping of the international organization will go hand in hand with the progress of the law of nations. Now the progress of the law of nations is conditioned by the growth of the international community in mental strength, and this growth in mental strength in its turn is conditioned by the growth in strength and in bulk, the broadening and the deepening, of private and public international interests, and of private and public morale. In the nature of the case this progress can mature only very slowly. We have here to do with a process of development lasting over many generations and probably throughout centuries, the end of which no man can foresee. It is enough for us to have the beginning of the development before our eyes and, so far as our strength and insight extend, to have the opportunity of trying to give it its appropriate aim and direction. More we cannot do. Much, if not all, depends on whether the _international_ interests of individual states become stronger than their _national_ interests, for no state puts its hand to the task of international organization save when, and so far as, its international interests urge it more or less irresistibly so to do. [Sidenote: The Permanent Court of Arbitration the nucleus of the future organization of the family of nations.] 24. I said, we have the beginning of the development before our eyes. It consists in the erection of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, and in the permanent Bureau attached thereto. Here we have an institution belonging not to the individual contracting states but to the international society of states in contrast to the individual members, and it is open to the use of all the individual members. If the Declaration of London be ratified, and if (which scarcely admits of doubt) it be adopted by all the states which were not represented at the Conference of London, then the International Prize Court, which was decided on at the second Hague Conference, will become a fact. This Court will also become an organ of the international community. Mention must also be made of the so-called international bureaux of the so-called international unions, which have come into existence in the period beginning with 1874; for some at least of them will develop into organs of international society, although they so far are only organs of the respective special international unions. [Sidenote: The Hague Peace Conferences as organs of the family of nations.]