Among the multiple factors which have entered into the great sweeping tendency just mentioned are one or two which stand out as most likely to have immediate effect on the breakdown of a purely psychological hostility embodied by merely State divisions. One is that lessening of the reciprocal sentiment of collective responsibility which the complex heterogeneity of the modern State involves. What do I mean by this sense of collective responsibility? To the Chinese Boxer all Europeans are "foreign devils"; between Germans, English, Russians, there is little distinction, just as to the black in Africa there is little differentiation between the various white races. Even the yokel in England talks of "them foreigners." If a Chinese Boxer is injured by a Frenchman, he kills a German, and feels himself avenged--they are all "foreign devils." When an African tribe suffers from the depredations of a Belgian trader, the next white man who comes into its territory, whether he happens to be an Englishman or a Frenchman, loses his life; the tribesmen also feel themselves avenged. But if the Chinese Boxer had our clear conception of the different European nations, he would feel no psychological satisfaction in killing a German because a Frenchman had injured him. There must be in the Boxer's mind some collective responsibility as between the two Europeans, or in the negro's mind between the two white men, in order to obtain this psychological satisfaction. If that collective responsibility does not exist, the hostility to the second white man, in each case, is not even raised. Now, our international hostilities are largely based on the notion of a collective responsibility in each of the various States against which our hostility is directed, which does not, in fact, exist. There is at the present moment great ill-feeling in England against "the German." Now, "the German" is a non-existent abstraction. Englishmen are angry with the German because he is building warships, conceivably directed against them; but a great many Germans are as much opposed to that increase of armament as are the English, and the desire of the yokel to "have a go at them Germans" depends absolutely upon a confusion just as great as--indeed, greater than--that which exists in the mind of the Boxer, who cannot differentiate between the various European peoples. Mr. Blatchford commenced that series of articles which has done so much to accentuate this ill-feeling with this phrase: Germany is deliberately preparing to destroy the British Empire; and later in the articles he added: Britain is disunited; Germany is homogeneous. We are quarrelling about the Lords' Veto, Home Rule, and a dozen other questions of domestic politics. We have a Little Navy Party, an Anti-Militarist Party; Germany is unanimous upon the question of naval expansion.