Mr. Angell's main point is that the advantages customarily associated with national independence and security have no existence outside the popular imagination.... He holds that Englishmen would be equally happy if they were under German rule, and that Germans would be equally happy if they were under English rule. It is irrational, therefore, to take any measures for perpetuating the existing European order, since only a sentimentalist can set any value on its maintenance.... Probably in private life Mr. Angell is less consistent and less inclined to preach the burglar's gospel that to the wise man _meum_ and _tuum_ are but two names for the same thing. If he is anxious to make converts, he will do well to apply his reasoning to subjects that come nearer home, and convince the average man that marriage and private property are as much illusions as patriotism. If sentiment is to be banished from politics, it cannot reasonably be retained in morals. As the reply to this somewhat extraordinary criticism is directly germane to what it is important to make clear, I may, perhaps, be excused for reproducing my letter to the _Spectator_, which was in part as follows: How far the foregoing is a correct description of the scope and character of the book under review may be gathered from the following statement of fact. My pamphlet does _not_ attack the sentiment of patriotism (unless a criticism of the duellist's conception of dignity be considered as such); it simply does not deal with it, as being outside the limits of the main thesis. I do _not_ hold, and there is not one line to which your reviewer can point as justifying such a conclusion, that Englishmen would be equally happy if they were under German rule. I do not conclude that it is irrational to take measures for perpetuating the existing European order. I do _not_ "expose the folly of self-defence in nations." I do _not_ object to spending money on armaments at this juncture. On the contrary, I am particularly emphatic in declaring that while the present philosophy is what it is, we are bound to maintain our relative position with other Powers. I admit that so long as there is danger, as I believe there is, from German aggression, we must arm. I do _not_ preach a burglar's gospel, that _meum_ and _tuum_ are the same thing, and the whole tendency of my book is the exact reverse: it is to show that the burglar's gospel--which is the gospel of statecraft as it now stands--is no longer possible among nations, and that the difference between _meum_ and _tuum_ must necessarily, as society gains in complication, be given a stricter observance than it has ever heretofore been given in history. I do _not_ urge that sentiment should be banished from politics, if by