III. The demand for a proper organisation of the Community of States had, up to the outbreak of the World War, been raised exclusively on the part of the so-called Pacifists in order to make the abolition of war a possibility. It is a common assertion on the part of the Pacifists that War cannot die out so long as there is no Central Political Authority in existence above the several States which could compel them to bring their disputes before an International Court and also compel them to carry out the judgments of such a Court. For this reason many Pacifists aim at such an organisation of the Community of States as would bring all the civilised States of the world within the bonds of a federation. They demand a World Federation of all the civilised States, or at any rate a federation of the States of Europe, on the model of the United States of America. If such a Federal World State were practically possible, there would be no objection to it, although International Law as such would cease to exist and be replaced by the Constitutional Law of this Federal World State. But in my first lecture I pointed out that such a Federal World State is practically impossible. And it is not even desirable. The development of mankind would seem in the main to be indissolubly connected with the national development of the peoples. Most peoples possessing a strong national consciousness desire an independent State in which they can live according to their own ideals. They want to be their own masters, and not to be part and parcel of a Federal World State to which they would have to surrender a great part of their independence. Moreover--as I likewise pointed out in my first lecture (pp. 18-20)--it would be impossible to establish a strong Government and a strong Parliament in a Federal World State. However this may be, it is not at all certain that war would altogether disappear in a Federal World State. The history of Federal States teaches that wars do occasionally break out between their member States. Think of the war between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant member States of the Swiss Confederation in 1847, of the war in 1863 between the Northern and the Southern member States within the Federation which is called the United States of America, and of the war between Prussia and Austria within the German Confederation in 1866. IV. But what kind of organisation of the League of Nations is possible if we reject the idea of a Federal State?