These things should not be taken as prophecy, but as possibilities for tempering the opinion that Germany is destined to be permanently autocratic. The advocate of an enduring peace has a right to think a self-governing Germany well within the bounds of possibility before another decade has elapsed. If such a thing happens, certainly one of the most serious obstacles to peace will have been removed. I shall venture to put one more argument into the mouth of the advocate of peace. Probably he has not used it as I am going to use it, but it works his way; for it shows that a tremendous fate threatens, unless some coöperative movement is established to avert it. Stated briefly it is this: Through the ages runs a law of unification in society, and it seems probable that the world has today come to the point at which the unifying force is likely to take a long stride forward, a force which may operate in one of two directions. I mean that with the next century unification seems imminent by conquest, if not by common consent. It is not easy to say that the process of concentration in human society is a law in the sense in which there is law in natural science. But there is a general social tendency, seemingly irrepressible, operating steadily from the beginning of history, for the political units to be larger and ever larger. If this tendency is not a law it is an extremely strong force; and we may well ask if it is not about to take one of its great steps forward. A glance at the past will show how the process has gone on. In ancient times diminutive states were absorbed by larger but still very small states, which in turn were welded into so-called confederacies, or leagues, which at last became integrated states. The concentration went forward in cycles, one empire rising in power until it ruled most of its known world, and then it broke into pieces through its lack of cohesive power. Thus it was with Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Whenever the bubble burst the process of unification began again immediately, and on a larger scale. After the fall of Rome it was again set in motion in an area that included most of Europe, the unifying hand belonging to Charlemagne, king of the Franks. His personal valor won the triumph of his will, but his empire fell away soon after he relaxed his hold upon it.