The Nation-State as an ethical idea is, then, a faith or a purpose--we might say a mission, were not the word too narrow and too aggressive. It seems to be less to its inhabitant than the City-state to its citizens; but that is greatly because, as happens with the higher achievements of mind, it includes too much to be readily apprehended. The modern nation is a history and a religion rather than a clear cut idea. Its power as an idea-force is not known till it is tried. How little the outsider, and even members of the community concerned, were able to gauge beforehand the strength of the sentiment and conception that pervaded the United States through the war of secession. [1] The place of the idea of the Nation-State in the whole of ethical ideas may be illustrated by the Greek conception of Happiness, as that organisation of aims, whatever it may be which permits the fullest harmony to life. The State, as such, we saw, is limited to the office of maintaining the external conditions of a good life; but the conditions cannot be conceived without reference to the life for which they exist, and {322} it is true, therefore, to say that the conception of the Nation-State involves at least an outline of the life to which, as a power, it is instrumental. The State, in short, cannot be understood apart from the nation, nor the conditions from the life, although in exerting political force it is important to distinguish them. As an ethical idea, the idea of a purpose, it is essential to hold the two sides together, if we are not to walk blindly. [2] The dangers besetting the French Republic to-day (December, 1898) are, in essence, tests applied to the strength of a national idea. If the idea cannot maintain itself, we must reluctantly suppose that it ought not--that the common life has not the necessary depth. 7. Our analysis of the Nation-State suggests a point of view which may be applied to the vexed question of whether State action is to be judged by the same moral tests as private action.