Government is now being examined, we all see, from points of view not hitherto taken. The conscientious objector raises the question of the ultimate basis of the right of the many to control the lives of individuals, and he asks especially whether there is any ground for the assumption that in this sphere, more than in any other, might makes right. Conscription, in fact, has driven us to consider the meaning of liberty and the foundations upon which the right to it rests. This stern fact of conscription, the realization that in a moment the most democratic governments in the world are capable of bringing to bear, quite constitutionally, absolute control over the most basic possessions of the individual, has led many to ask seriously whether government is after all a good in itself, or is merely a necessity having many attendant evils. They wish to know whether there is in the principle of government something that takes precedence over all the assumed rights of the individual. Does government, they inquire, have a _right_ to the individual; or is it only in _serving_ the individual that it is entitled to exercise authority that limits the individual? These are questions, manifestly, that involve the whole foundation of sociology, but we need not be unduly dismayed at that. This is a time when naive thinking and exact science must make compromises with one another. For better or for worse we must find some working hypothesis upon which a fair adjustment may be made in the practical life of the present moment. This _working hypothesis_ must also serve--and perhaps that is after all its main function--as something to guide us, something having solidity upon which we can stand, in performing our work as educators. What we need, what we believe all feel now the need of, is a conception of government satisfying to the multitude of common people. We wish to know whether we live for the state, we say, or whether the state lives for us. We wish to understand what the basic rights and duties of the individual are. As average individuals, willing to give service in any cause that seems good, we do not ask so much to have determined for us precisely what type of government best satisfies the requirements of science or philosophy, but what the best working basis for harmonious adjustment in the social life of the future is to be. These enquiring moods on the part of the people are a part of the temperament that has issued from the war. We shall make a mistake if we regard it as a mere passing effect, however; _it means a deep stirring of the political consciousness of people throughout the world_.