[B] Written originally as a lecture to be delivered in America. In this paper, I want to tell you of the idea that now shapes and dominates my public life--the idea of a world politically united--of a world securely and permanently at peace. And I want to say what I have to say, so far as regards the main argument of it, as accurately and plainly as possible, without any eloquence or flourishes. When I first planned this paper, I chose as the title _The Utopia of a World State_. Well, there is something a little too flimsy and unpracticable about that word Utopia. To most people Utopia conveys the idea of a high-toned political and ethical dream--agreeable and edifying, no doubt, but of no practical value whatever. What I have to talk about this evening is not a bit dreamlike, it is about real dangers and urgent necessities. It is a Project and not a Utopia. It may be a vast and impossible project. It may be a hopeless project. But if it fails our civilization fails. And so I have called this paper not the Utopia but _The Project of a World State._ There are some things that it is almost impossible to tell without seeming to scream and exaggerate, and yet these things may be in reality the soberest matter of fact. I want to say that this civilization in which we are living is tumbling down, and I think tumbling down very fast; that I think rapid enormous efforts will be needed to save it; and that I see no such efforts being made at the present time. I do not know if these words convey any concrete ideas to the reader's mind. There are statements that can open such unfamiliar vistas as to seem devoid of any real practical meaning at all, and this I think may be one of them. In the past year I have been going about Europe. I have had glimpses of a new phase of this civilization of ours--a new phase that would have sounded like a fantastic dream if one had told about it ten years ago. I have seen a great city that had over two million inhabitants, dying, and dying with incredible rapidity. In 1914 I was in the city of St. Petersburg and it seemed as safe and orderly a great city as yours. I went thither in comfortable and punctual trains. I stayed in an hotel as well equipped and managed as any American hotel. I went to dine with and visit households of cultivated people. I walked along streets of brilliantly lit and well-furnished shops. It was, in fact, much the same sort of life that you are living here to-day--a part of our (then) world-wide modern civilization.