for the most part one language throughout their whole territory. It is promoted by the quickened impetus of trade and commerce, increased military and financial resources, improved and extended communication, and by the entire development of modern civilization. This progress towards the establishment of extensive and consolidated nationalities is conspicuously found in the present German empire. Though in no sense a restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, it is a real restoration of the ancient German kingdom, and the Kaiser fairly represents the German kingship from which the thirteen ancient Cantons gradually split off. Russia is practically the only Slavonic state; Italy comprises nearly all the Italians, except a few resident upon the head and eastern side of the Adriatic Gulf; France has by her losses in the Franco-Prussian war become more French, since neither Alsace nor Lorraine is inhabited by people of the Gallic race; Spain and Portugal comprise the entire Spanish Peninsula; Austria is a great mongrel state and represents no national aim, but is composed of fragments of various nationalities. The national question in the British Islands is not settled, and may end in separation or more probably in the formation of a federation. The smaller semi-independent principalities of Servia, Roumania, Bulgaria, East Roumelia are simply materials out of which a second Slavonic state may at some time be formed, perhaps under the authority of Russia. The natural fate of Holland is absorption into Germany; of Belgium, absorption into France. Turkey--how this cumberer of the earth can be disposed of without kindling a general European conflagration is a question that puzzles the wisest statesman. This unification might be made to play a beneficial part in checking war and improving the European situation; but so far it has merely essayed a science of combination, of application, and of deception, according to times, places, and circumstances. In the process of absorption there has not been shown much disposition to take questions of ethics into consideration in dealing with weaker peoples; even self-interest seems at times to be a less strong motive than the desire to annoy one’s neighbors. Bentham somewhere proves that there is such a thing as “disinterested malevolence;” and if it exists at all, it is certainly to be discovered in the action of these great European powers. Many of them present vicious systems of military and coercive governments; vast empires resting upon bayonets and semi-bureaucracy, an anachronism and an incubus upon the true development of national life. All these great powers are monstrous outgrowths of warlike ambition and imperial pride in different degrees and under different conditions. On nearly every battle-field great questions of dynastic and national reconstruction have hung in the balance; military operations have been the decisive factors. Huge military systems are abnormal, the morbid results of the