What is the conclusion to be drawn from this history? The idea of the Balance of Power is unsatisfactory. You cannot really "balance" living forces. Nations are not dead masses which can be weighed against each other, but living growths which expand according to obscure natural laws. Human laws can never stop natural growth; growth can only be stopped by death, and so the Balance of Power seems to necessitate continual conflict. And so, at least twice in the last two centuries, the attempt to maintain a stable European system by a peaceful "Concert of Europe" has broken down. Once, in the Holy Alliance, that Concert itself became an intolerable tyranny. Many men to-day hope to secure peace by re-establishing the Concert of Europe on a democratic basis, but it may well be doubted whether any such system can be permanent, unless there be a radical reform in the mind and character not only of European statesmen but of the European peoples. We shall discuss this later, but meanwhile we may say this at least. A balance of power is an imperfect conception. It is a rough and ready--almost barbarous--policy. The best that can be said for it is that no alternative policy has been devised, or at least none has succeeded. Every one of us who has a spark of idealism believes that the day will come when it shall give place to some more perfect system. But at the present day not only international politics but also home politics are governed by this idea of a balance of power. No democracy has yet been able to establish itself in any country except by virtue of a continual conflict between class and class, between interest and interest, between capital and labour, and international conflicts are but the reflection of the domestic conflicts within each State; both are continual unsuccessful attempts to reach a stable equilibrium, and they can only be ended by a true fusion of hearts and wills. §4. _The Estimation of National Forces._--It has been necessary to undertake this long discussion in order to give a more or less clear idea of the work done by diplomacy in maintaining a stable international system. Arising out of this we have now to consider the fourth class of work--and the most difficult--which the Foreign Office has to perform. For want of a better name we may call it--