Only by raising the crude, fragmentary, informal, often insincere beginnings of international government into a stronger, more coherent, and more complex authority can the struggle for life proceed upon the highest arena of competition, selecting the finest forms of social efficiency.
One further objection to the final efficacy of a federation of civilised nations demands consideration. Suppose a federal government of European nations and their colonial offspring to be possible in such wise that internal conflicts were precluded, this peace of Christendom would be constantly imperilled by the “lower races,” black and yellow, who, adopting the arms and military tactics now discarded by the “civilised races,” would overwhelm them in barbarian incursions, even as the ruder European and Asiatic races overwhelmed the Roman Empire. We cannot get the whole world to the level of civilisation which will admit it into the alliance; the Powers outside will be a constant menace, and if the main purpose of federation is to eliminate militarism from the economy of national life, the attainment of this purpose will render effective resistance to such invaders no longer possible. This has been the universal fate of Empires in the past; what talisman could this latest federal Empire possess enabling it to escape? To this objection we may make this preliminary answer. Two factors in the older Empires have primarily contributed to weaken their powers of resistance against outside “barbarians,” and to strengthen and stimulate the zeal of the invaders. There is first the habit of economic parasitism, by which the ruling State has used its provinces, colonies, and dependencies in order to enrich its ruling class and to bribe its lower classes into acquiescence. This bleeding of dependencies, while it enfeebles and atrophies the energy of the imperial people, irritates and eventually rouses to rebellion the more vigorous and less tractable of the subject races; each repression of