370 DIPLOMACY 



unqualified attributes which ancient Roman theory accorded to 

 a practically universal empire. When the great national monarchies 

 rose out of the ruins of the ancient system, each assumed the im- 

 perium which Rome had formerly exercised, and subsequent con- 

 stitutional transformations, while profoundly modifying the state 

 as regarded from within, have never affected its sovereign preten- 

 sions. The existing international system, therefore, presents the 

 contradiction of merely territorial sovereignties claiming the preroga- 

 tives of absolute power. The tardy recognition of formal equality 

 among them has, indeed, conceded something to the order of fact; 

 but this concession confronts us with the anomaly of actually limited 

 and theoretically co-equal political entities, all assuming to possess 

 supreme authority. 



The diplomacy based on this conception has been rendered classic 

 by gifted writers, who draw their inspiration from these pretensions. 

 Its patron saint is Machiavelli, its consummate apostle, Talleyrand. 

 Its maxims, creations of eighteenth century philosophy, half 

 imagination and half metaphysics, - - have been formulated by 

 Ancillon and Count de Garden. " Whoever can do us harm, wishes, 

 or will wish, to injure us. Whoever, by superiority of force or geo- 

 graphic position, can injure us is our natural enemy. Whoever is 

 unable to harm us, but can, by the extent of his power or the advan- 

 tage of his position, injure our neighbor, is our natural friend. These 

 propositions," concludes Ancillon, " are the pivots upon which all 

 international intercourse turns." 



The forces of a state are grouped by Count de Garden under four 

 rubrics: territorial, pecuniary, military, and federative. A nation 

 becomes strong by extending its frontiers, augmenting its material 

 wealth and credit, maintaining a powerful military organization, 

 and entering into conventional arrangements with other powers 

 for its own exclusive advantage. 



All this implies that national prosperity consists in acquisition 

 and expansion, unlimited in principle and measured only by the 

 energies of the nation. It is egoism made public, systematic, and 

 absolute. Self-aggrandizement being the mainspring of national 

 life, all our neighbors are our natural enemies; for they will take 

 all that we do not appropriate, and when they are able, will strip us 

 of what we already possess. The only means of preserving national 

 existence is, therefore, to appropriate so much and to possess it so 

 securely that we may become irresistible. 



The normal relation of human societies, according to this con- 

 ception, being one of permanent hostility, material greatness is 

 the one purpose of public action, and armed force the only safeguard 

 of existence. In this system, the diplomatist has no other function 

 than to exercise his personal cunning in securing the preponderance 



