NOTES 



Scientific FoUtics. — I. Self-Determination. 



Politics, according to a celebrated definition, is an art, not 

 a science. The presefit condition of the world is an eloquent 

 witness to the truth of the formula ; for those who are accus- 

 tomed to the precision and exactitude of scientific method can 

 only stand amazed at the chaos and disorder of contemporary 

 affairs. If statecraft be an art, it is evidently one that is some- 

 times practised by others than great masters. 



But if politics is not, and perhaps never can be, one of the 

 exact sciences, there is no apparent reason why it should be 

 practised with such utter disregard for all scientific theory. 

 Man is a political animal, and he lives in a society. There 

 are certain rules of physical health which the individual disobeys 

 at his peril ; obviously there must also be rules of social and 

 political health which States disobey at their peril. On the 

 moral or ethical side of the State this is universally admitted 

 by the institution of law ; but on the political side it is ignored, 

 and a popular catchword substituted for a principle. 



There have been many recent instances of the kind : a 

 " war to end war " ; " too proud to fight " ; " making the 

 world safe for democracy " ; " no annexations, no indemnities " ; 

 " self-determination"; and many others. The first four are 

 already relegated to the dictionaries of phrase and fable, for 

 the catchword has a short life and its very meaning is quickly 

 forgotten ; and the last is in process of being discredited. But, 

 before its actual dissolution, we propose to examine this 

 curious specimen of political craftsmanship. 



Self-determination was coined during the war as a propo- 

 gandist weapon to hasten the dissolution of the Austrian Empire. 

 It is short, it is simple, and it seems to express a political 

 maxim in tabloid form. It caught on in the British Empire, 

 which was neither founded nor maintained onself-determination; 

 and in the United States, whose people fought a civil war sixty 

 years ago to prevent the Southern States from exercising self- 

 determination. But at the Congress of Versailles, which dealt 

 with realities and not with phrases, its sponsors treated it as 

 an illegitimate child, and the maxim was quietly ignored. Ger- 

 man Austria proposed to exercise the right of self-determination 



437 



