372 DIPLOMACY 



Vienna attempted to restore the constitutional movement has 

 placed charters of popular rights in the hands of nearly all civilized 

 peoples, and the work of national unification has thrown new light on 

 the moral nature of the state. In place of chance aggregations of 

 disparate elements, held together by arbitrary force, homogeneous 

 nations have come into the foreground of history to work out their 

 natural destinies. Within these states, law, order, justice, and 

 security have come to be respected. But the crown and completion 

 of the political system the establishment of law, order, justice, and 

 security between nations still remains inchoate. 



How are these great aggregations of humanity to be brought under 

 the laws of social well-being and progress ? Diplomacy must seek the 

 answer from those historic forces and those forms of human know- 

 ledge which have modified and still continue to modify the conditions 

 under which its task is to be accomplished. In a general sense, the 

 whole onward movement of human knowledge and culture in- 

 cluding the art of warfare, the means of transportation and communi- 

 cation by steam and electricity, the influence of the press, the diffu- 

 sion of education and culture, the expansion of the horizon of public 

 interest by trade, travel, and the prompt publicity of remote occur- 

 rences has transformed the organization of society. But we may, 

 in particular, better comprehend the task of modern diplomacy by 

 considering some of its relations to history, jurisprudence, ethics, 

 economics, and education. 



II. The Relation of Diplomacy to History 



" History," as De Tocqueville has remarked, " is the breviary 

 of the diplomatist." It not only explains the nature of his functions, 

 but it is the record of his achievements. It recalls the former 

 existence of a vast intercontinental state, comprising parts of 

 Asia and Africa, and nearly all of civilized Europe, embracing a 

 single faith, governed by a single code of law, and comprising nearly 

 all that then existed of human civilization. It shows how the polit- 

 ical unity that held in the embrace of one universal empire the 

 Britain and the Numidian, the Spaniard and the Assyrian, and for 

 centuries made of the Mediterranean a Roman 'lake, realized a state 

 that included a great part of humanity. It explains how an organ- 

 ization so complete and powerful was finally overwhelmed and 

 dismembered by a mistaken policy toward the despised barbarians 

 who surrounded it. It reveals the psychological and moral unity 

 of Europe in that marvelous transformation of the barbarian king- 

 doms into another vast empire founded on community of religious 

 faith, the reunion of free assemblies, and the organizing capacity of 

 Charles the Great. It proves the practical futility of the imperial 



