CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENT OF DIPLOMACY 373 



conception by the whole course of subsequent events. The inevit- 

 able dismemberment of the medieval empire into independent 

 kingdoms, the development of feudal society as a means of local 

 defense, the inadequacy of merely local government for the neces- 

 sities of industrial and commercial growth, the rise of the great 

 monarchies as a means of emancipation from feudal servitude, and 

 the reconciliation of local sovereignty and universal authority in 

 the formation of modern states, are all consecutive links in a chain 

 of irrefutable argument by which the diplomatist vindicates the 

 indispensability of his science to the world. 



It is an historical certainty that the permanent organization of 

 mankind must henceforth rest on the basis of independent political 

 communities. No one familiar with history can imagine the possi- 

 bility of reestablishing a universal empire. No thinker permeated 

 with the historical spirit entertains a serious hope of a general federa- 

 tion of sovereign states. Smaller political communities may, per- 

 haps, be gradually absorbed in the larger; but the great powers 

 give no promise of coalescence, and no indication of uniting to form 

 a permanent confederation. These great masses of organized human 

 energy may still modify their frontiers, but they will continue for 

 centuries to confront one another, as fixed and enduring on the 

 surface of the earth as the stars in the firmament. 



The task of the diplomatist is, therefore, neither a vanishing nor 

 a declining enterprise. It is one which, on the contrary, in the 

 presence of the bristling array of terrific instruments of destruction 

 on sea and land, assumes an ever-increasing solemnity and respon- 

 sibility. The diplomatist should know the history of these great 

 national entities, and of their relations to one another, as a compe- 

 tent physician would wish to know the life-record of a delicate or 

 dangerous patient; for the present in nature and in life, individ- 

 ual and national is but the epitome and expression of the past. 

 The future knows no other guide, and it is from history that we are 

 to gather the formulas of present action. 



In view of its importance, it is astonishing that no complete his- 

 tory of diplomacy exists in any language. Such a history would 

 include not only an account of the rise and progress of international 

 intercourse, but an exposition of the motives by which it has been 

 inspired and the results which it has accomplished. But even this 

 statement does not fully define the scope of such an undertaking; 

 for an intelligent comprehension of diplomacy must also include a 

 consideration of the genesis of the entire international system, and 

 of its progress through the successive stages of its development. 

 Thus regarded, it would be seen that diplomacy taken in its largest 

 sense, and including the foreign policy of nations possesses the 

 deepest qualities of human interest ; for the whole fabric of present 



