148 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



motive of self-respect which makes life worth 

 living. 



Given clear vision in the general mind, this cultural 

 inheritance, utterly impossible as it might seem, could 

 be imposed on civilization in a single generation. 

 Only in a condition of the world in which such a 

 collective inheritance would be imposed on the 

 mind of each generation is it possible to conceive 

 international law ever becoming endowed with the 

 same irresistible authority among nations as the 

 civil law now possesses amongst men. Only in 

 such circumstances is it possible to conceive material 

 force reduced to that legitimate function among 

 nations which it now occupies in civil life, namely, 

 the protection under the direction of civilization of 

 the higher and more developed standards of the 

 race against what would then become the criminal 

 standards of the less-evolved societies of men. 



It is evident on reflection that there is no goal 

 to which the emotion of the ideal thus directed 

 is not capable of carrying the human mind. Fit- 

 fully and ignorantly as it has been employed in the 

 past, it is the cause which has been behind all the 

 progress of the world. It is capable of accomplish- 

 ing any purpose to which it may be steadily directed 

 over long periods of time. It is the nature of the 

 inner vision which it brings into being, that it leaves 



