130 The Special Sociological Errors 



despotism, then anarchy and war become synony- 

 mous with Hberty. 



It is difficult to see how this confusion of unity 

 with despotism can persist so obstinately when so 

 many examples of federation without despotism 

 are presented by the modern world. In North 

 America the forty-eight commonwealths of the 

 United States have entered into a voluntary federa- 

 tion without loss of liberty and without coming 

 under the rule of a despot. The cantons of the 

 Swiss Republic furnish another example of unity 

 with liberty. An illustration of a still looser 

 federation, more valuable because it foreshadows 

 the loose form in which the unity of the world 

 will at first be brought about, is given by the self- 

 governing nations of the British Empire. Be- 

 tween these nations, which are sovereign in all but 

 name, the use of force has been definitely aban- 

 doned, yet there is not a trace of despotism in this 

 unity. On the contrary the principle of home 

 rule has been carried to its most extreme degree. 



Another confusion, similar to that illustrated 

 by the quotations from Renan, consists in identi- 

 fying federation with centralization. Many who 

 consider the federation of the seventy million 

 people of the German Empire or the hundred 

 million people of the United States of America 

 a good thing, consider nevertheless that the 

 federation of the fifteen hundred million people 

 of the human race would be an evil. In con- 

 sidering the limits of association it is apparent 



