POLITICAL SITUATION IN EUROPE 395 



true that the French Republic has abandoned this position, and 

 officially ignores all religion ; but France cannot be reckoned an 

 exception to the general rule, for she is still largely permeated 

 by Catholicism ; and, as Mr. Kidd most rightly says, the ethical 

 creed of those who profess themselves hostile to Christianity 

 is none the less derived from the ethics of Christianity. What 

 we look for to-day is the proof that the forces which are working 

 in our Western civilisation are being shaped by the softening 

 influence of the ethics of Christian altruism. 



In the domain of international politics what do we see ? A 

 gigantic war in the Far East has but recently been brought to 

 a conclusion ; and this war was the result of the expansion of two 

 peoples, and of the consequent clash of their antagonistic claims. 

 Storm-clouds are to be seen in the Balkan Peninsula and in 

 Morocco, not less than in the Far East, which is still smouldering, 

 and from whence proceed rumours of Chinese hostility to Euro- 

 peans. But Macedonia and Morocco are but incidents, pawns 

 in a greater game. This greater game is the struggle for Euro- 

 pean hegemony which looms perpetually on the horizon. The 

 whole history of Europe during the nineteenth century has been 

 summed up in this never-ceasing struggle for hegemony amongst 

 the Western peoples. For a period it was Napoleon who realised 

 this dream, and whose standards floated from the Bidassoa to 

 Moscow. But the coalition of those whom he had subjugated 

 with Great Britain, which he had not subjugated, succeeded in 

 overthrowing the power of Napoleon. Since 1806, when 

 Prussia was annihilated at Jena and humiliated at Tilsit, a new 

 force has been growing ; at first silently, in the lecture-halls of 

 the Universities and in the class-rooms of the schools ; and sub- 

 sequently, with ever-increasing clamour, on the field of battle. 

 This new Power is none other than Prussia herself, rejuvenated 

 after Jena and Tilsit. The defeat of Denmark, and the seizure 

 of the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein ; the overthrow of Austria 



