560 PROFESSOR LORIMER ON THE APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF 



with civilisation itself. I would gladly see the efforts of this Society directed to 

 rendering political method more extensively available in this direction. The 

 abiding problem of national politics I believe to be, the establishment not of the 

 perfect State, but of a perfect harmony between the State and the society of which 

 it professes to be the expression; and this problem I by no means regard as 

 insoluble, if it were rationally and honestly dealt with. But such considerations 

 as these would involve us in discussions which, in present circumstances, it might 

 be difficult for us to conduct in the abstract and totally dispassionate spirit which 

 ought always to characterise the labours of those who seek after absolute truth ; 

 and all that I shall attempt, in the meantime, is to point out to you two principles 

 the realisation of which I believe to be impossible, and which have, nevertheless, 

 been sought to be realised, in conjunction with most schemes of national, and 

 I think with every scheme of international organisation which has as yet been 

 propounded. That the latter class of schemes, from whatever cause, have mis- 

 carried in point of fact, none of 3^011, I suppose, will have any disposition to deny ; 

 and the second part of my task will, consequently, consist of an inquiry whether, 

 by the abandonment of the principles in question, and the substitution of their 

 opposites, we may not hope to advance somewhat nearer to the solution of what 

 is proclaimed on all hands to be the central problem of internationaljurisprudence, 

 the establishment, viz., of a self-supporting and self- vindicating international 

 legislature and executive. 



1. The first of these principles is finality. In national politics this principle is 

 exhibited in those arbitrary, and, in some States, impassible lines between classes, 

 which science has long ago condemned, and which practical men are now every- 

 where engaged in obliterating. In schemes of international organisation, this prin- 

 ciple has sought to manifest itself in the establishment of final and permanent 

 international relations, or in the maintenance of what is technically called a 

 status quo. 



2. The second principle is absolute equality of rights and obligations. In iiv 

 ternal politics, this principle is the basis of the form of government called 

 Democracy. In external politics, it has exhibited itself in the custom of assigning 

 equal votes to all the members of the family of nations not absolutely excluded 

 from the Council Board, however widely they may differ in real power and 

 importance. 



In order that you may trace the action of these principles in international 

 politics, I must beg you to permit me two or three sentences of historical 

 retrospect. 



It is now somewhat more than two centuries since the old dream of a Uni- 

 versal Empire, divinely instituted, and divinely upheld— the dream of Dante 

 and the mediaeval publicists — was abandoned, and men began to speculate on the 

 possibility of substituting for it an European Confederation which should be 



