117 
of Edinburgh , Session 1866-67. 
kf^o vert) or the reverse. But since the Peace of Westphalia, and 
more especially since the American and French revolutions, the 
tendency in international, as in national politics, has been to ignore 
the proportional or dianemetic principle altogether, to give exclusive 
sway to the diorthotic principle, and to deal with all states either 
as internationally equal, or else as internationally non-existent. 
As regards the future, then, the question, on which the possibility 
or impossibility of international organisation seems to turn is this, — 
Can we shadow forth a European or cosmopolitan constitution, self- 
sustaining and self-vindicating, which shall make provision for 
legitimate progress and righteous development, and for inevitable 
retrogression, whilst it takes cognizance of existing diversities of 
power ? To anything approaching to a confederation, in the stricter 
sense of a single composite state, there is, I think, the objection 
which exists to all confederations, and of which we have just seen 
the consequences so terribly exhibited, first in America and then in 
Germany. In a confederation there are always two forces at work, 
—a centrifugal force and a centripetal force : the tendency of the 
first of which is to pull it to pieces, and the tendency of the second 
of which is to centralise it till it becomes a homogeneous State. A 
perfect and permanent balance between these forces I believe to be 
a practical impossibility ; and for this reason I regard all confedera- 
tions as transitional forms of government. I concur, therefore, in the 
latest opinion of Kant, whose great mind was much occupied with 
this great subject before it experienced the eclipse which darkened 
his last days— an opinion in which he was partially anticipated by 
Grotius — to the effect that it is to the creation, not of a confedera- 
tion, but of a Permanent Congress of Nations, or International Par- 
liament, that we must direct our endeavours. Such a Congress, I 
think, would obviate the errors I have indicated, and might possibly 
satisfy the great desideratum of a self- vindicating international 
legislature, if it were constituted in accordance with something 
approaching the following scheme : — ls£, That its meetings should 
be annual, taking place in the autumn, between the sessions of the 
various national assemblies ; and that the places of meeting should 
be Belgium and Switzerland alternately, or perhaps one of the Swiss 
Cantons — say Geneva — set apart as neutral European ground. 2 d, 
That each State should be represented by two deputies, both of 
whom should be present at the meetings of the Congress, but one 
