PDF-file (The same edition. Another cover. 2.2 Mb)

Chapter VNation and Empire: Realand Political UnitiesTHE PROBLEM of the unification of mankind resolvesitself into two distinct difficulties. There is the doubtwhether the collective egoisms already created in thenatural evolution of humanity can at this time be sufficientlymodified or abolished and whether even an external unity insome effective form can be securely established. And there isthe doubt whether, even if any such external unity can be established,it will not be at the price of crushing both the freelife of the individual and the free play of the various collectiveunits already created in which there is a real and active life andsubstituting a State organisation which will mechanise humanexistence. Apart from these two uncertainties there is a thirddoubt whether a really living unity can be achieved by a mereeconomic, political and administrative unification and whetherit ought not to be preceded by at least the strong beginnings ofa moral and spiritual oneness. It is the first question that mustbe taken first in the logical order.At the present stage of human progress the nation is theliving collective unit of humanity. Empires exist, but they areas yet only political and not real units; they have no life fromwithin and owe their continuance to a force imposed on theirconstituent elements or else to a political convenience felt oracquiesced in by the constituents and favoured by the worldoutside. Austria was long the standing example of such anempire; it was a political convenience favoured by the worldoutside, acquiesced in until recently by its constituent elementsand maintained by the force of the central Germanic elementincarnated in the Hapsburg dynasty, — of late with the active aidof its Magyar partner. If the political convenience of an empire of