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Chapter XThe United States of EuropeWE HAVE had to dwell so long upon the possibilities ofthe Empire-group because the evolution of the imperialState is a dominating phenomenon of the modernworld; it governs the political tendencies of the later part ofthe nineteenth and earlier part of the twentieth centuries verymuch as the evolution of the free democratised nation governedthe age which preceded ours. The dominant idea of the FrenchRevolution was the formula of the free and sovereign peopleand, in spite of the cosmopolitan element introduced into therevolutionary formula by the ideal of fraternity, this idea becamein fact the assertion of the free, independent, democratically selfgovernednation. That ideal had not at the time of the great warwholly worked itself out even in the occidental world; for centralEurope was only partly democratised and Russia had only justbegun to turn its face towards the common goal; and even nowthere are still subject European peoples or fragments of peoples. 1Nevertheless, with whatever imperfections, the idea of the freedemocratic nation had practically triumphed in all America andEurope. The peoples of Asia have equally accepted this governingideal of the nineteenth century, and though the movementsof democratic nationalism in the eastern countries, Turkey, Persia,India, China, were not fortunate in their first attemptsat self-realisation, the profound and wide-spread working ofthe idea cannot be doubted by any careful observer. Whatevermodifications may arrive, whatever new tendencies intervene,whatever reactions oppose, it could hardly then be doubted thatthe principal gifts of the French Revolution must remain and beuniversalised as permanent acquisitions, indispensable elements1 No longer an evident fact, although the substitution of a state of vassalage may stillbe there.