legal system, based upon a known body of legal rights and duties,
determining and controlling the whole conduct of the subjects to the
sovereign and to one another. The notion which the Romans, not so much
by their thought or speech, but by their acts, added to the world's
stock was that of a peace secured and maintained by the just operation
throughout the civilized world of a system of law the same for all,
issuing from and enforced by a single central power.

The notion is at least grandiose, and so stated seems almost too high
and difficult for human nature to realize. Yet for centuries it was
applied, and applied with marvellous success. Nor in spite of its
apparent failure in the end has the idea of it ceased to dominate men's
minds. I do not speak here of the transitory imitation of it by the
Carolingians or of the attempt at the restitution or copy of it in the
spiritual sphere of the Church, or again of its phantom survival in the
ghostly form of the Holy Roman Empire. But I would point to the way in
which it still--in thought--controls us when without essential
alteration of the idea we transfer its application to the nation and
still look for the secret of _its_ peace and strength in an organization
of all its activities under a law proceeding from and enforced by a
sovereign will resident somewhere within its structure, a law demanding
and receiving obedience from all loyal subjects. Nor is the hope extinct
that the way to a wider or world-wide peace lies through the restoration
of a similar system in its application to international relations.
Though I am unable to share this hope (or indeed the desire that its
realization should be endeavoured after), I find it impossible to judge
that it has yet lost its hold on men's minds or is without elements of
importance in view of our present problem and perplexity.

It is perhaps more profitable to ask what we have to learn from the