the ocean. All kinds of official relations between two nations, between one nation on one side and a group of two or more on the other, and between groups of nations, are here set forth in such variety and profusion as to furnish an embarrassment of riches to the historian seeking for illustrations. Here are documents-all of them of international importance and intent — relating to discoveries, territorial rights, boundaries, alliances, cessions, titles to thrones, rules for diplomatic officials, edicts, letters patent, conventions on a large variety of subjects, treaties of diverse nature by the hundred, agreements of peace, commerce, and amity, firmans, ultimatums, navigation regulations, passport arrangements, neutrality stipulations, extradition understandings, subsidies, decrees, embargoes, monetary privileges, indemnities, capitulations, arbitrations, hospital guaranties, mediations, combinations of various sorts, antislavery action, protection of subjects, immigration, naturalization, dismemberment of nations, reciprocity bargains, demolition of fortresses, manifestoes, papal bulls on political matters when the papacy was a political power, and so on in infinite variety.

As we look back upon these activities of many hundred years and, at one glance, sweep over this constant recurrence every year, and, in most instances, many times in the year, in some years amounting to about two hundred documents, having to do with official relations between the nations; and as we realize still further that the official communications were not a thousandth part of the interrelations which were really in progress between the peoples of the earth from one end to the other in way of trade and travel, of friendship and hostility, of learning and pleasure, it is so clear that further proof is needless that here is in actual operation a genuine unity of all mankind, and that it is only by unpardonable pride and folly that the truth is persistently denied officially.

After all that is said about the many forms of the movements which have promoted the unity of mankind, it remains most pertinent of all that the one great force which has made political unity possible is the inherent and fundamental unity of the race, energizing to its natural, legitimate, and inevitable consummation. Political unity trails along behind the real unity. The latter has been for hundreds and thousands of years asserting itself, but never more forcibly or in more ways than to-day, by travel from continent to continent, by

official relations between the fragments of the race, and by a thousand various ways whereby the common bond has asserted itself supreme over the divisive forces of space, of religion, of commercial contests, of national hostility, of suspicion, of language, and of natural inability to sympathize with different types of mental action and different standards of personal morals. Unity created in men as men, not developed by men as creators, has been stimulating them for many centuries, and to-day it is the dynamic which runs international railroad and steamship lines and carries men and women into all nooks and corners of foreign countries, to see new peoples, to learn new languages, to read new literature, to study new histories, and to develop that new world spirit and race enthusiasm which is thrilling all nations to-day as they look forward to the mutual friendship, peace, and prosperity which is their natural right and destiny, and which they are now about to achieve. Unconsciously the masses of the nations are illustrating the unity of the human race. Their statesmen are just beginning to realize the truth and to act upon it. Now that the stage of self-consciousness of the race has come, it is reasonable to predict that there will be intelligent shaping of means to the end, and that henceforth there will be more rapid progress toward the realization of the ideal. Thus far the movement has been by men blindfolded and with no clear mental perception of the goal. To-day the eyes see, the mind is conscious of itself and of the goal before it. Henceforth progress must be to the movement of the past as the locomotive to the man on foot.

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST BOOK OF WORLD LAW

It is no longer a question whether the whole human race shall be one organized political body. Events of the last few years, with their prophetic voices, have proclaimed the truth so that hearers have no doubt. What was foretold by scientific men and by political and humanitarian world conferences of official delegates of the nations in the latter part of the nineteenth century, what was still more distinctly asserted by the first peace conference at The Hague, but was even then not noticed by every one, was at length, by the second peace conference, declared so clearly that doubt was forever removed. Henceforth it is only a question of time how soon the political organization shall be completed and the nations acknowledge the supremacy of world sovereignty through a formal statement of world law.

Speaking politically, world law is the will of the world expressed officially. It can be shown beyond doubt that official expression has been made of the will of the world in repeated instances by so many nations acting together regarding particular matters that their will may reasonably be taken as the will of all the world. These expressions of world will which are now recognized as true world law, of a class different from international law and higher than that law, are here gathered into one volume. They form the First Book of World Law. Their development, though it knits together threads which extend back into the past for hundreds and perhaps, in some cases, thousands of years, has been rapid in recent years only. Here is a formative era of vast historical importance in the development of the human race from the collisions of warring tribes to the official and sympathetic action of nations with some degree of civilization.

This collection of world law is made at a time when the self-consciousness of the nations as a political unit has barely come to the surface through the recommendation of the second peace conference that a third be called, with the evident understanding that the third

will be followed by a fourth, and then by others indefinitely until the fully developed political organism of the world shall carry on the activities of the body of mankind as its needs impel, as its intelligence directs, and as its will acts.

Of necessity, in the nature of the case, the First Book of World Law must gather up the unconscious acts of world sovereignty and bring them into continuous and harmonious relation. It must lay the foundation so clearly that even those whose study is superficial can no longer doubt its true nature, nor deny intelligently that on such foundation, as certainly as that mankind has a future and that in that future progress will be made, will be reared the magnificent temple of world law, the will of mankind, acting with the intelligence of mankind in perceiving the unwritten laws imposed upon mankind by the Supreme Intelligence and Power, and adapting itself to the forces amid which it exists. Such must be the First Book of World Law.

But already the contents of the Second Book of World Law are evident. Out of the era when the contents of the First Book were enacted, out of the stage of civilization in which were developed the principles of international law, based on no authority higher than the unofficial mandates of human reason commanding the assent of all reasonable nations to the common sentiments of humanity and justice which asserted their imperative claims even amid the carnage of the battlefield and the horrors of the siege, out of this and out of the achievements of the Hague conferences has come a recognition of the need that these unofficially formulated mandates be given formal statement and be sealed by official ratification.

On the basis of international law must rise world law as a higher expression of the agreement of the will of the nations. It must be endowed with binding force upon every nation. The nations will submit to it voluntarily. The minority of the nations will not be coerced by the mighty armies of the majority into submission. Each nation, for there will eventually be no majority and no minority, will yield because it is right so to do, and to refuse further to submit would not be right and would be so recognized. International law must be codified by world statesmen into world law. That codification will be the Second Book of World Law. Its preparation may be predicted confidently because already the movement to that end has begun and the distinct proposition has been made in high circles. It is not too

bold a forecast of the work of the Third Hague Conference to say that a part of its action, at least, will relate to a codification of international law to the end that the formal statement may be ratified by the nations and so be raised to the higher status of world law.

But the First Book of World Law and the Second Book of World Law have their clear limitations. They include and bring to date the developments of the past. But the human race advances. Not only that; it is advancing faster than ever, and its progress is always with accelerating rapidity. At the third conference new principles will be formulated. Very likely these will be incorporated in the Second Book. Just in what order the details will be worked out will depend upon forces operative at the time; but soon, perhaps by the fourth conference, will be such further formulation of principles to be ratified that the Third Book of World Law will be brought into being, as a session of the Congress of the United States makes possible a new book of laws, and as each session of each legislature of the several states of the United States results in new volume. By that time the nature of the peace. conference as the true germ of the world legislature will have long been generally recognized; and from that time on, the Fourth, the Fifth, and the succeeding books of World Law will take their place in the series, until a new codification is made and the numbering begins again.