The Force of the Ethos. Such a conception is found in the activity of the ethos, using the term to express the externally acting character of a person, or combination of persons, so exerting itself as to affect one or more other persons. The term is useful because it covers the entire range of human motives, not moral alone but economic and political as well.

Without resistance there can be no force. Strength is a relative conception, implying comparison with weakness. In considering social force, therefore, we must conceive of resistance existing, for without resistance there would be nothing to which the term "social force" could be applied. Now of two contending social forces, one may prove the stronger either by completely destroying the other, or by restricting the other to a limited field of operation in which it will not clash with the first. If the two forces are evenly balanced of course force in the strict sense of a coercive agency does not exist.

In the actual life of the social order we are sometimes confronted with the spectacle of one force destroying another, but the more typical phenomenon is that of co-operation between forces, one weak another strong, which have worked their way to a sort of harmony, with respective spheres of operation that do not overlap. In such instances we are far from finding the major force omnipotent; on the contrary, limits are set even to the power wielded by the despot. But the fact that force is thus limited does not render it subservient. Forces which, when we abstract the element of human personality, seem about equal turn out to be very unequal when we recognize the impropriety of such an abstraction, for force is of concern chiefly as an attribute of human personality. In the case of the despot a great power, though limited, is lodged in the hands of a single being; a great power, though minatory, is

will? Ein Staat, der grundsätzlich Treu und Glauben verachten wollte, würde beständig von Feinden bedroht sein und also seinen Zweck, physische Macht zu sein, gar nicht erreichen können. Das bestätigt die historische Erfahrung; auch Machiavelli's Ideal des Fürsten, Cesare Borgia, fiel schliesslich selber in die Grube, die er Anderen gegraben hatte. Denn der Staat ist nicht physische Macht als Selbstzweck, er ist Macht, um die höheren Güter der Menschen zu schützen und zu befördern. Die reine Machtlehre ist als solche völlig inhaltlos, und sie ist unsittlich darum, weil sie sich innerlich nicht zu rechtfertigen vermag."-Treitschke, Politik, 2d ed., Leipzig, 1899, ii, 542.

broken up among his subjects in such small particles as to leave to them, as individuals, only an insignificant scrap of authority.

The ethos of the ruling class in any community, aspiring to and achieving authority by virtue of that ethos, is not powerful enough to crush the ethos of the subject class out of existence; on the contrary it derives its power equally from the voluntary or forced permission of the subject ethos, which accepts the sole conditions upon which harmony is feasible.

The chief purpose of the ethos is the distribution of personal power, the latter signifying the fullest possible expression of personality, the fullest means for the gratification of higher motives. In the conflict of ethea, they unconsciously accept the expediency of reciprocal accommodation, as the only means of escaping impairment of their energy by the penalty of conquest. In a narrower sense it is the ethos of the economic and political magnates, of the most potent administrators of the rewards and penalties of positive morality, which triumphs. In a wider sense the victory is with the collective ethos formed out of a harmony of co-ordinated special ethea united as members of one body. But this larger ethos is the auxiliary of the might of the strong; it is therefore doubly prized as assuring their own interests, that is, maintaining their own ethos, and as apportioning power to their own profit on the basis of the widest possible conception of social order.

How the Strength of the Ethos is Determined. It may readily be seen that in determining the strength of an ethos the number of the individuals asserting it is a factor not to be disregarded. Other things being equal, the numerically stronger faction will triumph. But this holds true as a general proposition only where the other conditions are equal, for frequently the victory goes not to the many but to the few, or even to a solitary individual. What is far more important than numbers, therefore, is the command of physical force, and which side will win is more a question of the physical force available than of the number of persons championing a given ethos. By such physical force we mean command of the physical instruments of the ethos, that is economic goods of such a nature as to confer power, military force, the force of police exercised in a peaceful State, and actual bodily force to which men may submit more through fear than through weakness; we mean the

economic force which impoverishes, the political force which restricts freedom of action, the moral force which darkens the future of the disgraced person. The line between psychical or internal and physical or external force is hard to draw, and we are not here concerned with this distinction, emphasis being laid, in the somewhat loose expression of "physical force," on the efficacious instruments through which power may operate externally to achieve its will, whatever the nature of these agencies, physical or human. Obviously the working strength of the ethos is determined by the magnitude of the external resources thus available, of whatever kind.

But this does not answer the question what determines the strength of the ethos, for the reason that it throws no light on the manner in which command of these agencies is acquired, that is, on the internal characteristics by virtue of which an ethos is able to master these agencies. The strength we have considered is an extrinsic matter; what is important is the strength that is intrinsic, that proceeds from the ethos itself, what may be called the inherent force of the ethos.

The Inherent Force of the Ethos. It is a mistake to suppose that men, by passing a great fund of wealth from hand to hand, can pay for all the services they require solely in instruments of exchange, retaining full possession of their liberty. On the other hand, parts of this liberty have often to be surrendered in order that the necessities of social life may be procured. The individuals who render service may perform services so valuable and so necessary that they cannot be repaid in possessions or offsetting services alone, but must be repaid by a partial forfeiture of personal freedom. All those who serve therefore will not be servants; some will become masters. Mastery, except in those cases where it is acquired by brutal violence, passes into the hands of those who perform great and singular services for which they are compensated by becoming endued with power. It is easy to verify the truth of this statement in the case of the statesman, the general, or the commercial magnate. A difficulty arises when we consider hereditary wealth and the hereditary power springing from it, but this difficulty is apparent rather than real, for the power recognized by society in this instance is really that of the original owner of the wealth who was rewarded by being permitted to dispose of what he had created in whatever manner he saw fit.

Better expressed, the quality by virtue of which personal mastery is ordinarily won is wealth of personality. It is capacity for high attainment, normally recognized and rewarded by society in proportion to its worth. Such capacity works for the realization of a high standard in the administration of practical affairs and in all other departments of human activity. It is an ethos progressing through successive stages of progresgive development, from the lowest to the highest. It strives ever upward toward the ideal of increased efficiency of economic and political organization and of exalted moral principle translated into the actualities of an advancing social order.

The inherent strength of the ethos thus depends upon its exaltation, but stress must be laid on the fact that this does not refer to moral elevation alone, but to that moral elevation which intermingles with enlightened motives with respect to economic and political interests. In the final stage of their development, a lofty, disinterested morality, an able and enlightened statesmanship, and wisdom in securing the best possible organization of economic resources, would be but different phases of the same thing. The correlation of the three is evident in that final, ideal stage. But the correlation is also found in the lower stages of the ethos; a somewhat selfish positive morality is joined to an incapacity for economic organization upon a high scale of efficiency, and to a bungling, opportunistic statecraft that can hardly secure for society any solid or lasting well-being.

It is but a corollary of this to say that a higher ethos is more efficacious in action, other things being equal, than a lower ethos. When a higher and a lower civilization come into collision, as in the event of war between an advanced and a backward people, the advantage lies not with the side possessing the stronger armament but with the side which has progressed further in the art and science of war. The advantage, in other words, is with the ethos as the origin of military efficiency as of efficiency of other sorts.

In Reality, However, the Positive Force of the Ethos Does Not Conform to its Inherent Force. In this consideration of the inherent force of the ethos, we choose an ideal standard of comparison by which to estimate its strength; we have in mind the ideal standard of an elevated ethos, and we determine the strength of an existing ethos with reference to

that rather than to the strength of an actual competitor. If, however, we compare two existing ethea which are competing with each other, it is not practicable thus to extract the kernel of the ethos and to segregate it from the concrete realities of an actual struggle, for the realities of the actual situation may neutralize the effect of these estimates of a single segregated factor. When we view an actual conflict of ethea, we are, indeed, more concerned with their external activity and the actual process of their interaction than with the fountain sources from which they derive their strength. We are compelled, in such an event, to recognize that the problem turns itself into one of the result of collision between two quasi-mechanical forces. The victory will go to the side in actual possession of the most powerful quasi-mechanical agencies. Consequently, while in the long run the higher ethos will no doubt tend to dominate the lower, in the actual struggle supremacy is decided solely by the efficacity of the dynamic resources at their command. When Germany and Russia, let us say, meet in war, it is not a question whether the ethos of Germany or of Russia is higher, for then we would too readily predict victory for Germany. On the contrary, the victory will depend not on this factor, except to a contributory extent, but upon the relative strength of the military, economic, political, and moral resources which may be employed by each of the two countries to mass a terrific and inexhaustible energy that may be directed upon the enemy. It is thus a question of the external force which the two governments exert upon their own populations, as well as of the external force which they apply against each other. It is also a question of the external force, moral, political, or economic, exerted by Germany and Russia upon other nations in such a manner as to secure the aid of any of them to the belligerents. Here, likewise, we are concerned with real quantities, the forces actually exerted, rather than with the inherent force of the ethos, for a peaceful victory of the ethos of Russia over that of France is possible as the result of the interplay of quasi-mechanical forces without conceding the inherent supremacy of the ethos of Russia to that of France. The positive force of the ethos, therefore, may be far in excess of its inherent force, and likewise it may be much less, for civilization is of slow growth, and the inertia of backward peoples must be overcome before the force of the higher ethos can always succeed in rallying the