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Since then, by force of the object-lesson of the twentieth-century wars, it has become evident that eternal vigilance will no longer keep the peace by equilibration, and the balance of power has become obsolete. At the same time things have so turned that an effective majority of the civilised nations now see their advantage in peace, without further opportunity to seek further dominion.
The two former insure the heterogeneity, while "segregation" brings about the definiteness and coherence, and "equilibration" arrests the process, and determines when dissolutive changes shall begin. The whole panorama is resplendent for variety and inclusiveness, and has aroused an admiration for philosophy in minds that never admired philosophy before.
With much reluctant hesitation and many misgivings, the statesmen of these pacific nations are accordingly busying themselves with schemes for keeping the peace on the unfamiliar footing of a stable equilibrium; the method preferred on the whole being an equilibration of make-believe, in imitation of the obsolete balance of power.
Although such peace may be ignominious, it need not be so; and a sense of security and reciprocal adjustment must remain among the surviving values, whatever higher achievements be added to it. But the inherent value of health is most clearly defined by a nice equilibration of activities within the medium of the individual organism.
The progressive extension of the liberty of citizens, and the reciprocal removal of political restrictions, are the steps by which we advance towards this state. And the ultimate abolition of all limits to the freedom of each, save those imposed by the like freedom of all, must, result from the complete equilibration between man's desires and the conduct necessitated by surrounding conditions.
When and in so far as the projected peace at large takes effect, international interests will necessarily fall somewhat into the background, as being no longer a matter of precarious equilibration, with heavy penalties in the balance; and diplomacy will consequently become even more of a make-believe than today something after the fashion of a game of bluff played with irredeemable "chips."
We were at a loss to imagine by what means this man came to be master of such equilibration.
Spencer proves, both by a survey of facts, and by deducing it from certain laws of the elementary type, which he severally names "the instability of the homogeneous," "the multiplication of effects," "segregation," and "equilibration."
Every superior mind will pass through this domain of equilibration, I should rather say, will know how to avail himself of the checks and balances in nature, as a natural weapon against the exaggeration and formalism of bigots and blockheads.
The ideal of the nineteenth-century statesmen was to keep the peace by a balance of power; an unstable equilibrium of rivalries, in which it was recognised that eternal vigilance was the price of peace by equilibration.
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