Page:The voice of an oppressed people.pdf/27

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IN THE EUROPEAN CRISIS
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tra, the teacher for life; but there is history and history. In fact, history does not prove anything, for all facts are equally historical—history gives us many examples of brutality as of humanity, of truth as of falsehood. The Huns also are historical. The real question has always been, and always will be, whether we are to bow unquestioningly before all historical facts, or whether we are resolved to master them. I am an adherent of realism; but the spiritual and moral forces in society and their growth are not less real than the Prussian generals; we can and must accept political realism, but we never can approve of the Realpolitik of Treitschke, Mommsen, Lagarde, Bernhardi, etc., who have converted anthropology into zoology. I say that, though I am speaking in the country of Darwin and his theory of the so-called fittest.

III.

7.—Smaller and Small National States could exist very well; in fact, they do exist—out of the twenty-eight states at the very most seven can be classified as great or greater; in other words, the small states outnumber the great by three to one. On a basis of mere size then we are not surprised to hear that there is only one great state, only one great nation entitled to world-power.

The conditions of political independence for smaller states are the same as for the bigger ones. Small and big states have the same natural frontiers: mountain-chains (the Pyrenees—the Bohemian mountains), great rivers, etc. The big and almost all small states are on the sea; only Switzerland and Serbia are land-locked, but then it is just Switzerland which provides eloquent proof that a small state can flourish without a coast line. Many of the smaller nations (Czechs, Magyars, etc.) are without the sea.