Page 179 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

160 The Future in Relation to ;

permit the individual or the nation to escape
its due share of the world's burdens. But,
however explained, it is a common experience
of history that in the gradual ripening of
events there comes often suddenly and unex-
pectedly the emergency, the call for action, to
maintain the nation's contention. That there
is an increased disposition on the part of civi-
lized countries to deal with such cases by
ordinary diplomatic discussion and mutual
concession can be gratefully acknowledged
but that such dispositions are not always suffi-
cient to reach a peaceable solution is equally
an indisputable teaching of the recent past.
Popular emotion, once fairly roused, sweeps
away the barriers of calm deliberation, and is
deaf to the voice of reason. That the consid-
eration of relative power enters for much in
the diplomatic settlement of international diffi-
culties is also certain, just as that it goes for
much in the ordering of individual careers.
M
Can," as well as "wiU," plays a large share in
the decisions of life.
Like each man and woman, no state lives to
itself alone, in a political seclusion resembling
the physical isolation which so long was the