Ultimately, the world-citizen's point of view is sure to prove the best even for the interests of any one na- tion. Such a conviction stands at the basis of the au- thor's ability to feel like a world-citizen at all. In criti- cizing national policies from the point of view of world policy, he is therefore confident that he is using the best method for upholding the truest interests of the nations criticized. He may, of course, misuse the method. But the method is the best. The right to criticize is inherent in world-citizenship. For world-citizenship means world solidarity which in its turn implies world interest. To put it at its sim- plest, the world has reached such a degree of interde- pendence that decisions taken in any one country may bring about grave and even tragic consequences in other lands. Nothing but the sluggish pace of men's mental evolution can justify the citizens of a particu- lar nation in considering themselves as privileged ex- clusively to control a government whose activities react on other countries with almost as much effect, if not with more, than in their own. At the outset of his work, the author wishes to assert his right to criticize other governments than that of the country in which he happened to he born. In so doing, he knows that he is running counter to at least two of the most deeply set national currents of our era. The first is the tendency to resent the slightest censure coming from a foreign source. It is a kind of awakening of the herd instinct which scents the strange species in a newly-arrived beast. But there is another tendency more dangerous perhaps and cer- -viii- |