Page:The Public and Its Problems (1946).pdf/6

occurs over a much wider geographical area than was the case in the past. It is no longer possible to argue that war brings positsve good. The most that can be said is that it is a choice of the lesser moral evil.

The fact that the problem of the scope of the political relations between nations has now entered the arena of political discussion, goes to confirm another point emphasized im the book The same problem of where the line is to be drawn between affairs left to private consideration and those subject to political adjudication is formally a universal problem. But with respect to the actual content taken by the problem, the question is always a concrete one. That is, it is a question of specifying factual consequences, which are never inherently fixed nor subject to determination in terms of abstract theory. Like all facts subject to observation and specification, they are spatial-temporal, not eternal. The State is pure myth. And, as is pointed out in the text, the very notion of the state as a universal ideal and norm arose at a particular space-time juncture to serve quite concrete aims.

Suppose for example that the idea of federation, as distinct from both isolation and imperial rule, is accepted as a working principle. Some things are settled, but not the question of just what affairs come within the jurisdiction of the Federated Government and which are excluded and remain for decision by national units as such. The problem of what should be included and what excluded from federated authority would become acute. And in the degree in which