Both states sank at once as soon as large country states of consolidated strength grew up in their neighbourhood.

The lustre of Athens grew pale as soon as Macedonia arose, and Charles V.speedily brought to an end the great days of Florence.

Now if it be true that a larger type of state than any hitherto known is springing up in the world, is not this a serious consideration for those states which rise only to the old level of magnitude ?"[3] The answer to which is, "Yes, indeed, if the good old plan That he should take who has the power, And he should keep who can is to be the guiding principle in European politics of the future." But surely Sir John Seeley's argument, though undoubtedly telling as regards the sovereign independence of small _States_, tells for and not against the preservation of small _nations_.

Was it to the interest of the world as a whole that Athens and Florence should be crushed?
Is it not true, in spite of Treitschke, that the great things of earth have been the product of small peoples?
We owe our conceptions of law to a city called Rome, our finest output of literature and art to small communities like Athens, Florence, Holland, and Elizabethan England, our religion to an insignificant people who inhabited a narrow strip of land in the Eastern Mediterranean.

And small nations are as valuable to the world to-day as they have ever been.