If the State wished to conform to this standard it would often find itself at variance with its own particular duties.

The morality of the State must be developed out of its own peculiar essence, just as individual morality is rooted in the personality of the man and his duties towards society.

The morality of the State must be judged by the nature and _raison d'etre_ of the State, and not of the individual citizen.

But the end-all and be-all of a State is power, and "he who is not man enough to look this truth in the face should not meddle in politics." [F] [Footnote F: Treitschke, "Politik," i., p 3, and ii., p 28.] Machiavelli was the first to declare that the keynote of every policy was the advancement of power.

This term, however, has acquired, since the German Reformation, a meaning other than that of the shrewd Florentine.