[631] The Expansion of England, 1883, p. 1.
[632] This though it be true, as remarked by Sismondi (Histoire des républiques italiennes, ed. 1826, i, 100, 101), that all nations spontaneously desire to be large and powerful, in disregard of all experience.
[633] This, it need hardly be repeated, was written before 1900.
[634] Compare the remarks of Freeman, History of Federal Government, 2nd ed. p. 41.
[635] Expansion of England, p. 16. Compare the further vacillations in pp. 132-37, 301, 304, 306. In the concluding chapter (p. 294) comes the avowal that "we know no reason in the nature of things why a State should be any the better for being large."
[636] Augustine, De Civitate Dei, iv, 15.
[637] This was written before 1900. The disasters of the South African War confirmed the proposition.