of universal economic problems on the lines of economic justice within the State and also between individual nations. The idea of a fair distribution of economic resources among States and nations was ventilated by the war, even though it has not been settled.
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Thus the war, which in the course of time became an expression of an immense struggle for the successive democratization of humanity in all directions of human activity, brought about or emphasized a number of fundamental questions affecting the post-war world which themselves are often regarded as the main bases of the war. In the life of each separate country this process was exhibited mainly by the democratic character which was imparted to the political institutions in all the new States, as well as in all the former absolutist or semi-democratic States. It was shown also by the manner in which the aristocratic and military classes were deprived of their influence, and the last remnants of the feudal regime were removed. It led also to the strengthening of the control over the executive power by legislative bodies, and to repeated attempts at a more satisfactory system of representation. In many cases this tendency brought about extremist actions which often caused violent reactions, such as Fascism. Such reactions are temporary and transient. Human experience extending over thousands of years has not discovered a better system of government than democracy. Every divergence from it has compelled those societies which have already enjoyed it to return to it with a rapidity corresponding to the violence with which it had been removed.
In international politics the democratizing development of present-day society, accelerated by the war, was shown chiefly in the proclamation of the principle of national self-determination, the establishment of new national States in Europe, and a marked tendency towards decentralization and autonomy in the case of heterogeneous States or empires. Here a special part was played by the idea of nationality as an ingredient of the democratizing process during and after the war as a whole, which in some quarters was inaccurately regarded as being more or less the basic factor determining the character of the war itself.
The idea of nationality is the product of modern times, a
