of freedom. Perhaps Joseph de Maistre was right in saying that if you bury Slavonic aspirations under a fortress, they will blow it up.
We may find another illustration of the same point if we look at the opposite end of Europe, where, wedged in between the three great powers of France, England, and Germany, lie the two small States of the Netherlands. In 1814, Europe decided to form them into one State strong enough, it was calculated, to resist France. But, in 1830, Belgium revolted in order to form a separate sovereignty. And in complete defiance, though eventually with the acquiescence, of Europe, she succeeded in establishing herself without war.
If, not content with these instances, we generalise our view of the continental polity, we must be struck with the large number of small States which manage to exist in face of the great—Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Montenegro, Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania, and Greece. It may be said, no doubt, that these only maintain their life because it is to the interest of the big powers to let them be. But to this it may be answered that, viewed as mere engines of greed and aggression, the latter would find it much more profitable to partition them, as Austria, Prussia, and Russia partitioned Poland in old days. In fact, to carry the argument the other way, it might even be maintained that it is autocracy, and not democracy, which has so keen an appetite for weakness. At the Treaty of Westphalia the
