The Evolution of the League of Nations1

All living organisms, no matter how minute or insignificant, when examined through the microscope, appear enormous, intricate, and extraordinarily active. Similarly, the world at large, when considered through the microscope of contemporary analysis, has no doubt, at all historical periods, struck its immediate witnesses as being infinitely complex and eventful. Is it, then, a mere delusion if the flow of recent and current happenings impresses us as being exceptionally uneven and rapid in its course, as resembling indeed a swollen Alpine torrent at the melting of the snow in the spring?I believe not. I believe that, even viewed in the perspective of centuries, the last ten years will be characterized by the future historian as an epoch of extraordinarily numerous and radical changes.To consider the world in its political aspects only, what previous decade has witnessed as many momentous events as the last? The final, decisive struggle and the end of the greatest war that has ever taken place. In Europe alone, the crumbling of four of the most powerful monarchies. The setting up or resurrection of seven or eight new or reborn sovereign entities.