England, on the other hand, was successfully pursuing the opposite work of national improvement and consolidation.  She was developing a system of government which, while preserving the crown as the symbol of social order, combined aristocratic leadership with some measure of national representation.  For the first time in centuries the different members of her political body again began to function harmoniously; and she used the increasing power of aggression thereby secured with unprecedented discretion and good sense.  She had learned that her military power could not be used with any effect across the Channel, and that under existing conditions her national interests in relation to the other European Powers were more negative than positive.  Her expansive energy was concentrated on the task of building up a colonial empire in Asia and America; and in this task her comparative freedom from continental entanglements enabled her completely to vanquish France.  Her success in creating a colonial empire anticipated with extraordinary precision the course during the nineteenth century of European national development.

In contemplating the political situation of Europe towards the end of the eighteenth century the student of the origin of the power and principle of nationality will be impressed by its two divergent aspects.  The governments of the several European states had become tolerably efficient for those purposes in relation to which, during the sixteenth century and before, efficiency had been most necessary.  They could keep order.  Their citizens were protected to some extent in the enjoyment of their legal rights.  The several governments were closely associated chiefly for the purpose of preventing excessive aggression on the part of any one state and of preserving the Balance of Power.  Unfortunately, however, these governments had acquired during the turbulent era an unlimited authority which was indispensable to the fundamental task of maintaining order, but which, after order had been secured, was sufficient to encourage abuse.  Their power was in theory absolute.  It was an imitation of Roman Imperialism, and made no allowance for those limitations, both in its domestic and foreign expressions, which existed as a consequence of national growth and the international system.  Their authority at all times was keyed up to the pitch of a great emergency.  It was supposed to be the immediate expression of the common weal.  The common weal was identified with the security of society and the state.  The security of the state dictated the supreme law.  The very authority, consequently, which was created to preserve order and the Balance of Power gradually became an effective cause of internal and external disorder.  It became a source not of security, but of individual and social insecurity, because a properly organized machinery for exercising such a power and redeeming such a vast responsibility had not as yet been wrought.