As to war, if it be the means of wrong and violence, it is the sole means of justice amongst nations.  Nothing can banish it from the world.  They who say otherwise, intending to impose upon us, do not impose upon themselves.  But it is one of the greatest objects of human wisdom to mitigate those evils which we are unable to remove.  The conformity and analogy of which I speak, incapable, like everything else, of preserving perfect trust and tranquillity among men, has a strong tendency to facilitate accommodation, and to produce a generous oblivion of the rancor of their quarrels.  With this similitude, peace is more of peace, and war is less of war.  I will go further.  There have been periods of time in which communities apparently in peace with each other have been more perfectly separated than in later times many nations in Europe have been in the course of long and bloody wars.  The cause must be sought in the similitude throughout Europe of religion, laws, and manners.  At bottom, these are all the same.  The writers on public law have often called this aggregate of nations a commonwealth.  They had reason.  It is virtually one great state, having the same basis of general law, with some diversity of provincial customs and local establishments.  The nations of Europe have had the very same Christian religion, agreeing in the fundamental parts, varying a little in the ceremonies and in the subordinate doctrines.  The whole of the polity and economy of every country in Europe has been derived from the same sources.  It was drawn from the old Germanic or Gothic Custumary,—­from the feudal institutions, which must be considered as an emanation from that Custumary; and the whole has been improved and digested into system and discipline by the Roman law.  From hence arose the several orders, with or without a monarch, (which are called States,) in every European country; the strong traces of which, where monarchy predominated, were never wholly extinguished or merged in despotism.  In the few places where monarchy was cast off, the spirit of European monarchy was still left.  Those countries still continued countries of States,—­that is, of classes, orders, and distinctions, such as had before subsisted, or nearly so.  Indeed, the force and form of the institution called States continued in greater perfection in those republican communities than under monarchies.  From all those sources arose a system of manners and of education which was nearly similar in all this quarter of the globe,—­and which softened, blended, and harmonized the colors of the whole.  There was little difference in the form of the universities for the education of their youth, whether with regard to faculties, to sciences, or to the more liberal and elegant kinds of erudition.  From this resemblance in the modes of intercourse, and in the whole form and fashion of life, no citizen of Europe could be altogether an exile in any part of it.  There was nothing more than a pleasing variety to recreate and instruct the mind, to enrich the imagination, and to meliorate the heart.  When a man travelled or resided, for health, pleasure, business, or necessity, from his own country, he never felt himself quite abroad.