The patterns of international relations and organization prevailing at any given times are set by the interplay of the policies and activities of so-called and governments. And only to a slight degree are those policies and activities guided by considerations, on the part of those immediately in control of them, respecting the more fundamental and general rationale or logic of international relations and organization. The gentlemen in questionthe President of the United States, the Secretary of State, Senators, other executive officials, lower administrative agents, and their counterparts in other countries-are animated by personal feelings and judgments and by deference to -the ascertained or supposed desires of. their constituents. This is a generally accepted situation in which little change need be expected. Nevertheless it may be useful, particularly in a period when feelings are running high and judgments are somewhat uncertain on the part of officials and constituents alike, to pause and try to recall the rational or logical bases of international relations and organization. If the constituents mentioned above-voters, newspaper readers, students, and their informants and leaders (the journalists and educators)-could be induced to remember these elements of reason and practical common sense underlying the international picture some salutary influence might in consequence be exercised upon the officials in question. In any event the effort is a natural and justifiable one for technical students and teachers of political science. On the other hand such an analysis must not be based upon any mystical or ideological conceptions of international affairs. This would be misleading mainly because of the illusion that such conceptions consist of pure reason and revealed. truth, whereas in fact they are, like the reactions of the administrators, also distillates of observation and experience which refuse to admit their humble origins.' Ourianalysis must be based upon the precipitate of actual international life, although subject to as large a perspective and as vigorous a logical analysis as it is possible to summon to the task. What then are the logical bases of international relations and organization, their nature and their forms, their functions, their effects, and their values? The basic fact in the situation is found in the coexistence on the surface of this earth of some four or five score of those entities which may in simplest terms be called countries. It now seems impossible to restrict attention entirely to what the international jurist would call a state, or the sociologist a nation, although it is still verbally convenient to refer to national states from time to time. At least eighty units, and perhaps more than a hundred,