If it is a duty, and if at the same time there is well-fouded hope that we make real a state of public law even if only in an infinitely gradual approximation, then the eternal peace which will take the place of the peacemakings, falsely so-called because really just truces, is no empty idea, but a task which, gradually solved, steadily approaches its end, since it is to be hoped that the periods within which equal progress is achieved will become shorter and shorter.