Note 13 — III INTERNATIONAL MORALITY: THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE

This cannot be called an unconditional duty, if that means a duty which in no circumstances can be superseded by a higher duty (every duty is unconditional except as against a higher). I honour the German Chancellor for his frank statement that the violation of Belgian neutrality was an ‘Unrecht’ (a violation of law; i.e. something which is almost always, but not always, wrong). What was false was the description, as ‘a matter of life and death’, of the supposed superior duty taken to justify the supersession of the inferior. And what was revolting, and only too significant, was the revelation, in the phrase ‘a scrap of paper’, of the belief that the supersession of a duty is a trifle.