Europe no longer possesses unity of faith, of mission, or of aim. Such unity is a necessity in the world. Here, then, is the secret of the crisis. It is the duty of every one to
examine and analyse calmly and carefully the probable elements of this new unity. But those who persist in perpetuating, by violence or by Jesuitical compromise, the external
observance of the old unity, only perpetuate the crisis, and render its issue more violent.
There are in Europe two great questions; or, rather, the question of the transformation of authority, that is to say, of the Revolution, has assumed two forms; the question which
all have agreed to call social, and the question of nationalities. The first is more exclusively agitated in France, the second in the heart of the other peoples of Europe. I say,
which all have agreed to call social, because, generally speaking, every great revolution is so far social, that it cannot be accomplished either in the religious, political, or any
other sphere, without affecting social relations, the sources and the distribution of wealth; but that which is only a secondary consequence in political revolutions is now the
cause and the banner of the movement in France. The question there is now, above all, to establish better relations between labour and capital, between production and
consumption, between the workman and the employer.
It is probable that the European initiative, that which will give a new impulse to intelligence and to events, will spring from the question of nationalities. The social question
may, in effect, although with difficulty, be
partly resolved by a single people; it is an internal question for each, and the French Republicans of 1848 so understood it, when, determinately abandoning the European
initiative, they placed Lamartine's [Note: A French poet and politician] manifesto by the side of their aspirations towards the organisation of labour. The question of nationality
can only be resolved by destroying the treaties of 1815, and changing the map of Europe and its public Law. The question of Nationalities, rightly understood, is the Alliance of
the Peoples; the balance of powers based upon new foundations; the organisation of the work that Europe has to accomplish.

1. Think about the purpose of the source. What was the author's message or argument? What
was he/she trying to get across? Is the message explicit, or are there implicit messages as
well?