BALANCE OF POWER, an expression used in diplomacy for that state of matters in which no one of the European states is permitted to have such a preponderance as to endanger the independence of the others. This idea is not, as some say, confined to modern times. The Greek states acted upon it by alind of instinct of self-preservation, though it was not directly formulated. It has, however. become more distinctly avowed as a motive of political conduct, and more systematically acted upon since the time of Charles Y., whose overgrown power and ambitious designs awakened the other European powers to the danger of such overwhelming preponderance in one state. The motive of preserving the B. of P, came first distinctly into the foreground in those unions which England, Holland, and Austria repeatedly formed againSt the menaciug schemes of Louis XIV., for acquiring the dominion of all Europe. It was the same cause that broke up the most dangerous (for Louis) of these coalitions; for in the war of the Spanish succession, when the Hapsburg pretender to the Spanish throne became, by the death of Joseph I., sovereign of Austria and emperor of Germany, and the power which, in the hands of Charles V., had menaced the equilibrium of Europe, was thus likeb to be again wielded by one man, England withdrew from the coalition, and thus saved Louis from a decided overthrow.. The aggressions of Napoleon called all the powers of
Europe to arms against him in the name of the B. of P.; and in readjusting the map of Europe, the B. of P. was often invoked to cover the jealousy which resisted not a few Claims to restitution of territory. For some time, the B. of P. in Europe has been embodied, as it were, in a pentarehy or permanent congress of the five great powers, who mutually watch one another's movements. This mutual jealousy among the leading powers on the score of extension of boundaries, is looked to as the great safeguard of the smaller states, preventing their absorption by their powerful neighbors. it was the dread of a coalition against him that made the emperor of Russia agree to the treaty of 1841, and the Crimean war arose out of Russia's renewed attempt to extend her dominion over Turkey. Latterly, the doctrine of nonintervention has to a certain extent r.ained ground among politicians; and the formation of the kingdom of Italy, the results of the Franco-German war of 1870-71, and the formation of the German empire have modified the old ideas, and brought into play new combinations whose results can hardly yet be foreseen.