Title: A Critical Analysis of Patriotism As an Ethical Concept: A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 1, 1918
Author: Reidenbach, Clarence
Language: English
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PATRIOTISM AS AN ETHICAL CONCEPT ***



  A Critical Analysis of Patriotism
  As an Ethical Concept


  BY
  CLARENCE REIDENBACH


  A DISSERTATION
  PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE
  GRADUATE SCHOOL OF YALE UNIVERSITY
  IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF
  DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
  MAY 1, 1918



  TABLE OF CONTENTS

                                                              Page

  PART I. THE IMPULSES OF PATRIOTISM

  Chapter I. The Impulses of Attachment                          9

  Chapter II. The Impulses of Antipathy                         16


  PART II. THE HABITUATION OF PATRIOTISM

  Chapter III. The Deliberate Habituation                       27

  Chapter IV. The Spontaneous Habituation                       35


  PART III. THE BELIEFS OF PATRIOTISM

  Chapter V. The Country as Protector of Self                   45

  Chapter VI. The Oneness of Country and Self                   52

  Chapter VII. The Intrinsic Value of One’s Country             57


  PART IV. THE NATURE AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM

  Chapter VIII. The Will to National Individuality              71

  Chapter IX. The Nation as an Individual                       85

  Chapter X. The Ethical Value of Patriotism in the
  Concrete                                                      99


  NOTES


  BIBLIOGRAPHY



PREFACE


Patriotism is a live issue. It is almost impossible for any one to be
neutral about it. All men seem to feel that the issue involved is one
that touches the fundamental interests of their lives. Patriotism is an
important concept.

But not all men take the same stand regarding patriotism. There is hot
disagreement upon the question of its moral value. Some champion it
as one of the noblest of all virtues; others spurn it as one of the
basest. Therefore it is highly desirable to arrive at a fair judgment
of the ethical value of patriotism.

One of the chief reasons for the radical disagreement about the
morality of patriotism is that there are widely different assumptions
as to its nature. It is a sentiment of manifold varieties, and the word
patriotism may carry quite different implications to different minds.
The first necessary step, then, before one can pass an ethical judgment
upon it, is to find out what the core of patriotism is.

This dissertation begins, therefore, by undertaking to determine the
nature of patriotism, and with no more of a clue in hand than the one
that it is “the love of country” tries, by an inductive investigation
of what has actually been called patriotism, to bring together the
important facts in which patriotism is manifested. Hence, while the
main purpose of the essay is an ethical one, a large portion of it
is given to inductive analysis. The first three parts are mainly
analytical. The fourth part endeavors to unify in a central concept the
data gathered together in the preceding parts, and, in the light of
that concept and all the facts, to evaluate patriotism as an ethical
ideal. It may be noted here that the first three parts are printed
as they were in the typewritten form presented to Yale University as
a thesis, but that part four has undergone much rearrangement and
revision. Chapter eight has been largely rewritten; chapter nine is
entirely new; and what here appears as chapter ten has been somewhat
changed.

Acknowledgement is hereby made to the members of the faculty of
the department of philosophy in Yale University for many helpful
criticisms. Especially is a debt owed to Professor Charles A.
Bennett, who suggested the field of patriotism as a fruitful one for
investigation, under whose direction the work was done, and whose
criticisms and suggestions have made more definite than would otherwise
have been the case, the problems involved. Thanks are due to Professor
Luther A. Weigle, who read the manuscript, and helped to clarify and
make accurate the expression of the ideas. And my gratitude is given to
my wife, whose assistance in the final preparation of the manuscript
was invaluable, and who by her constant helpfulness and loyalty made it
possible for the whole work to be brought to completion.

Indianapolis, January, 1920.



  PART I

  THE IMPULSES OF PATRIOTISM



CHAPTER I

THE IMPULSES OF ATTACHMENT


When in 1914 the great war broke out, the world was astounded. There
were forces at work which men were confident would make another
war between first-class powers impossible. International relations
and groupings, such as those of commerce, labor, art, science, and
learning, had increased in strength and number. The terribleness and
waste of war were deemed to be so fully realized that modern nations
would have no taste for armed conflict. But the war came on, and
there must have been mighty causes to be able to produce so gigantic
a result. What were they? What could be the nature of such tremendous
causes, that yet remained concealed and in their issuance so took men
by surprise? The factors were various, and some, of course, had been
noted, but one factor which was unnoticed by the general public and yet
which is one of fundamental importance is the rôle taken in patriotism
by men’s unreasoned dispositions of character. If the phenomenon of
patriotism is to be fully understood, it must be analyzed with a
view of discovering what are these deeply ingrained sets of mind and
character which are its raw material and which make it so powerful.[1]

Patriotism is a complex sentiment. There is, in other words, no single
instinctive response in all human beings to the stimulus, country.
What, then, are some of the dispositions of which patriotism is
composed? There are impulses which make primarily for attachment,
and there are those that make primarily for antipathy. One of the
most important of the impulses of attachment is the disposition of
gregariousness. Hobbes, indeed, and others after him, built their
theories of the state upon the doctrine that man would have been able
to live alone had not the company of others been forced upon him, but
that there is an impulse of gregariousness seems indisputable. It is
simply an observable fact that there are species of animals that not
only live in herds, packs, or flocks, but which also show uneasiness
and distress at being separated from their fellows. James cites the
observation of Galton on the gregariousness of the South African
cattle.[2] If an individual of this species were separated from the
herd it would direct its whole activity towards getting back once
more, and when its object was attained, would plunge into the heart
of the herd as if to bathe its very body in contact with its fellows.
Now man, as well as other animals, lives a group life, and it seems
almost inevitable that he should develop an impulse parallel to the
outward facts of his existence, even were it not probable that he has
inherited gregariousness as a psychical disposition from his animal
ancestors. That the impulse is actually present in the human species
is shown by the fact that there is in man a strong abhorrence of
prolonged solitude. Professor James’ words on this point have come to
be almost classical: “To be alone is one of the greatest evils for him
[the normal man]. Solitary confinement is by many regarded as a mode of
torture too cruel and unnatural for civilized countries to adopt. To
one long pent up on a desert island the sight of a human footprint or
a human form in the distance would be the most tumultuously exciting
of experiences.”[3] But the impulse is also apparent in more normal
experiences. So much do men desire the company of others that it is not
only an element of recreation usually, but the more serious tasks of
life often derive their value not more because of the ostensible end
sought after than because of the human association which is involved.

Wilfred Trotter[4] has made gregariousness central in his study
of society. He begins by approving of the method of those who
have come at the study from the standpoint of the instincts, but
expresses dissatisfaction with the limits of their results, that
is, dissatisfaction with the kind of analysis that would explain
man by referring the whole of his conduct to the instincts of
self-preservation, nutrition, and sex. Such an explanation, he finds,
has been historically attempted, but after it has gone as far as it
could, there has always been left over an unexplained X. Trotter
accepts self-preservation, nutrition, and sex as fundamental instincts,
but completes the list by bringing forward the instinct of the herd
which he offers as the explanation of all human activity which was
left unexplained by the other three instincts mentioned above. To
Trotter there have been two great epoch-making forward steps in the
evolution of life. The first came with the change from unicellular
to multicellular organisms, the great advantage of which was to make
the _group_ of cells the unit of selection, thus to some extent
relieving the single cell of the burden of the struggle for existence,
and permitting it a greater chance for variability without running
a greater risk of extinction. This arrangement, says Trotter, had
important influences upon all the cells comprised in the organism. The
second great evolutionary advance came with the change from solitary to
gregarious animals, and was attended by modifications just as profound
as had accompanied the advance from unicellular to multicellular
organisms. Here again the power of natural evolution operated upon the
group as a unit, thus permitting once more greater variability on the
part of the individual. Association in the herd became increasingly
valuable in the struggle for existence, and tended to become more and
more strongly fixed as a disposition of animal nature, a fact which
had fundamental influence upon the mental characteristics of the
individual. There are psychological traits which would not exist but
for the fact of gregariousness. Shyness, embarrassment, fear, anger,
love, sympathy, sorrow, and gratitude would be devoid of meaning apart
from their connection with social relations.

The first important result of the instinct of gregariousness is that
it makes for homogeneity. That is, it is an impulse making primarily
for attachment. Each individual tends to become thoroughly assimilated
in the life of the group; the group’s ways have a vital meaning to
him. Sensitiveness to the behavior of his fellows is heightened, and
resistiveness to the suggestions of the herd is lowered. A suggestion
from outside is likely to be rejected, and direct experience tends to
have little meaning, if its teachings are at variance with the beliefs
of the group. Altruism arises; it is a natural product of the situation
where the conditions of life are such that each individual is of
necessity constantly in the habit of regarding the welfare of others
as well as that of himself. Danger from the outside stimulates each
individual, and spreads fear through the whole group. The herd huddles
together, and each shares in the panic of all. Loneliness at such a
time is unbearable.

Now man is a social creature, and has the characteristics that result
from herd instinct. He tends to become solidified with those of his
own kind, and feel uncomfortable when out of touch with them; to be
suggestible to the influences of his group, and resistive to the
influences of other groups; to feel altruism towards those of his own
herd and aversion towards those of other herds; to be aroused when the
nation is threatened, and huddle in the group in the face of danger.
All these characteristics under the proper stimuli are manifested
by patriotism. A definition of patriotism from the standpoint of
attachment to the group is that of Sumner: “Patriotism is loyalty to
the civic group to which one belongs by birth or other group bond. It
is a sentiment of fellowship and coöperation in all the hopes, work,
and sufferings of the group.[5]

The herd is not tolerant of the nonconformist. The nonconformist has
in a way become a stranger. He has put himself out of touch with the
group. The group knows him and his ways, but he has not permitted
himself to be thoroughly assimilated by it. And the very thing that
the herd desires and insists upon is homogeneity. In the words of one
writer, “The crowd not only needs to make adherents and thus maintain
its existence and increase in volume and power; it needs no less to
assimilate, to digest, the individuals which it swallows up.”[6] The
individual, then, cannot be too insistent upon the expression of his
own personality. His life, even his inner life, must conform to that of
the group. His emotions will not be a matter merely of his own concern.
“Herd-union does not intensify all emotions. It intensifies those
which are felt in common, but it actually deadens and shuts down those
which are only felt by the individual.”[7] And independent thought is
even more taboo. “Thought ... is markedly individual and personal....
Thought is critical, and the Herd wants unanimity, not criticism.
Consequently Herd-union deadens thought.”[8] Hence the nonconformist
gets himself disliked, and the outcome of the situation has usually
been to submerge the individual, and assimilate him to the group. The
moral of the tale is that patriotism acts in that way. “Patriotism,
which is the crowd-emotion of a Nation, makes at times supreme claims
on every citizen and enforces them by public opinion so powerful that
few can or desire to evade them.”[9]

These observations throw light upon the question whether patriotism
is a _political_ or _national_ emotion. Is patriotism attachment to
the government or state, or is it love of one’s national group? There
can be no doubt that it is the latter rather than the former. It is an
outgrowth of tribal feeling. Bertrand Russell is only overstating a
truth when he says that “Tribal feeling, which always underlay loyalty
to the sovereign, has remained as strong as it ever was, and is now the
chief support for the power of the State.”[10]

There is an egoistic element in the attachment of patriotism. It is an
adhesion to one’s own, and one’s own is but an extension of himself.
Patriotism is a personal matter. That is, it is based upon a personal
relationship. One cleaves to his group not on account of its intrinsic
worth simply but because of what it is worth _to him_. The majority
of men are most loyal to what is nearest themselves. Each one of them
seems to himself to be the center of his sphere, and things vary in
importance in direct ratio to their nearness to the center. This fact
gives the key to a very common kind of patriotism. It is simply the
loyalty that men feel to the extension of their own ego.

“One’s own” includes the people of his group, _i. e._, the people who
are most like himself. These people share many things in common with
himself. They have similar habits and customs, and all this conduces to
render them one’s own. “One’s own” also includes the soil. It is that
which is beneath one’s very feet; it sustains one; it nourishes one.
Furthermore, one knows it as he cannot know any strange land, and as no
stranger can know his land. He lives in it throughout the whole year,
and knows it intimately in all its peculiarities and changing moods.
Consequently, his patriotism has in it a love of the “land where his
fathers died.” Virgil understood the meaning of this love of the soil.
He himself felt it keenly, and because of it refused to accept the old
home estate of a Roman sent into exile. It was characteristic that he
made Æneas lament Troy even when he was going out to establish Rome
itself. It was because of this understanding, in part at least, that he
was led to urge the Romans to get back to the soil, realizing that from
a love of _the soil_ to a love of _our soil_ is but a step.[11]

However, what one has been used to should not be taken as the only
kind of the patriotism of attachment that there is. If adhesion to
one’s own could not be overcome, loyalty to one’s earliest home would
quite uniformly be stronger than patriotism. But sometimes one begins
to feel that his childhood was spent in cramped quarters, and that
his early opinions were inadequate. The emotion that he may be very
likely to feel under such conditions is not that of affection but
that of contempt and disgust. Quite often when there is a conflict
between loyalty to the nation and loyalty to the community, loyalty to
the nation proves the stronger. Another indication that men are not
inseparably bound to what they have been used to is that they change
their nation, adopt another country, and side with it even against
the country of their birth. Some time ago there appeared in one of
the large newspapers a letter from a naturalized German in which was
this sentence: “Perhaps you would appreciate your American citizenship
better if, like me, you had been born and brought up in Germany.”[12]

A reason for this attachment to one’s own is the impulse which impels
one to want to feel at home in his world. It is an impulse which craves
order; and it shows itself in a desire for a unified world. There
seems to be an esthetic element in it; the normal mind with a sense of
beauty cannot endure chaos. It represents a rational demand; it is, for
instance, a driving force in philosophy. It finds another root in the
desire for safety. One wants a friendly world in which he feels sure
of himself and where he can live freely without being troubled by the
strange or unknown. Now one’s country presents a world that he knows
and can find his way in; consequently, it satisfies this demand for a
unified world organized about one’s own life, and by virtue of this
character it is able to furnish an additional item in the stimuli to
patriotism.

Man is attached to his country very much as he is attached to himself;
he could not very well help the one any more than he could help the
other. But what is in one way a mere expression of egoism becomes also
an affection. Unless there is some special reason for the contrary,
one is likely to cherish a real affection for that with which he has
long been associated, and especially so, if it has been of use to him.
This fact gives justification for the popular definition of patriotism
as “the _love_ of country.” This affection even may be selfish, but
it may also take on a more altruistic character. Altruism naturally
and perforce develops in a gregarious society. And, moreover, the
parental instinct adds its strength. The protection of the home is a
strong sentiment in patriotism. And the tender emotion of the parental
instinct may be extended to others besides offspring. Patriotism
gets colored by it, and becomes very much like it. McDougall says
that, “Like the fully developed parental sentiment, the patriotism
of many men is a fusion of this quasi-altruistic extension of
the self-regarding sentiment with the truly altruistic sentiment
of love.”[13] Patriotism is, then, in part egoistic and in part
altruistic. In a nation beset with enemies it will indeed take the form
of animosity toward the enemy, but in a prosperous nation will direct
itself very frequently to internal improvement. And it may be said that
it retains something of altruism as well as egoism even in war. It is,
even while being combative towards the _out-group_, altruistic towards
the _in-group_.[14]

The spirit of attachment in patriotism may even go so far as to
become a worship. Religious impulse has frequently been an element
in patriotism. Religion and patriotism were almost the same thing
in Israel. But there are modern parallels. A clergyman not long ago
was reported to have said that the men who died upon the field of
battle (he was thinking of men of his own nation) would straightway
reach heaven, since they had died for their fellow men. It is evident
that being a patriot held something of a religious fervor for that
clergyman. Probably the Kaiser feels a religious exaltation which
sustains him in the belief that he is the instrument of God.

Alfred Loisy[15] opposes Christianity and patriotism to one another,
much to the credit of patriotism. According to Loisy, the teachings of
Christianity and patriotism are incompatible, and those of Christianity
are quite inadequate for the present crisis. Therefore patriotism is
much nobler and not only should but will supplant Christianity. The
only living faith, so he says, is that of devotion to one’s country.
For that men will sacrifice. “Certainly,” says Loisy, “it is an august
life for which a man will sacrifice his own without grudging it; but
it is not for a blessed immortality in the company of Christ and the
saints; it is for the life of the country.”[16] This account of what
Loisy says is set down here not so much because it gives an idea of
patriotism, but because through it Loisy passionately expresses his
own ideal. In his book there breathes a most intense love for France.
This love, he says, is the absorbing passion of the people of France,
and is what unites them. Again we quote his own words: “There are a
faith and love in which it [the army] is unanimous [as against the
lack of unanimity in Christianity]: the love of our country, and an
imperishable belief in her future; over these sentiments, all are in
communion, and the whole country agrees with the army. Here is our
common religion: one which has no unbelievers; in which those who are
faithful to the old creed may fraternize indiscriminately with the
adherents of the newer principles.... Differences [of religion] count
no longer in face of the absorbing interest, the burning passion, the
true religion, both of this and of every moment, namely devotion to the
immortality of France.”[17] “So long as we live, we are determined to
live in our own way; and that which gives us our vigour now against the
invader is neither a lust of conquest, nor the hate which an unjust,
cruel, and fanatical enemy deserves, but the love of our ancient
France, who is our all, whom we yearn to preserve, and whom we are
vowed to save.”[18] Here is a devotion which amounts to a religion,
and it furnishes an example of the working of the religious impulse in
patriotism.

It is not yet time to draw final conclusions, but it is not out of
place to note in passing that patriotism was not condemned by its
egoistic ingredients, and is not now justified by its elements of
altruism. Viewed as a religion, one may say that it is too likely
to become fanatical. The willingness to die upon the battlefield,
rather than goodness, becomes the final test of the desirable citizen.
Moreover, the injury worked upon others is apt to be overlooked.
As a religion, patriotism has the strength, but not the necessary
universality. What it does is wrongly to elevate _a good_ to the
standard of _the Good_.



CHAPTER II

THE IMPULSES OF ANTIPATHY


The impulses of antipathy have played an important role in the
development of patriotism. When one becomes aware of the existence of
other peoples unlike himself, the sense of difference which arises
is liable to take on the character of a strong and active aversion
to and depreciation of them. Nothing is more common than the feeling
that one’s own people is a kind of chosen race, and that all other
races are inferior. A speaker who had lived many years among the
Navajo Indians once said that they regarded and called themselves “The
People.” They were at the top of mankind; the Mexicans ranked next to
them; the Americans came third and last. This was their arrangement of
all the peoples that they knew. The same attitude appears in civilized
man. He is characterized by self-satisfaction, and the peculiarities
of others, even of dialect and pronunciation, are enough to call
forth contempt and ridicule. It follows that strangers can easily
be enemies. In Latin, the word _hostis_ which at first meant simply
_stranger_ or _foreigner_ came later to mean _enemy_. The words of
Loisy are again appropriate: “In the lower stages of human evolution,
a foreigner is not far from being an enemy, if he be not one actually.
In the higher stages of our evolution, among people who think they
are really civilized, he still seems in practice to be of another
species, because he has a different mentality, and unusual ways. Each
separate human group has thus a fashion of collective egoism, whence
comes self-satisfaction, a pride which may possess dignity, which
may be a power, but which also may become a source of blindness and
wickedness.”[19] This antipathy to foreigners has been strong even
when other forces appeared to be in the ascendancy. Such was the case,
for instance, when religion seemed to have the center of the stage;
nationalistic jealousy was a factor in the movements which centered
about Wiclif, Huss, Luther, Henry VIII, and John Knox. These men could
all count upon antipathy to foreigners. And the same antipathy shows
itself today in the fact that the peoples of different nations not only
hate the enemy, but also show a lack of solicitude about their allies.
In the outcry for increased production in the spring of 1917, some
individuals expressed themselves as being ready to plant for American
consumption, but unwilling that any of the products should go to
foreigners. And the “foreigners” that were in mind in some instances
were the Canadians, our next-door neighbors. It may be added, however,
that it does not seem as if there is in race hatred any insurmountable
obstacles to overcoming it. Races which are thrown into contact become
accustomed to one another, and are able to live in harmony.

The form assumed by the general impulse of aversion or antipathy
may be either defensive or aggressive, and may tend toward either
self-preservation or self-assertion. There are nations which of their
own motion will not be warlike, but in which the warlike temper will
flare up when they are once attacked. In such nations patriotism has
been associated with the fight for freedom. Sometimes it seems as
if the definition of the patriot was that he was one who defended
his country’s liberty. This love of freedom is featured in American
expressions of patriotism. A verse from “Hail, Columbia,” will serve as
an example:

  “Immortal patriots! rise once more:
  Defend your rights, defend your shore:
  Let no rude foe with impious hand
  Let no rude foe with impious hand
  Invade the shrine where sacred lies
  Of toil and blood the well-earned prize.”

The call in this verse is that for defense.

There is an instinct that attends this impulse to self-preservation
that strikes one forcibly as being prominent in the patriotism of the
present time, and that is fear. It is an impulse that manifests itself
when one’s existence or vital interests are threatened. The peoples of
the world today are in an excitement of fear because each one of them
believes that national existence and the personal values that depend
upon it are endangered. There is a reason why it is easy for nations,
while trusting in their own good intentions, to be suspicious of one
another. When the individual looks at his own country, he is likely to
see the common people who are all about him and are like himself. And,
since he feels that his own purposes are good, he can easily credit
good motives to his fellow-citizens. But when, on the other hand, he
looks into another country, he is likely to see the governing class
looming up, since that is the class that figures most prominently
in the newspapers. And it is this class which is likely to be most
aggressively nationalistic, and is, moreover, the object of very little
understanding by the ordinary man. Hence, while he thinks that all the
good people that he knows cannot comprise anything that is inhuman, he
can believe that there may very well be foreign monsters. The result is
fear, fear of other countries, a fear that breaks out into a panic when
danger arises, and drives men to seek the safety of the fatherland. Now
the present is a time of panic, and the impulse of fear has put its
impress deep upon current patriotism.

But what is feared tends to become hated too, and so patriotism gets
tinged with hate. Examples of it are at hand. This war has produced
its “Hymn of Hate,” so labeled, and others not so labeled. Many of the
Psalms are expressions of patriotic hate, and since the war began have
been read as such. J. M. Robertson[20] contends that patriotism is
nothing else but fear and hatred. To his mind patriotism is not love
or affection at all, and the only apparent affection there may be, is
that which is compelled by the necessity for common action against an
enemy. Fear itself, Robertson points out, implies a hostile impulse;
love and hate, cohesion and repulsion, are to him strictly correlative
terms; there is no love which is not linked with hate. “It is not,” he
says, “brotherhood, or sympathy, or goodwill that unites the general
population in a flush of passion against another population: the
ostensible brotherhood of the moment is merely a passing product of the
union of egoisms.”[21]

It is certain that in great measure Robertson is right. But one may
well doubt the truth of the assertion that it is necessary to hate in
order to love. It is not necessary to hate one woman in order to love
another, or to have an enemy in order to possess a friend. Neither does
it seem essential in the nature of things to hate one country in order
to be able to love another. Moreover, hatred is not unqualifiedly a
term of opprobrium. How can one rightly care for anything without in
some way resenting attacks upon it? There are such things as righteous
wrath and righteous hatred if they be directed against what is evil.

These remarks upon fear and hatred throw further light upon some of the
phenomena of patriotism already touched upon. One can better understand
now the frantic excitement that often attends a national crisis; fear
“more than ... any other instinct, tends to bring to an end at once all
other mental activity, riveting the attention upon its object to the
exclusion of all others.”[22] New light is thrown upon the solidarity
the group shows. Under the stimulus of fear, the herd instinctively
unites. Unity is the basis of morale. And the individual subordinates
himself to the group; his normal intolerance of isolation is heightened
in the presence of fear. And a corollary of all this is that the
patriotism of fear is destructive of thought, but is prolific in unity
of emotion and action.

Self-assertion is an attitude which under the conflict of interests
with others may be induced. And in the external affairs of nations,
it may be brought to triumph over the motive of security. The means
by which this is done is through the argument that only by taking
an aggressive part can one defend himself, the argument in other
words, that the best defense is a good offense. The result is that
the distinction between defensive and offensive warfare is liable
to be obliterated, a fact which adds to the perplexities of the
problem of war. “The feeling that war is always defensive wrecks the
peace propaganda. The word defensive is capable of being stretched
indefinitely. It is not confined necessarily to preventing an invasion.
A people will feel that it is fighting a defensive war if it attacks
a nation which may attack it in the future.... Or the people may feel
that what it regards as its legitimate expansion is being thwarted....
So by imperceptible gradations every war can be justified, and, as a
matter of fact, is justified as defensive.”[23] When once a war is
started, a people will support it, even if it is aggressive, and if one
couples with this the fact that when a nation arms in self-defense,
it acquires the means of aggression, he can understand how easily a
patriotism which supports only a policy of self-preservation can be
brought to support a policy of self-assertion.

One way in which the will to self-assertion is likely to manifest
itself is as an impulse to expansion. A stationary condition is not
satisfactory to the group; it desires to reach out. This impulse shows
itself in churches and orders of all kinds by the constant demand for
new members. The group wants to see itself grow. But if nations grow,
they are apt to think that they need more land. And when this occurs
their patriotism will attach itself to the desire for expansion, and
become imperialism. J. M. Robertson couples the words _Patriotism and
Empire_ in the title of a book, and in that book he says, “Patriotism
conventionally defined as the love of country, ... turns out rather
obviously to stand for love of more country.”[24] And where there is
coupled with this the impulse of acquisition, it becomes plain why the
economic rivalry of nations has been so important in bringing about the
situation out of which war arises.

The impulse of expansion undergoes but a slight change to become the
will to domination. This latter is a primitive impulse. The Indian was
taught to despise manual labor, but to glory in the overcoming and
plundering of other tribes. It is still dominant in the race. What men
desire, at least in the Western world, is power, and they would rather
exercise dominion over others than be free themselves. Goethe puts the
idea in poetical form:

  “How often has it arisen! Yes, and it will arise
  Ever and evermore! No man yields sovereignty
  Unto his fellow: none will yield to him
  Who won the power by force, and by force keeps his hold.
  For man, who cannot rule his own unruly heart,
  Is hot to rule his neighbor, bind him to his will.”[25]

The desire for dominion was awakened by the Napoleonic aggressions,
and has played a great part in fanning the flame of nationalism in the
nineteenth century. It has given nationalism an aggressive and militant
character. And the people of a democratic country are not immune from
the virus; they as well as kings sometimes give themselves up to the
thirst for domination, a fact which has at least some bearing upon
whether or not democracy will make the world safe. The citizen rarely
disputes the external sovereignty of his country. Consequently the fact
of internal democracy by no means gives assurance that a country will
uniformly abstain from assuming the attitude of a dynastic state when
it faces the world. Democracy often ceases at the water’s edge.

Pride is a part of patriotism. Men walk with heads up and chests out
at the consciousness of belonging to a conquering or respected nation.
The triumphal processions of the Romans were a spectacle that no doubt
stirred patriotism of this variety in noble Roman hearts. They could
“point with pride” to their glory. And a little touch of glory makes
the whole world kin; modern men in their swelling national pride are of
the same stock as the ancient men of Rome. Men now identify themselves
with their group, and feel that along with it, they themselves rise or
fall in importance. If the country submits to another’s will, they hang
their heads in shame; if it imposes upon another its own will, they
hold their heads high. An important practical consequence of national
pride is that no people now would voluntarily consent to peace without
honor, which is food for thought in the planning of peace.

The patriotism of pride is not loath to meet its adversary upon the
field of honor. When nations have a lively sense of power and prestige,
a situation is created which furnishes admirable fuel for trouble.
For insecure pride will induce fear, and fearful pride will allow no
nation to do other than to resent insults, real or supposed, promptly
and bitterly. Material interests need not clash in order that a war be
provoked. If the patriot says to himself that the country’s honor has
been assailed, the fight is on, no matter what the insult may consist
in; it may have to do with only a matter of mere punctilio. An insult
has been offered, and injured pride does not enjoy itself until it
reaps revenge. Of course the crime is that the insult is a public one.
“The act that, more certainly than any other, provokes vengeful emotion
is the public insult, which, if not immediately resented, lowers one
in the eyes of one’s fellows. Such an insult calls out one’s positive
self-feeling, with its impulse to assert oneself and to make good one’s
value and power in the public eye.”[26]

But it does not happen that any one country is allowed to assert
itself without opposition. Others will follow the example, attempt to
assert themselves, and make good their prestige. What then happens
is that there is a race for power, and patriotism becomes a spirit
of rivalry or emulation.[27] The fact is that what most of us desire
is not only well-being but prestige, not only the _Good_, but the
_Better_ or the _Best_. Athletic contests are invested with such great
interest not only because they may be good games, but because they
are _contests_, contests perhaps between traditional rivals, or are
for the championship of this, that, or the other. It is likewise with
countries. National welfare is viewed at the present time very largely
as a competitive success. And affairs have come to such a condition
that no one country dares to let up in its vigilance in the universal
competition. Individually it is helpless. If it relaxes, its competitor
will monopolize all the advantages, its own prestige will be lowered,
and it will be inviting aggression in which it will be preyed upon.
There doesn’t seem to be much help for the situation except in the
concerted action of nations. But in the meanwhile the struggle goes on,
and patriots throw themselves into the spirit of it with abandon.

It should be said that it is not inevitable that the impulse of rivalry
should issue exclusively in destructive conflict. One does not need to
destroy his competitor in order that he himself should be benefited,
and in fact enlightened competition does desire the preservation and
welfare of the competitors. One way in which the emulative impulse
differs from the combative impulse, for instance, is just this, that it
does seek to preserve a defeated competitor. The possibility is, then,
that patriotism may be sublimated into a higher and more innocent form
of rivalry than what we have at present.

We have, however, to deal with the present fact that the rivalry of
nations is likely to issue in war. And hence it becomes necessary to
take into consideration the impulse of pugnacity. The plain fact is
that war has a fascination. Even if one’s own country be not involved,
one turns eagerly to the war news in the daily papers. History is
the history of wars. The attractiveness of war is expressed in the
following verse of Richard Le Gallienne:

  “War
  I abhor
  And yet how sweet
  The sound along the marching street
  Of drum and fife! and I forget
  Wet eyes of widows, and forget
  Broken old mothers, and the whole
  Dark butchery without a soul.”

There is that about the martial life which excites enthusiasm, and that
enthusiasm gets connected with patriotism. Patriotism runs at high tide
in war times.[28]

And now, does the presence of the instinct of pugnacity compel at once
an unfavorable verdict on patriotism? There is no doubt that pugnacity
may lead to what is undesirable; it does become “dark butchery without
a soul.” Is patriotism for that to be condemned? In answer to this two
things may be said. To begin with, militancy may be a good, and can no
more be condemned in the abstract than can pacifism. There is no ground
for saying that pacifism is a virtue in itself. One might be pacifistic
simply because he did not care about his fellow men, or simply because
he was afraid to fight. Nonresistance is indeed under some conditions a
good, and so is the impulse of pugnacity. Totally devoid of it, neither
the individual nor the nation can live in other than pusillanimous
cowardice; their ideals will not be much, and from them shall be taken
even the little that they have. In the second place, patriotism does
not issue exclusively in war. It has already been shown that it has a
positive character of attachment, and may develop without reference to
war, but wholly with reference to the pursuits of peace.

The analysis of the impulses of patriotism has emphasized the truth of
a proposition that was stated at the beginning; patriotism is a complex
phenomenon. It is, as it actually appears, composed of a wide variety
of impulses, which appear in shifting combinations, and show themselves
now in one person and time and now in another.

The conclusion may also be drawn that there has been found here no
ground for passing a final verdict either favorable or unfavorable upon
patriotism. There has been found in the instinctive basis of patriotism
an element which gives it its tremendous power, but that result does
not answer the question regarding the moral worth of patriotism.
Instincts are just tendencies that taken simply as instincts have no
moral character at all. Their moral worth depends upon the way in which
they are used. Consequently, before one can estimate the worth of
patriotism, he must see how these impulses are used in it.

The impulses themselves are not patriotism. They form raw material
for and give character to it, but they themselves are not patriotism.
They serve equally well as raw material for other human interests far
removed from this one. Instincts alone are unorganized, and are capable
of being shaped into an indefinite number of meanings. The further
question that will ultimately have to be answered is that concerning
what the organizing factor is that can ever give to any combination
of impulses the meaning,--patriotism. That investigation will next be
entered upon.



PART II

THE HABITUATION OF PATRIOTISM



CHAPTER III

THE DELIBERATE HABITUATION


One way by which the impulses and dispositions of human character are
amalgamated in patriotism is by habituation. The habits of patriotism
are just as powerful and important as the impulses. The impulses,
in fact, are molded into habits, and are profoundly modified by the
environment and regimen to which they are subjected. The habits become
the masters of the impulses. Thought at this point enters into the
problem, but it is not the individual’s own thought; it is the thought
of the society which surrounds him. His articles of faith are habits
acquired from society. “... It is through habit that the influence
of intelligence has most control over the lives of the majority of
civilized men.”[29] On the part of the individual, the thought is
involuntary, or at least unvoluntary, and is accompanied by like
action. Most of man’s beliefs are nonrational, even though he supposes
that he has come to hold them by his own free and deliberate choice.
Society holds tremendous power over the building of character; in large
measure, it controls the material that the mind has to work on. And
this control is of primary importance. “... The essential fact which
has made the Great Society possible is the discovery, handed down by
tradition and instruction, that Thought can be fed by deliberately
collected material, and stimulated, sustained, and to a certain extent,
controlled by an effort of will.”[30]

Now, the patriotic spirit, along with other dispositions, may be
acquired as a habit, and the mold into which patriotism runs is
notoriously with most men a matter of circumstances and habituation.
Along this line, it is interesting to speculate as to what American
patriotism would be if this country had never separated from England,
if the thirteen colonies had not been able to form a federation, or
if the South had been successful in the Civil War. The loyalty of
Americans would have been totally different, but no doubt would be just
as devoted as it actually is. It is a historical fact that English
patriotism has modified itself to correspond to the expansion of the
empire. In view of all this, one can hardly resist the conclusion that
patriotism depends quite largely upon habituation and use and wont.
Patriotism is a national habit; and it is a habit which even were it
proved to be nothing but evil, would not be easily broken, since it is
acquired from life’s earliest years onward.

  “The superstitions of our early years,
  E’en when we know them to be nothing more,
  Lose not for that their hold upon our hearts;
  Not all are free who ridicule their chains.”[31]

There are two kinds of the habituation of patriotism, deliberate and
spontaneous, conscious and unconscious, direct and indirect. The more
obvious of the two is that of conscious and deliberate habituation.
There are agencies that are constantly being used with deliberate
purpose towards the regimentation of the populace in patriotism.
“Patriotism is systematically cultivated by anniversaries, pilgrimages,
symbols, songs, recitations, etc.”[32] There are numerous patriotic
societies, such as the Grand Army of the Republic, the Daughters of the
American Revolution, the Sons of Veterans, the Woman’s Relief Corps,
the Daughters of the Confederacy, and others.[33]

But there are other and more important forces back of the inculcation
of patriotism. In most countries the state with all its power is
vigilant lest patriotism be allowed to become otiose. And it has means
at its disposal that range from the selection and repression of news to
the active use of all sorts of influences which sway the mind of the
public. And these influences do not go unemployed. There are those in
the state who have a special interest in arousing a strong sentiment
of patriotism. Conspicuous among such are the professional soldiers.
They, of course, want a solidified population. Their training has
emphasized their appreciation of the value of obedience and uniformity.
These virtues are essentials in the discipline of an army, and in
terms of military logic they seem to be essentials in the organization
of a country. J. M. Robertson has a division of a book which he has
devoted to a discussion of the regimentation of militarism.[34] But
the guardianship of the patriotic fire within the state is not turned
over entirely into soldierly hands. Other interests, whose nature and
motives in contrast with the straightforward purposes of the country’s
guardians are such as to make it difficult to describe them in the
dispassionate spirit of scientific and philosophic discourse, are ready
with their assistance. And, of course, the ordinary civilian temper is
not averse to the rigorous regimentation of patriotic loyalty.

Hegel[35] thought that it was both right and necessary that the
state should control public opinion. He considered that the people
had no opinions of very great worth. “... The people, in so far as
this term signifies a special part of the citizens, does not know what
it wills. To know what we will, and further what the absolute will,
namely, reason, wills, is the fruit of deep knowledge and insight,
and is therefore not the property of the people.”[36] Public opinion
without the guidance of the state was unorganized and dangerous. “The
many as individuals, whom we are prone to call the people, are indeed
a collective whole, but merely as a multitude or formless mass, whose
movement and action would be elemental, void of reason, violent, and
terrible.”[36] Therefore it was necessary for the proper source of
authority to organize public opinion. And, of course, this work of
organization and direction was to be the task of the officials of the
state. “The highest state officials have necessarily deeper and more
comprehensive insight into the workings and needs of the state, and
also greater skill and wider practical experience.”[37] There are
others who do not hold Hegel’s philosophical system that yet agree with
him in upholding the high sovereignty and controlling supervision of
the state.

Ecclesiastical institutions often serve as habituators of nationalistic
spirit. The rise of nationalism in Spain affords an interesting
example, for religious motives were at the height of their strength
in those days. Ferdinand and Isabella got control of the hierarchical
religious organizations in their dominions by taking from the Pope and
to themselves the power to name the prelates of the Catholic church
in Spain. The Crusading Orders had great vogue in the country, and
Ferdinand got himself elected to the office of Grand Master in the most
important of them. These measures accomplished, they were made to tell
by the rulers of Spain in the process of furthering their dynastic and
nationalistic ambitions. In Japan, Bushido, a mixture of Confucian and
Shinto elements, is a spirit of patriotism which is at the disposal
of the state. In Germany, the pastors of the established churches are
state officials; they are state-appointed and state-paid, and they
reflect the state’s purposes. In all Christian countries, including
our own, the churches observe the national patriotic holidays both in
time of war and peace, and in time of war preach patriotism from the
pulpits, sometimes at the solicitation of the state, sometimes of their
own volition.

The newspapers are of cardinal importance as agencies of the
inculcation of patriotism. It is natural that the newspapers should be
insurgently patriotic. They are dependent upon the public for their
subsistence. And the mass of the public is conservative. Consequently,
the newspapers are as a rule conservative also. Now patriotism is a
venerable virtue easy for the public to believe in, and it is almost
inevitable that journalism should play up that virtue. It is also
almost as inevitable that the patriotism of the press should be of
the militant kind. To take that character is simply to follow the
line of least resistance. Public opinion reacts upon the press and
circumscribes its initiative. And when a people becomes inflamed
against another people, the newspapers as a rule (there are, of course,
some that are independent in their thought and leadership) have to fall
in line; the sheet that opposed the trend of public emotion would have
to pay for its folly. The newspapers, moreover, on the whole represent
the gentlemanly business class, and wars promise most to the interests
of that class. Conflict is quite apt to grow out of economic rivalry,
whence it naturally follows that those who are most nearly concerned in
that rivalry (and the newspapers are controlled by such as are of that
class) will be most interested in the prosecution of a war which bids
fair to enlarge the economic opportunities of their own country.

Along with the newspapers as habituators of patriotism go also less
ephemeral kinds of literature. “The Man Without a Country,”[38] for
instance, has a definite patriotic purpose. And patriotic orations,
songs, and poetry have the same purpose. Sometimes these compositions
are not jingoistic, but very often they are. Wordsworth’s poetry,
for instance, is of the nonjingoistic character; it is strongly
marked by love of the soil. But Wordsworth was of unusually broad
sympathies, and his is not the kind of poetry usually made use of in
teaching patriotism. J. M. Robertson has written an essay in which he
called attention to the proclivity of poets to write in a jingoistic
strain.[39] Virgil, himself a man of broad sympathies, wrote the Æneid
at the request of Augustus, whose empire-building purposes needed an
epic after the model of Homer about the founding of Rome.

An important habituator of patriotism in the training of the young is
the public school system. The public schools are almost always used
by those who have them in charge for the maintenance of the existing
order. But the “existing order” quite regularly means the political
one, and hence the road is opened for the teaching of patriotism.
Prussia seems to be an extreme case of the deliberate use of the
schools for pushing the pet programs of the politically favored
classes. “In Prussia the avowed use of the schools, not for the spread
of truth but for the ‘War against social-democracy’ may be in part
responsible for that absence of Love between members of different
classes, that class-war of which the growth of social-democracy is only
one symptom.”[40] Prussia also exhibits a peculiarly active brand
of patriotism. It has been commonly assumed in the United States
that education will make for democracy but it is not necessarily so.
Education, instead of being aimed at freeing and developing the mind,
may be aimed only at regimentation in a certain system of ideas. The
fact of the business is that as a rule it is so aimed, even where there
is no such clear and persistent purpose as there is in Prussia; it
is all too easy to fall into the rut of doing the same old things in
the same old way. It is simply easier to inculcate the same old ideas
than it is to teach the ever-varying young idea how to shoot. And what
education turns out under such methods is not free and independent
thinkers, but a habituated uniform product. “School education, unless
it is regulated by the best knowledge and good sense, will produce
men and women who are all of one pattern, as if turned in a lathe....
Any institution which runs for years in the same hands will produce
a type.... In the continental schools and barracks, in newspapers,
books, etc., what is developed by education is dynastic sentiment,
national sentiment, soldierly sentiment.”[41] And so the schools are
used for the maintenance of patriotism,--patriotism which only too
often is narrow and militaristic. An example of the better kind of
purpose to teach patriotism is that in view in Bosanquet’s lecture on
the subject.[42] An example of the kind which is likely not to be so
temperate and well-considered is that which grows out of the demand
for the teaching of patriotism which arises under the stimulus of war.
On May 17, 1917, there appeared in a small-town newspaper[43] an
article dated from New York City, and which was evidently furnished by
some news association. The headlines were as follows: “College Course
in Patriotism. Chicago’s Mayor Starts Chair in Lincoln University.
Students True Americans.” The opening paragraph ran thus: “For the
first time in the history of American education a chair has been
established for the teaching of American Patriotism. Inspired by the
work being done by the Lincoln Memorial University, William Hale
Thompson, Mayor of Chicago, will provide $25,000 for this purpose.” A
little further on occurred the sentence, “Plans have already been made
for the opening of the Patriotism Department.” These plans may not have
been actually carried out, and if they were, may have obtained solid
results, but the sound of the article was such as would lead one to
suspect that what was accomplished would rather prove to be superficial
and sensational. This whole attempt has been cited here not because it
is an isolated incident, but for the reason that it is an illustration,
extreme though it may be, of a tendency.

The public schools have textbooks for the purpose of training in
patriotic loyalty, books which tell of the duties of citizens, and are
replete with songs and poems to illustrate the points brought out.[44]
The schools of our land make it a part of their chief business to
teach loyalty to the country. For this business history is plastic
material. “History, in every country, is so taught as to magnify that
country: children learn to believe that their own country has always
been in the right and almost always victorious, that it has produced
almost all the great men, and that it is in all respects superior to
all other countries. Since these beliefs are flattering, they are
easily absorbed, and hardly ever dislodged from instinct by later
knowledge.”[45] The unpleasant facts are not brought out. Americans,
for example, do not usually have it called to their attention that in
the War of 1812, most of their vessels were tied up in port at the end
of the war, their national capital was captured by the enemy, they won
only one important land battle and that after the war was over, and
that their representatives in the peace negotiations had to surrender
the principle for which the war was fought. The war ended because both
sides were willing to return to the _status quo ante_. The patriotic
bias dominates even the historian himself. “No historian ever gets out
of the mores of his own society of origin.... Even if he rises above
the limitations of party, he does not get outside the patriotic and
ethical horizon in which he has been educated, especially when he deals
with the history of other countries and other times than his own. Each
historian regards his own nation as the torchbearer of civilization;
its mores give him his ethical standards by which he estimates whatever
he learns of other peoples.... In modern Russian literature may be
found passages about the ‘Civilizing mission’ of Russia which might
be translated, _mutatis mutandis_, from passages in English, French,
or German literature about the civilizing mission of England, France,
or Germany. Probably the same is true of Turkish, Hindoo, or Chinese
literature. The patriotism of the historian rules his judgment,
especially as to excuses and apologies for things done in the past, and
most of all as to the edifying omissions,--a very important part of the
task of the historian.... There is a compulsion on the historian to act
in this way, for if he wrote otherwise, his fellow-countrymen would
ignore his work.”[46]

The habituation of patriotism finds in _symbols_ an instrument
admirably suited to its purpose. The mind really reacts more strongly
to symbols than it does to the facts of sense-experience. The potency
of symbols does not suffer from the admixture of distractions by
which direct sense-experience is accompanied. Symbols are more purely
meaning, and they come with the momentum of their meaning. Now the
word “country,” embodying an abstract and fairly simple idea, serves
as a symbol and produces a pure emotion as in art. Other words and
phrases could be named that are similar in the responses that they
elicit. “The Monroe Doctrine” is one of the pet symbols of the United
States. In patriotic poetry and hymnology the flag is featured. It is
a symbol of the country. Children are taught to sing about the flag,
by means of which a symbol is implanted in their minds, the love of
music is appealed to, and patriotism is connected with their childhood
sentiments. The appeal of symbols comes home to one when he stands
at the dividing line between two countries, at Niagara Falls, let us
say, and gazes upon two flags, one of them his own and the other not.
At the present time Great Britain is our ally, but the emotion upon
beholding the British flag is nothing as compared with the feeling of
affection experienced upon beholding the American flag. The British
emblem, though respected, is strange; the American flag is one’s
own. Sumner discusses what he calls the tyranny of the apparatus of
suggestion, that is, symbols or tokens, and from him is worth quoting
the following pertinent passage: “The tyranny is greatest in regard to
‘American’ and ‘Americanism.’ Who dare say that he is not ‘American’?
Who dare repudiate what is declared to be ‘Americanism’? It follows
that if anything is base and bogus it is always labeled ‘American.’
If a thing is to be recommended which cannot be justified, it is put
under ‘Americanism.’ Who does not shudder at the fear of being called
‘unpatriotic’? And to repudiate what any one chooses to call ‘American’
is to be unpatriotic. If there is any document of Americanism, it is
the Declaration of Independence. Those who have Americanism especially
in charge have repudiated the doctrine that ‘governments derive their
just powers from the consent of the governed,’ because it stood in the
way of what they wanted to do. They denounce those who cling to the
doctrine as un-American. Then we see what Americanism and patriotism
are. They are the duty laid upon us all to applaud, follow, and obey
whatever a ruling clique of newspapers and politicians chooses to
say or wants to do. ‘England’ has always been, amongst us, a kind of
counter token, or token of things to be resisted and repudiated. The
‘symbols’ or ‘tokens’ always have this utility for suggestion. They
carry a coercion with them and overwhelm people who are not trained to
verify assertions and dissect fallacies.”[47] When one’s attention
is called to these things, it cannot help but impose upon him the
obligation of examining the bases and nature of his own patriotic
enthusiasm.

The deliberate habituation of patriotism has a bearing upon the problem
of peace. Knowledge of other peoples will not bring harmony and mutual
goodwill unless it is sympathetic knowledge, and, if it is to be
sympathetic, our mental prepossessions must be shaped so as to open our
minds to a just appreciation of unwelcome facts and ways at variance
with our own. And to accomplish this, the teaching of patriotism will
have to be directed towards the realizing of the devoutly to be wished
consummation.



CHAPTER IV

THE SPONTANEOUS HABITUATION


The spontaneous habituation of patriotism has no conscious and set
purpose, institution, or program. This is the habituation that makes
itself felt from the mere fact that individuals in a society tend
more and more to become assimilated to one another. Germany affords
an extreme example of the deliberate habituation in patriotism.
Every agency within the empire, including state, church, newspapers,
schools, and so on, has been used towards securing a uniform result,
that of nationalistic passion. But every country offers an example
of the spontaneous habituation of patriotism. There is no less of
nationalistic loyalty among the Allies than there is in Germany. It is
interesting that the two kinds of habituation have come into combat.
“Among the number of embattled principles and counter principles which
this war has brought into the field, we must include as not the least
interesting the duel between conscious national direction on the one
side and unconscious national will and knowledge on the other.”[48] In
the spontaneous habituation of patriotism we are dealing with a more
subtle and powerful force than the deliberate habituation. The former
goes deeper than the latter into human life. What we try to teach may
not be learned, but what we are sets copy in the copybook of life. “The
genuine beliefs, though not usually the professed precepts, of parents
and teachers are almost unconsciously acquired by most children; and
even if they depart from these beliefs in later life, something of
them remains deeply implanted, ready to emerge in a time of stress or
crisis.”[49]

It is natural that the citizens of a country should be thus habituated.
In fact, in large measure, they habituate themselves. The basis of
it is first of all that men are alike, and are faced with similar
problems. The fact that men have like instincts, instincts, moreover,
that have to adjust themselves to identical life conditions,
makes it easy to assimilate them to one another and to the group.
Suggestibility is one of these dispositions of human nature. McDougall
defines it as “a process of communication resulting in the acceptance
with conviction of the communicated proposition in the absence of
logically adequate grounds for its acceptance.”[50] Suggestion, of
course, is not omnipotent. There is, for one thing, what is known as
a contra-suggestion, that is, behavior in which people do just the
opposite to what one tries to persuade them to do. Early in the regime
of Mr. Herbert Hoover as food administrator one butcher reported that
his customers wanted meat more on meatless than on any other days. And
there is always the possibility that suggestion may be disregarded
altogether. But human beings are interdependent, and are open to
guidance through suggestions from the ideas and practices of their
fellows. An individual cannot think everything out for himself. Some
hardly ever do any serious thinking and even the more serious take
the bulk of their thoughts, at least in other fields than their own
special one, upon suggestion. Choice is exhausting. It is hard business
thinking, and we are likely to shirk the irksomeness of it if we can.
“Either to be exceptional or to appreciate the exceptional requires a
considerable expenditure of energy, and no one can afford this in many
directions.”[51] The chances are, then, that except in such cases as
where for some reason we are specially critical, an idea suggested will
find lodgement in the mind and tend to issue in action; and this fact
is tremendously important in the understanding of a social phenomenon
such as patriotism.

It is rather ominous that today political thought does not seem to be
as active as it once was. “My own impression,” says Graham Wallas,
“formed after questioning a good many people in different parts of
England is that, in our country, the quantity of such discussion
[serious discussion on public questions] which takes place ... is
diminishing.”[52] The great cause of this is the modern industrial
system, and it is likely that what is true of England is true also of
America. And if serious _discussion_ is diminishing it means probably
that men are doing less serious _thinking_ on political subjects, and
that they are likely to become more suggestible with regard to them.
The application to the subject of patriotism is obvious.

Imitation[53] is another disposition of human nature that is close
to that of suggestibility. There is contra-imitation as well as
contra-suggestion, and besides imitation there is also invention. But
it is a powerful social force. For the interdependence of man makes for
imitation as well as suggestibility. And society really owes a great
deal to it. An invention in social living cannot hope to survive unless
it is freely adopted by masses who have no thought of stopping to
reason out its utility. And the effect of imitation is that it causes
an immense impetus towards uniformity and solidarity within the group.
“... Men and other animals imitate what they see others, _especially
they of their own species_, do.”[54] And imitation of one’s own
group tends to assimilate him to it, to habituate him in its ways,
and secure his loyalty to it and its ideals, which is to say, that
imitation is a factor in the making of patriotism.

The fact that suggestion and imitation exercise their greatest force
within the group makes it pertinent to recognize the part that _the
group_ plays in the process of habituation in patriotism. The fact is
that because of the individual’s membership in a group, the suggestions
that come to him impinge upon his consciousness with a good deal of
force. They strike him from all directions at almost the same time,
and have a multiple dynamic behind them. Now the nation is a group.
The space-annihilating devices of the present day in conjunction with
the photographs and vivid descriptive reporting of the newspapers have
extended and intensified the connections between the individual and his
national group. The crowd for the individual may now well be, and in
time of national crisis is, the people of his country.

This, however, is especially true of city populations, a fact which
must have allowance made for it in the gauging of public opinion. It is
the voice of the city-population that has too often been taken as the
expression of public opinion. “The voice of ‘the people’ is very often
nowadays only the voice of the city crowd, faintly re-echoed, if echoed
at all, in the smaller towns. Sometimes also the noise is that of a few
editors of newspapers.”[55] Another fact which ought to be noted is
that there are prestige-groups within society. Examples of such are an
old-fashioned aristocracy, the governing class, and in a democracy, the
majority. Such groups often exercise compelling coercive power.

The coerciveness of the crowd makes for national unity, but it has
unwelcome features. It is too likely to lead to a high disregard of the
rights of the nonconformist and an unsympathetic and uncompromising
attitude towards other nations. There are no incentives to broad-minded
thought and sympathy within a homogeneous crowd. Opposition is the real
matrix out of which reason and tolerance are extracted. The government
of the United States of America had a tolerant spirit stamped upon it
because the makers of our institutions were many men of many minds. The
only way to do justice to their differences was by compromise. Close
agreement confirms convictions, but does not stimulate the imagination.
“Where all think alike, no one thinks very much. But whatever he does
think, he can think with all his soul.”[56] Without the differences it
is more than likely that America would not have been quite so tolerant.
It follows that the nation, because it has no critic to which it
listens, is likely to be hard-minded, fanatical, and unyielding.

The atmosphere in which the individual lives and moves and has
his being is that of his people’s customs or mores. These are
intellectualized folkways. Folkways are the group’s ways of dealing
with its environment. Mores are the folkways plus the convictions
as to their relation to welfare. Sumner defines them as follows:
“The mores are the folkways, including the philosophical and ethical
generalizations as to societal welfare which are suggested by them, and
inherent in them, as they grow.”[57] Tradition, which is crowd-memory,
perpetuates the mores, and they become the life _milieu_ of the
individuals of each generation. A large part of one’s education,
especially his moral education, is gained from the traditions and mores
of his people. And their teachings are all the more authoritative
because one is almost wholly unconscious of learning from them. “We
learn the mores as unconsciously as we learn to walk and eat and
breathe. The masses never learn how we walk, and eat, and breathe,
and they never know any reason why the mores are what they are. The
justification of them is that when we wake to consciousness of life
we find them facts which already hold us in the bonds of tradition,
custom, and habit.... The most important fact about the mores is their
dominion over the individual. Arising he knows not whence or how,
they meet his opening mind in earliest childhood, give him his outfit
of ideas, faiths, and tastes, and lead him into prescribed mental
processes. They bring to him codes of action, standards, and rules of
ethics.”[58]

The mores have a bearing upon patriotism in various ways. In the first
place, they are _teachers_ of loyalty. They teach loyalty to the group
and to country. Patriotism has become imbedded in the mores, and when
one learns from them, he becomes indoctrinated with patriotism. The
concept of patriotism has a long history, and has become a venerable
ideal. It is not possible that the masses should escape having it
taught them. The Japanese provide an example of a race that _par
excellence_ shows the effects of centuries of training in nationalistic
loyalty; it has given to them a marvellous solidarity. “In the war with
Russia, in 1904, this people showed what a group is capable of when it
has a strong ethos. They understand each other; they act as one man;
they are capable of discipline to the death. Our western tacticians
have had rules for the percentage of loss which troops would endure,
standing under fire, before breaking and running. The rule failed
for the Japanese. They stood to the last man. Their prowess at Port
Arthur against the strongest fortifications, and on the battlefields
of Manchuria, surpassed all record. They showed what can be done in
the way of concealing military and naval movements when every soul in
the population is in a voluntary conspiracy not to reveal anything.
These traits belong to a people which has been trained by generations
of invariable mores.”[59] One of the most thoroughly grounded ideals of
the Japanese mores is that of patriotism.

In view of the function of the mores as teachers of loyalty, it becomes
necessary to recognize that peace is not going to be easily provided
for by facile external arrangements or even by the use of information,
persuasion, and reason. If patriotic loyalty is in such large part a
matter of habituation, then a change in it will have to be something of
a matter of habituation too.

The mores are the _objects_ of loyalty. One gets into the way of
saying, “These ways are my ways and I am going to stick by them. They
are mine; I am going to preserve and foster them, and no one shall take
them from me.” Loyalty to the mores forms national character. It is
tradition which forms a nation of British, Saxon, and Norman strains.
Tradition unites Walloon and Fleming in Belgium, Breton and Gens du
Midi in France.[60] The likenesses of a people owe no more to the
fact of race than to that of the mores. And so the mores become what
the patriot is conscious of being loyal to. His patriotism is not so
much love of country as love of the mores. The mores for such a spirit
of loyalty are the country. When it sings, its song should be, “My
_mores_, ’tis of thee, of thee I sing.” What it claims for itself is
the right to be true to the traditions of its own people. When asked to
justify its allegiance, it in turn asks the question:

  “And who are they who best may claim our trust?
  Surely our own people, of whose blood we are;
  Who from our infancy have proved their love,
  And never have deceived us, save, perchance,
  When kindly guile was wholesomer for us
  Than truth itself.”[61]

The loyalty to national customs stiffens patriotism, and because of
that is, from the standpoint of the patriot, highly desirable, but the
problem that it sets is that of preventing it from being satisfied to
remain a mere unreasoning superstition.

The mores get embodied in character, and come to be a veritable
_spirit_ of loyalty. They grow out of the life of the people, and
return to that life. They become actually constituent in personality.
The mores become a part of ourselves; we not only think of them, we
think with them. They are so natural that we do not notice them.
“The more thoroughly American a man is, the less he can perceive
Americanism. He will embody it; all he does, says, or writes will
be full of it; but he can never truly see it, simply because he has
no exterior point of view from which to look at it.”[62] Under such
conditions, how could one help being patriotic? It is not something
that he strives after; it is to be what he cannot help being. He is
patriotic simply because he is himself.

Some conclusions from the study of the habits of patriotism may now
be drawn. The complexity of patriotism has further manifested itself.
And it is evident that the habits of patriotism, like the impulses,
may be either good or bad, or so far as the motive of the individual
is concerned, ethically colorless. The patriotism of habituation is
natural, like breathing. The habituated patriot will go with the
group, and groups like individuals sometimes fall into bad habits. But
groups also acquire good habits, and will in those matters be worth
serving. Habituation and conformity in such a case will be valuable.
Their weakening would often be really disastrous. “There are cases in
which the discrediting of tradition is like picking out the mortar that
holds together the fabric of society.”[63] There are times when the
discrediting of patriotism would mean the destruction of the nation.

The great objection to the patriotism of habituation is that it cannot
criticize itself. The lack of criticism will, of course, make for
overwhelming strength. In commenting upon the patriotism of the present
time, Russell has written as follows: “This instinct [patriotism], just
because, in its intense form, it was new and unfamiliar, had remained
uninfected by thought, not paralyzed or devitalized by doubt and cold
detachment.”[64] But it is just an accident if such patriotism is good.
It may easily be the patriotism of the man who takes the stand, “My
country, right or wrong,” a position which, while there is something
to be said for it on the ground that countries are fundamental
institutions which must not be lightly abandoned to destruction, is
hardly one to be striven for as an ethical ideal. The road to goodness
is not by chance, but by intelligent self-direction. And the goodness
of patriotism rests upon the use of intelligence. Patriotism could not
as matters now stand be done away with by criticism, but its nature
could be molded. We could habituate ourselves to admire and serve in
our life what really was to be admired and served.

But the process of habituation, while it produces a powerful spirit
of group loyalty, can hardly give a full account of the rise of a
conscious ideal like patriotism. The question would remain, “Why the
habituation, and why so much insistence upon it?” The process implies
a reason for its existence. And reasons become effective through the
action of an intelligent agent. The objection to a theory like that
of Sumner is that by it social activity is looked at too exclusively
on the outside when it ought also to be looked at on the inside. The
theory does not do justice to the initiative of the mind. The mores
for the most part seem almost to be active entities, which, starting
from environmental conditions, develop themselves. Minds are held in
their grip. But mores are products of human activity and reflection,
and if one would understand them, he must understand the mind, with
not only its impulses, but also its ways of thought. Sumner’s own work
shows that he believes in something beyond the mores, and that he has
an ideal of acting above them. His confidence is placed in thought. He
believes that he at least can reflect upon the group ways, and that a
science, or perhaps even a philosophy, of the mores can be established.
The following are his own words: “Since it appears that the old mores
are mischievous if they last beyond the duration of the conditions and
needs to which they are adapted, and that constant, gradual, smooth,
and easy readjustment is the course of things which is conducive to
healthful life, it follows that _free and rational criticism_ of
traditional mores is essential to societal welfare.”[65]

Human beings are moved not only by instincts and habits, but also by
reasons. And it is with the reasoned beliefs of patriotism that the
following part will deal.



PART III

THE BELIEFS OF PATRIOTISM



CHAPTER V

THE COUNTRY AS PROTECTOR OF SELF


Patriotism has reasons upon which it rests; it is not a mere
instinctive reaction, nor yet simply a habit.[66] Thought exists, and
men think. Graham Wallas says that there is an impulse to think. “This
independent action of Intelligence is, I believe, in its simplest
forms as ‘natural’ to us, as much due to inherited disposition, as is
the working of anyone of the usual list of instincts.”[67] There is
a rationale of patriotism. Patriotism may be unreasoned, but is not
for that necessarily unreasonable. It may coincide with the passions
of the masses, but may nevertheless rest on logical grounds, and on
ideals. It may be the object of conscious choice. The treatment of the
immigrant shows that we have a belief that patriotism can be chosen by
the individual. We insist on the loyalty of the German-American, which
being interpreted means that we are demanding loyalty to a country
of choice rather than to the country of birth. And for those born
Americans, we adopt the injunction of Tennyson,

  “Love thou thy land, with love far-brought
  From out the storied Past, and used
  Within the Present, but transfused
  Thro’ future time by power of thought.”[68]

The fact that men do think and have ideals is one of the very reasons
why patriotism is now so strong.

What are the reasons urged why one should be patriotic? One belief is
that one owes his earthly salvation to his country. It is a belief
that expresses on the level of consciousness the impulse to seek
safety and help. Men believe that the country is the protector in this
present world of all the values of life. It is the feeling that Spencer
expressed when he apostrophized the state in the following language: “I
supposed you were to act the part of an Argus-eyed and Briareus-armed
guardian, ever watching over my interests, ever ready to step in and
defend them; so that whether sleeping or waking, absorbed in business
or immersed in pleasure, I might have the gratifying consciousness of
being carefully shielded from injury.”[69] Webster appealed to the same
feeling in his reply to Hayne: “It is to that Union we owe our safety
at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad.... It has been to us
all a copious fountain of national, social, personal happiness.”[70]
And the patriot feels that for the protection that he has received he
must show his gratitude. In return for the blessings of the country,
he will offer up the sacrifice of patriotism. If one asks the plain
man why he is patriotic, why he thinks, for instance, that he ought to
enlist, the answer that is often made is that, “The country has done a
lot for me, and now she needs me. I am going to do what I can for my
country.”

The country affords protection within the group that it organizes.
And for this reason, the citizens will support the state. They feel
that government is a good thing; it guarantees justice and fair play.
And patriotism with them will grow out of that feeling. It will, of
course, be a give and take affair. It will not be selfless, altruistic
devotion. Patriotism of this kind demands that justice be consistently
dispensed. Most men will not long serve a state that treats them
unfairly. No patriotism will survive flagrant and continued injustice.
And, in truth, why should it? Green states the answer: “If the
authority of any government--its claim on our obedience--is held to be
derived not from an original covenant, or from any covenant, but from
the function which it serves in maintaining those conditions of freedom
which are conditions of the moral life, then no act of the people in
revocation of a prior act need be reckoned necessary to justify its
dissolution. _If it ceases to serve this function, it loses its claim
on our obedience._”[71]

A country is a peace unit. And men will welcome it as such, for there
is in men an impulse to peace. The state in modern times arose in
part as a keeper of the peace. The church was once the power that
policed Europe, and when that was so, men gave the church their supreme
allegiance. But the time came when the fear of God was no longer a
sufficient power to keep men in order, so it became necessary for some
other agency than the church to take up the task. Semi-official bodies
arose whose business it was to preserve peace, but they passed away.
There was then no power to keep the lawless forces in check. The nobles
of feudalism fought with one another, and were petty and irresponsible
tyrants over their people. Their regime became unbearable. Consequently
the people united with the kings, and a central power was established
that stopped the wars of the nobles and cities, and gave peace.

The state within its boundaries is the preserver of law and order. And
the discharge of that function recommends the state to its citizens.
Hobbes[72] exalted the state because of his desire for order. The
England of his day was torn by civil war. Even J. S. Mill[73]
expressed some sympathy with speculative Toryism, as for instance it
appeared in Wordsworth, because what it meant in such a case, Mill
said, was the proposition that man ought to be governed. Patriotic
eloquence takes account of the benefit that the state affords as the
preserver of the peace. Josiah Quincy, Jr., called for patriotic
loyalty to country on the ground that in it “Each individual, of
whatever condition, has the consciousness of living under known laws,
which secure equal rights, and guarantee to each whatever portion of
the goods of life, be it great or small, chance or talent or industry
may have bestowed.”[74]

The civilized life itself at present depends upon the state. The word
civilization is derived from a stem meaning “state.” Civilization is
that which is possible to men in states, that is, where peace, law,
and order prevail. The state has been a tremendous gain because it
has been a larger integration of men, a larger unit of coöperation.
Just that is its primary function,--to make it possible for men to
live together. And without the exercise of that function by the state,
we should be likely to be plunged back again into the chaos of petty
warring factions. Now patriotism gets connected with this desire that
government be preserved. The patriot is very apt to feel that if _his_
country should be destroyed, it would be a blow at the very foundations
of all government and safety. He connects civilization with his own
state, and feels that, “... they who assail the idea, the ideal, of
the country itself, assail all civilized life and, so far forth, are
suicides as well as traitors.”[75]

But the state does not stop with the bare maintenance of law and order.
It does other things which are believed to be for the general welfare.
It looks out for education, transportation, sanitation, the care of
the infirm, and so forth; it works for better social, industrial, and
class conditions. The state, in other words, is felt to have a right
to do all those things which will promote the welfare of mankind.
Mill said, “... it is not admissible that the protection of persons
and that of property are the sole purposes of government. The ends of
government are as comprehensive as those of the social union.”[76]
And Aristotle[77] intimated that the state should not only make bare
existence possible, but should promote the good life.

The result has been that men have taken an attitude toward the state
very much like the attitude that they have taken toward God. To many
people the state has become God. They feel that all the values of life
depend upon it, as Plato[78] felt that all the values of life depended
upon the state that he described. That does not mean that they go
directly to the state for everything that they want; they do not do
that with God. They simply expect the state somehow to guarantee these
values, and to supply them only as a last resort. But they will go to
it for everything that they want and which they can secure in no other
way. In the following quotation, the state is described in terms that
might almost refer to Providence: “No American boy or girl ... lived
a day, even, at the beginning of his life, when he was not protected
by the law of the United-States. From that moment the United-States
watched over him in ways perhaps which he never thought of. Perhaps the
school in which these words are read would not have existed except for
the United-States laws with regard to education. Very likely the bread
and butter which the boy had for breakfast could never have existed but
that the country called the United-States had made laws and carried on
government in such ways that the grain could be raised, that the cattle
could be fed, and the butter made. It is in a thousand such ways as
this that the country in which we live takes care of us in every hour
of our lives.... The tie which binds you and me to the country which
takes care of us is a tie as real and it involves duties as distinct
as the ties which bind a boy to his mother to whom he owes his life
and who has always taken care of him.”[79] What happens when a country
towards which men have felt in this way, calls for the allegiance of
its citizens? Their loyalty will be accorded it in the same measure as
the completeness with which they have trusted to it.

The state is the only institution in a given area that embodies the
general will, and consequently it federates the largest number of
loyalties among the people who live there. A class organization could
not federate so many loyalties. It could not be done, for instance, by
syndicalistic organizations.[80] If a man were a member of all such
organizations that he was eligible to, his whole life would still lack
unity. There must, then, be something that will unify the life of the
individual, and unify the whole of society. The fact of the matter is
that the state at the present time is, and in the predictable future is
likely to be, the factor which does this. And it is therefore likely
also to continue to draw the supreme loyalty of men.

One kind of patriotism is, then, based upon the belief that the country
is the preserver of law and order. If necessary, the patriot will place
himself at the service of the state in order to help it discharge
its function as a police power. And he feels it to be necessary also
to show his patriotism in his own obedience to the laws. In the
Crito,[81] Socrates, who had shown his patriotism upon the battlefield,
showed it again by submitting himself to the laws of that country which
by its institutions had nourished and protected him. Bosanquet cites
this action of Socrates, and himself adds the comment: “That is one
thing; true patriotism is the law-abiding spirit.”[82]

The state also acts as a protector against aggressions from without,
and on this account men cling to it. The patriot _fears_ other
nations; he believes that they are actuated by sinister designs. The
foe in patriotic songs and poetry is always ‘haughty’ and ‘wicked.’
He believes also that if the opportunity is presented, they will
work those sinister designs against his country. Nor is the fear
altogether groundless. To say the least, most governments cannot be
trusted to look after the interests of their competitors as well
as they look after their own, and the way in which the world is at
present organized makes it seem necessary for each nation to look
out for itself. Even Russell says that “the fear by which the State
is strengthened is reasonable under present circumstances.”[83] Then
why should not the state protect its own interests and the interests
of its citizens? The citizen himself will not admit that the state’s
protection should simply be limited to the prevention of the harm that
his fellow-citizens might do. He will say: “When we agreed that it was
the essential function of the state to protect--to administer the law
of equal freedom--to maintain men’s rights--we virtually assigned to
it the duty, not only of shielding each citizen from the trespasses
of his neighbours, but of defending him, in common with the community
at large, against foreign aggression.”[84] The efforts to provide
protection has indeed proved to be too big a job for even the state,
acting alone, and has led to alliances between states. Such alliance is
deemed essential. Diplomatic isolation could not now be tolerated by
scarcely any government or population but the most primitive. Perhaps
in this very direction lies a way to world internationalism. But the
protection is still state protection; the alliances themselves are the
results of the activities of states.

The fear of other states sometimes gets expressed as the belief that
_existence_ itself, both national and personal, is threatened. Loisy
gives vent to this belief: “Are we then right to be patriotic, even
at the risk of being less or not at all Christian? Doubtless; because
our only chance of living is bound up with our patriotism.”[85] What
he seems to fear is French extermination. But more often the patriot
believes that by his loyalty, his own and his country’s freedom are
preserved. Patriotism is a demand for freedom. Zimmerman a long time
ago pointed out that nearly every people glories in its real or
supposed freedom. “Not a few nations,” he says, “are seen resembling
the primitive Greeks, in overvaluing themselves on their real liberty;
and others, like the degenerate Greeks, priding themselves only on
the shadow of an antiquated liberty.”[86] The United States came into
existence only after a severe fight for liberty, and consequently
American patriotism has had the ideal of freedom deeply impressed upon
it. The words of Patrick Henry come the nearest to being classical.
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price
of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course
others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”[87]
The Constitution enumerates liberty next to the possession of life
among the inalienable rights of men. Lincoln expressed it again in his
Gettysburg address. “... We here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people,
and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”[88] The notes
of freedom and self-rule of the people are the dominant ones in the
passage with which Lincoln closed the speech. It has been the President
of the United States who has most clearly and consistently defined the
aim of the Allies in this present war as that of making the world safe
for democracy, _i. e._, for freedom. But the countries which are called
autocratic also insist that they are fighting for freedom, and they are
proclaiming to their peoples that they are fighting on the defensive,
and in the cause of liberty. The ideal of freedom is dear to all.

Along with the demand for freedom goes the insistence that _those
things which are of great value_ to one shall be held sacred. The
defense of homes is a cause that arouses masculine patriotism. There
is an old saying found in Bacon that “Love of his country begins in a
man’s own house.”[89] The patriot will sacrifice for his home; and he
will die that his posterity may enjoy the privileges of a free country.

The _pursuit of happiness_ is another of the privileges that men
deem inalienable. And the pursuit of happiness in grown-ups seems to
be mostly the pursuit of trade. Consequently they will prize what
protects, and hate what threatens business. One hates the invader of
his country because he does not want the means of his livelihood to
pass under the control of an unsympathetic power. The land is the form
of wealth that is inevitably seized by the invader. And patriotism,
because of this, gains another connection with the soil. “...
Patriotism envelops the real estate because the real estate nourishes
the lives and careers of the patriots.... The emotions of loyalty
and value congregate about the ‘vital interests’ of our lives.”[90]
The laying on of burdens of taxation too grievous to be borne is an
unwarrantable interference with the pursuit of happiness. And so
patriotism often starts over taxes. It was so in the formation of the
United States. The following extract from a speech by Samuel Adams
to the newly elected representatives to the Massachusetts colonial
legislature from Boston, will show what the drift then was: “... As
you represent a town which lives by its trade,” he said, “we expect
in a very particular manner, though you make it the object of your
attention to support our commerce in all its just rights, to vindicate
it from all unreasonable impositions and promote its prosperity.”[91]
The trader looks to his government for protection, and when he receives
it, he has a particular reason for desiring the continued good health
of his country. The same holds true of workingmen. John Dewey says:
“... The simple fact of the case is that at present workingmen have
more to gain from their own national state in the way of legislative
and administrative concessions than they have from some other state, or
from any international organization.”[92] And as long as this is true,
tradesmen, laborers, and all others who have anything to gain by it
will be patriots, and violent patriots.

What kind of patriotism is it that rests upon the belief in one’s
country as the protector of self? Is it patriotism at all? It is
not that disinterested love of country that the common man has been
formally taught to regard as patriotism. But it is loyalty to country,
and whatever answers to that description must be patriotism. It no
doubt makes the state a kind of business affair. The primary motive
is that of prudence. A man defends his country because he needs it.
But some men serve God in that way, and we call it religion. And so
this profit-and-loss attachment to country may come under the term
patriotism. One reason, therefore, for patriotism is that the country
is needful for the protection of life’s values. But, on the other
hand, the attachment to country is not patriotism, if the country is
looked at _merely_ as means. Patriotism views the country somehow as
end. If the real and only motive which is getting expressed is that of
self-interest, any show of patriotism is after all mere _camouflage_.
The point is that men will actually come to feel real gratitude and
love for the country which has protected them. It is a psychological
fact that affection attaches itself to what has been useful. In this
way and for this reason, affection attaches itself to country, and
becomes patriotism.



CHAPTER VI

THE ONENESS OF COUNTRY AND SELF


The patriot identifies himself with his country. He believes that he
and his country are one. This belief is the coming to consciousness of
the impulse to cling to one’s own. And this conviction becomes another
reason for patriotism. Patriotic loyalty of this kind is not a business
affair. It will not abandon the country even if the latter should prove
unsuccessful in providing protection, but will remain steadfast through
all the country’s vicissitudes. One’s country may fail to protect
him, but if it is still a recognizable expression of himself, he will
love it. The government or state may be faulty, and yet the patriot
will still be true. Veblen intimates that one might just as well have
foreign officials as home-grown capitalists administer one’s affairs of
government.[93] But the patriot is not likely to be persuaded to think
Veblen’s way, and the reason is that the home-grown capitalists somehow
seem closer than the foreign officials. It is quite true that there are
those who refuse to be patriotic because their country does not give
them what they believe to be justice. Anarchists are not patriotic.
Socialists sometimes are not patriotic. Some among the laboring classes
have come to wear their patriotic allegiance but lightly. But the issue
for them has ceased to be merely that of getting justice. It has come
to the point where the injustice of the industrial situation has gone
so far that the dissatisfied classes do not even recognize themselves
in the state that is supposed to represent them. And when that feeling
of strangeness creeps into a man’s heart, he is no longer likely to be
a patriot. Patriotism is rendered to a country that is one’s own. In
view of this, it seems rather significant that the rise of nationalism
has been cotemporal with the rise of democracy.

The country is a part of one’s objectified self. And one cannot be
a self without being objectified. He has to come to expression in
some way, and he has to have the means and material through which to
express himself. The individual would lose in individuality if his
group were broken up. He cannot be a normal human being independent
of the group; and the group for the civilized man includes “country.”
“In a profound sense, man is born under the relations of country and
of government. He can no more live a rational, civilized life without
a country, and apart from government, than without the family and
apart from the social order. Scarce human is the individual to whom
are applicable Homer’s contemptuous words,--‘No tribe, nor state, nor
home hath he.’”[94] The country pours itself into the individual.
Jacks says: “The distinction between our own thoughts and the nation’s
thoughts is being obliterated. Ask the first honest man you meet to
tell you what he is thinking, and if he answers faithfully, he will
tell you something of what the nation is thinking.”[95] The patriot
instinctively feels the oneness between his country and himself, and
often has a clear belief concerning it. Washington spoke of “that
country, in whose service I have spent the prime of my life; for whose
sake I have consumed so many anxious days and watchful nights, and
_whose happiness, being extremely dear to me, will always constitute
no inconsiderable part of my own_.”[96] Washington identified himself
with America, and so do all patriots identify themselves with their
country. If the patriot were asked why one should love his country, his
reply might very well be, “Why should one love himself?”

The identification of oneself with his country is greatly helped out
by the fact that the country is an outgrowth of the family. The idea
of kinship has been extended to the national group. The nation is
believed to be of one race. McDougall in speaking of the self-regarding
instinct calls attention to the fact that it is extended to others,
and says: “... This extension should not, and usually does not, stop
short at the family; in primitive societies the tribe and the clan,
which are the collective objects of the regards of other tribes and
clans, become also the objects of this sentiment; and among ourselves
the growing child is led on in the same way to identify himself with,
and to extend his self-regarding sentiment to his school, his college,
his town, his profession as a class or collective unit, and finally to
his country or nation as a whole.[97] The extension of the sentiment
culminates in its application to the country, and this application has
been historically possible because the country has been believed to be
the organization of a homogeneous race.

But the feeling of oneness with the country does not rest solely upon
the belief in blood kinship. Ethnologists are now pretty well agreed
that there are no pure races, and that nationality does not coincide
with race homogeneity. C. D. Burns points out that the Belgians, at
the time they were seeking nationality, were of different blood. “The
group had asserted their common ambition and their distinction from all
other groups. They were not all the same blood or language, but their
traditions and purposes were the same.”[98] It is not exclusively
a common ancestry, then, that provides the basis for one to feel at
one with his country. It is not so much a question of genesis as of
condition. One feels at home in a country which in general has the
same sort of character and life as his own. The largest factor is that
of a common consciousness, no matter how produced. What this means
may be understood from the words of Bosanquet: “Broadly speaking, the
limit of a country or nation is the limit of a common experience, such
that the people share the same mind and feelings, and can understand
each other’s ways of living and make allowance for each other so that
the same laws and institutions are acceptable and workable for all of
them.”[99] The patriot in a foreign land feels truly like an innocent
abroad, but his own country is home, sweet home to him.

The love of the country as one’s objectified self coincides with the
desire for attachment. Man, in other words, wants to objectify himself.
He is not satisfied with solipcism. He wants a world, and a world that
somehow represents himself. Without that he is a lost soul. “The man
without a country” is pathetic because he has no attachment, no fixed
world that he can call his own. The country provides a satisfying
object of attachment, in which the patriot’s soul can be at rest.

Patriotism is devotion to a cause, and the cause is one’s own. The
patriot has made it his by his own choice. It is a part of himself.
Royce in speaking of patriotic loyalty says: “This plan of the patriot
has two features: (1) It is through and through a social plan, obedient
to the general will of one’s country, submissive; (2) it is through
and through an exaltation of the self, of the inner man, who now feels
glorified through his sacrifice, dignified in his self-surrender, glad
to be his country’s servant and martyr,--yet sure that through this
very readiness for self-destruction he wins the rank of hero.”[100]
The call of _war_ is not only a call to sacrifice, but also a call to
self-expression. Royce continues: “This war-spirit, for the time at
least, makes self-sacrifice seem to be self-expression, makes obedience
to the country’s call seem to be the proudest sort of display of one’s
own powers. Honor now means submission, and to obey means to have one’s
way. Power and service are at one. Conformity is no longer opposed to
having one’s own will. One has no will but that of the country.”[101]
Patriotism in this character simplifies the problem of duty. It
provides a cause into which one can throw himself with all his heart,
avoid the conflict of a divided mind, and it is able to do all this
for a man for the reason that the cause is his own. It makes a joy out
of a duty. An expression of the joy that comes to one in the service
of his country’s cause is to be found in the words supposed to have
been uttered by Epaminondas when he was dying upon the battlefield.
Zimmermann cites the incident: “Epaminondas, the Theban, when lying
on the ground mortally wounded with a spear at the battle of Leuctra,
all that troubled him was the event of the battle, and what was to
become of his arms; but on his shield being held up to him, and with
assurances that the day had gone for the Theban side, he said to the
bystanders with a cheerful countenance, ‘Let not this day, friends, be
considered as the end of my life, but as the beginning of my happiness
and the consummation of my glory. I have the satisfaction of leaving
my country victorious, haughty Sparta humbled, and Greece freed.’
Then drawing the spear out of his breast, he expired.”[102] Even if
Epaminondas did not express any such dramatic sentiment, it was a
common enough experience among mankind to be the subject of a credible
bit of fiction. The joy was in the fact that the cause had triumphed, a
cause that he had made his own. The patriot identifies himself with his
country; in it he sees himself; and he shares its sorrows and successes.

The patriot is provincial. He begins his life of attachment by being
loyal to what is nearest the center of his own interests. And such
attachment is natural. We are not likely to be so vitally interested in
far-away things as in the things that are near. It is simply a case of
where the power of gravitation varies in inverse ratio to the distance
between the gravitating bodies. Now, the patriot’s own nation is nearer
to him than is any other, and consequently to it he renders his warmest
devotion. Even many who deplore the narrowness of nationalism and
themselves do not share that narrowness, do nevertheless have a warm
devotion for their own country. This devotion, strong in spite of a
consciousness of the country’s shortcomings, shows itself in Cowper’s
line:

  “England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.”[103]

The patriot believes that he is an unnatural son if he is not devoted
to his country. To turn against the country is comparable to turning
against his own mother. And of course no real man of flesh and blood
and the ordinary feelings of normal human beings, would do such a thing
as that. The traitor is abnormal, and is something amounting to almost
a monster. All normal men are believed to thrill to the sentiment,

  “This is my own, my native land!”[104]

The country is so close that it is felt to be inhuman baseness not to
be true to the ties that bind one to it.

Patriotism is, then, in part a clinging to the nation as an expression
of one’s own life. The patriot fiercely resents attacks upon the
nation, for they are attacks upon himself. They assail the periphery
of his personality. He wants his country to be free because in it he
finds himself expressed, and because he claims the right to continue
his self-expression through the country. Therefore he hates conquest by
an enemy. He would rather die fighting than be subjugated, because in
dying for his country he asserts himself in one last final defiant act.
It is a supreme act of self-assertion. The country is the patriot’s, it
is vital to him, and while life lasts he will not see it perish from
the earth.



CHAPTER VII

THE INTRINSIC VALUE OF ONE’S COUNTRY


The patriot believes that his country is intrinsically a fundamental
value. It is a cause that is worthy. He sees various things in the
country that furnish the bases for this belief. Sometimes he beholds in
the state a sacred or semi-sacred institution. A philosophy which put
the theory of the state in such a way as to furnish a basis for this
belief was that of Hegel. For Hegel, the state was the development of
the absolute Idea in the world. The state did not arise in response to
the needs of men, as philosophers like Mill and Spencer[105] have held,
and as would probably be held by the patriot who looks upon the country
as protector or expression of himself. Hegel said, “It is a very
distorted account of the matter when the state, in demanding sacrifices
from the citizens, is taken to be simply the civic community, whose
object is merely the security of life and property. Security cannot
possibly be obtained by the sacrifice of what is to be secured.... The
nation as a state is the spirit substantively realized and directly
real. Hence, it is the absolute power on earth.”[106] Hegel felt that
way about the Prussian State. And others have felt almost the same way
about their state. The desire for a solid and immutable condition of
life that the view represents is a fundamental one. And when Hegel or
any one else takes that view of his state, he is at once likely to be a
devoted patriot.

The popular parallel to Hegel’s conclusion is the belief that the
country comes from God. Men seem to want to feel that their origins are
worthy of reverence, and that they are especially favored. In ancient
times most people traced their ancestry back to their God. The Japanese
do the same thing in modern times, and have a religion which is the
expression of that belief. The Shinto religion inculcates reverence for
the sovereign, ancestral memory, filial piety, nature worship, and the
belief that the imperial family, which is descended from their god,
is the fountain head of the whole nation. These elements have been
infused into Bushido, which Nitobe calls _The Soul of Japan_, and which
embodies and inculcates the Japanese national ideals. But the belief in
the semi-sacred character of the nation is common in all countries. How
often do we hear it said that America is God’s Modern Chosen People.
And at least one of the sovereigns of Europe does not cease to mention
the patriotism of his tutelary god not only in his prayers, but also in
his proclamations.

This belief in the sacredness of one’s country has in monarchies a
splendid symbol to which to attach itself in the person of the king or
emperor. The ruling classes encourage this attachment; they themselves
feel that they rule by divine right. They have inherited the belief
from the traditions of the Middle Ages and from such philosophical
theories as that of Hegel. And the people, also habituated to a certain
extent in those ideas, share the same belief. If they are thoroughly
loyal, they take an attitude towards their king similar to that assumed
by religious devotees towards their God. But emperor-worship is not
at all necessary to state-worship. Many who no longer believe in the
divine right of kings still believe in the divine right of states. The
state is still often looked upon as sacred and sovereign. The Greek
conception of the omnipotent polis is in the _hinterland_ of our minds.
There has come down from the Middle Ages a habit of sovereignty which
the world has not shaken off. And, moreover, men want a supreme power
which guarantees safety. Patriotism thrives in such soil. When people
are possessed of these beliefs, patriotism with them can become almost
a religion.

The belief that one has a glorious country is a form of the belief in
its value. This kind of patriotism is fed by contemplation of the great
names of the past and the deeds of conquering heroes. It can attach
itself to any characteristic in which the country excels. Some of the
reasons for patriotism advanced in a school textbook ran somewhat as
follows: Our country is a great nation. Our territory is big. We have
an immense population. Our wealth is surpassingly great. Our power is
tremendous. Our educational standards are high. And we are the great
exponent of a land of freedom.[107] The moral was that any American
boy or girl ought to recognize that he lived in a grand and glorious
country. One of the very common causes of pride is the extent of
commerce, and in this way the economic factor makes another connection
with patriotism. A few years ago, one of the potent reasons for the
proposal to subsidize an American merchant marine was that the country
did not like to feel that the flag was not floating over the sea as it
once had.

The consciousness of national glory grows on the pride of power. The
belief in the country’s greatness fuses with and derives dynamic from
the impulse to power. National power is precious to a certain type of
patriot. It is even more precious than peace. “The plain fact is that
people do not prize tranquillity above all other goods. They desire
influence and power, and are willing to accept the responsibilities
and the suffering that these entail.”[108] These facts throw light upon
the patriotism of aggressive nations. The patriots of those nations
glory in their country’s glory, and grow great in the consciousness of
its power. Imperialism grows out of this temper. And once a country is
embarked on a career of imperialism, it is hardly to be satisfied short
of dominion over the world. Even then it will sigh for new worlds to
conquer. And this characteristic of an insatiable lust for glory should
not be lost sight of when we are considering the taming of an enemy by
nonresistance.

The patriotism that feeds upon the country’s glory is jealous of the
national prestige. Prestige is glory. And a nation cannot continue
to glory either at home or abroad if it suffers its prestige to be
lowered. Consequently it must sometimes fight simply to protect that
prestige. Many of our citizens during the period of crisis with Mexico
over the exploits of Villa and also during the critical time in our
affairs with Germany before war was declared, believed that if we did
not fight, our prestige value would be lowered all over the world, and
that we should be deprived of the power of acting effectively in world
politics. The desire of a nation for revenge also is the desire, as
much as anything else, to restore her fallen prestige.

Solicitude for the country’s honor is another outgrowth of the
patriotism that delights in national glory. One kind of honor is that
of Belgium standing up in the face of aggression for its integrity and
for its loyalty to its international obligations. A weaker kind is very
much like the desire for prestige. It is a desire for the respect of
others. It appears in the reason that Nitobe gives for Japan’s opening
its doors to the western world. “The sense of honor which cannot bear
being looked down upon as an inferior power,--that was the strongest of
motives.”[109] This sense of honor will lead to high achievements, but
the tragedy is that it will so easily lead to war. C. D. Broad says,
“... It is chiefly when people can be persuaded that questions of honor
are involved that they can be got to fight.”[110] And when a war is
started, no country wants to accept defeat. Each one emblazons on its
sword the device which is said to have been on the sword of a faithful
knight of feudal times: “Never draw me without right; never sheathe me
without honor.”

The trouble which is implicit in the situation is that nations believe
that their glory and welfare are matters of competitive success. It
is all too commonly believed that the gain of one nation must mean
the loss of another. Consequently, the attitude that is taken on all
sides is simply that of intelligent self-interest. Jealousy arises
out of such a situation, and jealousy is one of the effective causes
of war. One of the most significant factors in the diplomatic history
preceding the present war was that of the rivalry of the great European
powers for strategic land areas, and for control of the important sea
routes of the world. There has been a problem of the Mediterranean, the
Adriatic, Constantinople, the North Sea, the Baltic, the China Sea, the
Persian Gulf, and so on. Germany, younger than the other nations, has
been making a desperate effort to catch up with them, and the present
war is in great part the outgrowth of the friction arising out of that
effort.[111]

But it is encouraging that the glory of nations does not consist
exclusively in competitive success, and that there are those who
realize it. There are those who see that the true good of all countries
may be worked out at the same time. J. S. Mill expressed a high ideal
of patriotism when he said: “I believe that the good of no country can
be obtained by any means but such as tend to that of all countries,
nor ought to be sought otherwise, even if attainable.”[112] This may
be matched by a passage from American patriotic eloquence uttered by
no less a patriot than Charles Sumner: “I hope to rescue those terms
[national glory], so powerful over the minds of men, from the mistaken
objects to which they are applied, from deeds of war and the extension
of empire, that henceforward they may be attached only to acts of
justice and humanity.”[113] The highest good of nations really lies in
the use of those things which do not perish in the using and of which
there is enough for all. They are the things of the mind and of the
spirit. The hope is that the rivalry of nations may be transferred from
destructive to constructive pursuits. Much better would be friendly
rivalry in the accomplishments of science, art, scholarship, social
welfare, and like things.

The belief in the value of one’s country sometimes expresses itself
in the conviction that the country embodies lofty ideals. Patriots
believe that their nation represents a great tradition, and stands for
ideals that are important to the human race. A country may be said to
be organized about these beliefs. A people is not really effectively
unified until it is held together by the power of a common ideal. And
that ideal is a source of strength to patriotism. This idealistic
character has impressed itself upon even the warlike temper of peoples.
They do not usually fight over causes that are avowedly materialistic
and predatory. It takes a big idea to appeal to the people. “...
Peoples in their larger corporate activities are not mercenary, but
idealist. They know that wars do not ‘pay’ in the low, material sense.
They are not seeking present ease and comfort, seldom a present good
of any kind, but the triumph of an ideal which they associate with
their national life. Their _method_ may be wrong, but their _purpose_
is essentially altruistic, perhaps the least selfish of any activity
we know.”[114] And the ideal that moves a people must be a morally high
ideal, or at least must seem to be so. A government could scarcely hope
to win a hard war without having first enlisted the community’s moral
convictions.

Ideals are in part inherited from the nation’s past. What has united
in the past has been these common ideals; and it is because there
were such that the memory of the past is so valuable. But for the
idealist the future is fully as important as the past. A people is
held together by what Green calls its “social expectation.”[115] What
binds us together in America is not so much the past as the future. Our
past is a vital factor in our unity. It is remarkable how the various
elements in our population can apparently so naturally appropriate
“the Puritan fathers” as their own. The Puritan fathers were only
one element in the founding of the United States, and at least
three-quarters of the present inhabitants of this land have no physical
inheritance from them, but a far greater proportion of the American
people count themselves as their spiritual progeny. Nevertheless, the
American people contains great heterogeneous groups and masses who
have never been assimilated to the Puritan ideals or traditions. There
is no common past for all our people. We root back into many lands
and many traditions. The tie that really binds is what we believe to
be our common destiny, the ideals that we believe ourselves to be
progressively realizing. The roots of our unity are in the sky.

The ideals which a nation believes that it exemplifies are various.
Sometimes it is that of good government. Virgil felt that Rome was
spreading peace and order throughout the world.[116] Sometimes it is
the ideal of justice. The patriot seems to feel that in his country’s
just cause eternal justice itself is being incarnated. “A patriot he
[Washington] was in the highest sense, not because he loved his country
with a selfish love, but because he loved justice on the broadest
scale, and believed that the cause of his country was that of eternal
justice.”[117] But the ideal which has been exploited perhaps more
than any other is that of freedom. Patriots thrill at the thought
that not only is their country the guardian of their freedom, but is
the champion of freedom throughout all the world. This ideal has the
honor of having most keenly aroused the consciences of states. “It is
a curious fact that practically every case in which altruistic action
has been professed by or recommended to a nation has been a case in
which the ‘liberty’ of some human beings was in question. Thus both the
antislavery and the Bulgarian agitations [in England] were questions
of liberty; and the whole Palmerstonian policy was directed against
tyranny. There is indeed some ground for believing that the positive
international moral sense has at present only developed with regard to
freedom. There are many people, especially in this country, who would
say that it is the duty of a state, regardless of its own interests, to
protect the freedom of another state, especially if the inhabitants of
the latter are of kindred race to themselves.”[118]

Patriotism often rests upon the belief in the value of the country’s
civilization. The civilization of a country is its art, culture,
customs, and in general its way of living. It is its _kultur_. Loisy
speaks for France, “... though we do not brag of our culture, we are
sure that the ruin of France would be no gain to civilization....
We are safeguarding a notable portion of our human inheritance from
the madness of the destroyer.”[119] Sometimes the element of the
civilization cherished most is that of religion. The Jewish patriotism
was an example of this. Sometimes there is a belief that one’s own
nation has a way of doing things better than others. Germany is an
example. At other times, pride is founded upon the greatness of one’s
institutions. The English and Americans feel such pride. Sometimes
patriotism waxes enthusiastic over economic accomplishment. The
following is an expression of patriotism which, while it will no doubt
be astonishing to most people, nevertheless seems to be sincere: “It
is an element of patriotism to reverence the successful business
man of America, and Our Nation must request and heed the advice and
admonitions of men experienced in affairs.”[120] The context shows that
the author likes the _status quo_ of industry and wealth, and wants
more of the same thing.

Each state group has its own history, and is convinced that it
makes its own contribution to the world’s civilization. The patriot
applies to his own country the spirit that was expressed by Mazzini:
“Every people has its special mission, which will coöperate towards
the fulfillment of the general mission of Humanity. That mission
constitutes its nationality. Nationality is sacred.”[121] The sense of
having a mission possessed Israel; it possesses Germany; it possesses
America. Longfellow wrote to America,

  “Humanity with all its fears,
  With all the hopes of future years,
  Is hanging breathless on thy fate.”[122]

In fact, the number of the civilizing missions that the world is
favored with is identically equal to the number of countries that have
each a national consciousness. The consciousness of being the anointed
one sometimes strikes the level of the ludicrous. The following is not
an example,--for the New Englander: “As from the first to this day, let
New England continue to be an example to the world of the blessings of
free government, and of the means and capacity of men to maintain it.
And in all times to come, as in all times past, may Boston be among the
foremost and boldest to exemplify and uphold whatever constitutes the
prosperity, the happiness, and the glory of New England.”[123]

The patriotism that justifies itself with the reason that the country
is an intrinsic value often expresses itself in a desire for a better
country. Patriotism is not exclusively love of country just as it is.
It is love of an ideal country. The actual country becomes a subject of
criticism. Literary men have often satirized their country at the same
time that they loved it. And the criticism may be all the more bitter
because the love is great. The country’s shortcomings are felt by those
who love it the most. The following lines inflict the faithful wound of
a true patriot:

  “The ever-lustrous name of patriot
  To no man may be denied because he saw
  Where in his country’s wholeness lay the flaw,
  Where, on her whiteness, the unseemly blot.
  England! thy loyal sons condemn thee.--What!
  Shall we be meek who from thine own breasts draw
  Our fierceness? Not ev’n _thou_ shalt overawe
  Us, thy proud children nowise basely got.
  Be this the measure of our loyalty--
  To feel thee noble and weep thy lapse the more.
  This truth by thy true servants is confess’d--
  Thy sins, who love thee most, do most deplore.
  Know thou thy faithful! Best they honour thee
  Who honour in thee only what is best.”[124]

Patriotism consequently does not mean blind devotion to country, right
or wrong. And the plain fact is that there actually are patriots who
do not conceive that devotion to country must be consistent even at
the expense of one’s moral convictions. Loyalty to country with them
does not set aside loyalty to the moral law. The following lines are
taken from an essay commendatory to patriotism: “Let patriotism wholly
conform itself to the moral law; let it judge all things, national as
well as individual, by the unalterable, supreme, standard of right
and wrong; let it sanction no blind following of the flag, nor any
unethical exalting of the country’s dominance above the country’s
righteousness; let it reject the notion that because war has been
declared, patriots must enlist; let it repudiate the idea that because
a war has been begun, it must be allowed to end only when victory has
been secured;--and there will not only be fewer wars, but also, on one
side at least, wars more in keeping with justice and truth.”[125] The
author is a patriot, but his patriotism is directed by a high ethical
ideal.

It follows that patriotism is not inextricably bound up with jingoism.
Patriotism is not exclusively a war-time virtue. In truth pacifists may
well assert, and do sometimes, that they are patriots, and differ from
other patriots only in the way in which they show their patriotism.
There are uses for the patriot in time of peace as well as in time
of war. A practical statesman in a patriotic address has said, “We
need men who will not only be ready to sacrifice for their country in
time of war, but who will not be a menace to it in time of peace! We
want patriots in finance. We want patriotism in the organization of
corporations. We want patriots in the conduct of public utilities. We
want patriots in rendering loyal obedience to the law.”[126] Washington,
who was a patriot in war, preferred peace, and was a patriot in peace
as well as in war. When he was about to resign his commission as
commander-in-chief of the army, he wrote his “Letter to the Governors”
in which he made suggestions for putting the Federal Government on
a right basis. His “Farewell Address” was characterized by paternal
solicitude for the future of his country. On both occasions Washington,
first in peace as well as in war, expressed what was a true spirit of
patriotism.

The patriotism that looks within the country demands public spirit.
It calls for unselfishness on the part of the individual and devotion
to the betterment of the country. J. S. Mill’s _Autobiography_ shows
in its pages that Mill was actuated in his work by an unselfish and
devoted public spirit. High-minded patriots demand everyday devotion
to the country. Bosanquet tells us what patriotism means to him. He
says: “In their patriotism, their feeling for the community, Hegel
tells us, people are apt to follow their custom of being generous
before they are just, and excuse themselves by a potential romantic
magnanimity for a lack of prosaic everyday loyalty to the commonwealth.
But it is this latter, the sense of daily duty, which is real
patriotism--the foundation and seed-plot of the former.”[127]

This public spirit means, for one thing, that the individual himself
be a good citizen. “... Patriotism demands that, in ourselves, we
be good and true. The country’s worthy citizen must be personally
worthy,--emulous of culture, devoted to virtue. No man personally
dishonorable, can be patriotic in the highest degree.”[128] It means,
for another thing, that a man shall be interested in the welfare of
the people of his country. Although an enthusiasm for the people
sometimes weakens nationalistic feeling, as in the case of Tolstoy,
nevertheless patriotism often derives great strength from humanitarian
sympathy. This sympathy shows itself nowadays in the desire for a
greater measure of justice in the relations between the classes. In a
patriotic address, John Grier Hibben says: “In the throes of its new
birth the world today needs a new industrial conscience, a new sense
of social responsibility, a new standard of national integrity. We
must realize that the strength of a nation lies ultimately not in its
natural resources, or in its method of efficiency, or in its numerical
superiority, or in its army, or navy, but in its moral and spiritual
vigor.”[129] Even J. M. Robertson, who on the whole thinks that
patriotism is a bad thing, has for the nation an ideal of “scientific
social development.”[130] It is easy to see in his book that he has
a large sympathy with “the people” not only of other countries, but
also of his own. That is his patriotism. The International Reform
Bureau published a book entitled “Patriotic Studies.” And it was not,
as one might suppose, a series of learned articles on the subject
of Patriotism. It was a compilation of Congressional documents of
the years 1888-1905 for the study of public questions. The questions
treated in this volume were the following: “1. Moral and Social
Functions of Education. 2. Municipal Reform. 3. Immigration. 4. The
Lord’s Day and the Rest Day. 5. The Labor Problem. 6. The Family. 7.
National Reforms. 8. Amusements, With Special Reference to Purity.
9. Gambling. 10. Prevention and Punishment of Crime. 11. The Liquor
Problem. 12. The New Charity.”[131] All this was considered by an
International Bureau of Reform to be “patriotic studies.” Patriotism
then, reveals itself in the doing of those things that aim at the
true welfare of mankind within a country. And such activities are
patriotism. “In the peace movement, the temperance reform, the
judicious and practicable schemes for the abolition of bondage, the
attempts to discover a more Christian organization of society;--in
every association and all efforts that seek the highest welfare of man,
and prepare the way for his free culture and rightful enjoyment, as a
creature of God, the American idea justifies itself and culminates;
and by strengthening this tendency, and only thus can Patriotism be
faithful to its law, and vindicate its nature.”[132]

It is quite consistent with patriotism that the country should be
cherished as the servant of humanity. The ideal of service sometimes
becomes a reason for patriotism. Mazzini’s[133] patriotism was of
this kind. His ideal was that a nation should claim not its own
aggrandizement, but its right to serve humanity as a distinct group.
This kind of patriotism is that which Royce would recommend as an
example of the best loyalty. “Enlightened loyalty takes no delight in
great armies or in great navies for their own sake. If it consents to
them, it views them merely as transiently necessary calamities. It has
no joy in national prowess, except in so far as that prowess means
a furtherance of universal loyalty.... We want loyalty to loyalty
taught by helping many people to be loyal to their own special causes,
and by showing them that loyalty is a precious common human good, and
that it can never be a good to harm any man’s loyalty except solely in
necessary defense of our own loyalty.... And so, a cause is good, not
only for me, but for mankind, in so far as it is essentially a _loyalty
to loyalty_, that is, is an aid and a furtherance of loyalty in my
fellows.”[134] And Royce, in his last book, made the application to
patriotism: “Let us, with all our might, with whatever moral influence
we possess, with our own honor, with our lives if necessary, be ready,
if ever and whenever the call comes to our people, to sacrifice for
mankind as Belgium has sacrificed; to hazard all, as Belgium has
hazarded all, _for the truer union of mankind and for the future of
human brotherhood_”.[135] The truest patriot, from this point of view,
will be the man whose insight will reveal to him what his nation can
most naturally and best do for humanity, and who uses his powers to win
the devotion of the nation to the ideal of performing that service.

What conclusions now are yielded by the bearings of the reasons of
patriotism? Is patriotism either justified or discredited by them?
Once more it is apparent that no ground has been reached upon which
alone to base a general judgment. To begin with, no reason simply as
such is either good or bad; some of the reasons of patriotism are good
and some are evil. Moreover, these beliefs are often based merely upon
impulse and regimentation. There is “instinctive inference as well
as ... instinctive impulse.”[136] One will hunt reasons for what he
believes; many of his reasons are simply after-thoughts. And sometimes
beliefs are not as accurate as instincts and habits. A man’s feelings
may often have more meaning than his beliefs. So the fact that a thing
appears to be reasoned does not necessarily make it reasonable.

The reasons found in patriotism are another element adding to its
complexity. And the complexity is all the more involved because
impulses and habits have remained in patriotism along with reasons.
Patriotism is composed of all three,--impulses, habits, and reasons.
The nature of patriotism will have to be found in a concept that
unifies all these elements, and its ethical value can be clearly
assessed only in the light of that concept. Therefore, the nature and
value of patriotism will be the objects of attention in the remaining
chapters.



PART IV

THE NATURE AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM



CHAPTER VIII

THE WILL TO NATIONAL INDIVIDUALITY


Patriotism is a complex sentiment. It grows out of a great variety of
roots and reasons, and finds expression in many forms. In the preceding
parts of this treatise these foundations and expressions of patriotism
have been dealt with. They throw light upon the questions of why
patriotism is and why it is what it is. It remains for patriotism to be
defined.

No one of the many causes or appearances of the sentiment adequately
defines it. Those who fix upon some one impulse, habit, or reason, and
try to fit all the facts of patriotism into that, oversimplify the
situation. They leave out essential features. This would hold true of
J. M. Robertson,[137] who makes patriotism to consist of the impulses
of fear and hatred. There are important kinds of patriotism, directed
toward the internal improvement of the country for instance, which
cannot be so classified. If one followed the clue of Trotter,[138] he
would explain the phenomenon as the result of the herd instinct. But
patriotism is not purely instinctive. Veblen[139] would lead one to make
the economic motive and the impulse of rivalry or emulation prominent.
But patriotism is something more than a contest and a contest, too,
which is mainly for material goods. Loisy[140] would make patriotism a
worthy religion, and recommend it as such. But the love of country does
not always attain the dignity that it has in Loisy. Powers[141] makes
men’s interest in their civilization the root of their patriotism. But
he opens his book with the recognition that men do fight over material
things. None of these accounts can be used as an adequate basis from
which to define and present the central concept of patriotism.

Yet patriotism is one. There is a common center about which all the
impulses, habits, and beliefs of the sentiment cluster. There is a
concept “patriotism.” It is that concept, though perhaps inarticulate,
which guides even in the gathering of material for its own definition.
It will be enlarged after the preliminary examination, but it is
present from the beginning.

The clue that one really has in hand when he sets out to study
patriotism is the popular definition that it is “the love of
country.”[142] And it is a hopeful clue from which to start. It does
lead one to the material that he seeks. Moreover, it shows what
patriotism has meant in racial wisdom, the wisdom of the plain people
who have long and intimately been associated with and been most moved
by the sentiment.

It must be said that in one way the result of an examination of this
popular definition is negative. The preliminary study made in this
dissertation shows that. Patriotism is hardly to be defined simply as
the love of country. Devotion to one’s native land is in one phase an
exalted and intelligent loyalty to country as an ideal, but it may show
another character. Its nature has instinctive roots. It may be no more
than a habit. Even the reasoned support of country is not exclusively
what may be described as love; at any rate, it not uncommonly appears
as a quite self-interested affection. The conduct of patriots has
often been such as to cause wonder if the emotion consuming them were
really pure, unmixed love. It has frequently seemed that there was
mixed in a full portion of hate. The phrase, “the love of country,”
covers a multitude of sins. Patriotism is a pure white light, but
seems to be one in the sense that it can be broken up and any color
desired extracted from it. Love of country, in view of such facts as
these, frequently gets to look like something not quite the same as the
exalted sentiment of school textbooks and Fourth-of-July oratory.

And yet there must have been some considerations that led to the
definition of patriotism as the love of country. Out of what facts did
the definition grow? In the light of all the instincts, habits, and
reasons of patriotism, what does it seem that the phrase “the love of
country” covers?

It seems obvious, for one thing, that patriotism is an attitude
toward country. It is easily seen that “country” is a constant in the
phenomena of patriotism. The country is the object of the patriot’s
emotions. Patriotism, in other words, has to do with “mother country”
or “fatherland.” And that is to say that patriotism is a feeling of
nationality. “Patriotism is the sentiment in which consciousness of
nationality normally expresses itself.”[143] One would not know where
to look for patriotism at all if to begin with he did not know in a
general way that it was this nationalistic sentiment. Generically,
patriotism is like family pride, civic pride, team spirit, university
spirit, and the like; specifically, it is nationalistic spirit. It
might be necessary that this be said only for the sake of completeness
were there not a confusion of language on the subject. It is, strictly
speaking, a strange and metaphorical use of words to talk about
“patriots of the world.” Such a combination of words may serve a
useful purpose of propagandism in furthering a desirable spirit of
internationalism or cosmopolitanism, and it may in time take on the
further connotation, but it is not historically accurate. Patriotism in
its meaning as a word and as a matter of fact has to do with a country,
and it will serve to keep thinking clear if we hold the term to its
historical meaning. Patriotism is the sentiment of attachment to one’s
national group.

The quality of the sentiment impresses one. Patriotism is not merely
consciousness of nationality. It is more active and explosive than
that. It is not even such an emotion as that of thankfulness for the
country. Thankfulness or joy, is the feeling of returning soldiers as
they land back upon American shores. Is that feeling of satisfaction
with the homeland at getting back, patriotism? A kind of love of
country it may be said to be. But ask the man in the street if it is
patriotism, and he will hesitate. He will, however, be quite sure that
it is not anything like as patriotic as the acts of the same soldiers
in going across to Europe, or in breaking up socialistic parades
after they get back. The mere joy at being once more in the bosom of
one’s country doesn’t seem to be patriotism _par excellence_. There
appears to be a great difference between liking one’s country and
loving it. The immigrant may like his new home, like it better than
any other, and still not be patriotic. What is it that must be added
to turn the liking of country into patriotism? Patriots demand homage
to the country. Faith must be shown by works. Patriotism is a passion
inspiring active allegiance. It is devotion that means service, if
necessary “the service.” The patriot is solicitous for his native land.
He not only pronounces his country good; he also wants some good for
it. He is, moreover, determined upon that good. That it be secured
and maintained is part of his ruling purpose. In sum, his _will_ is
set upon it. Patriotism has it as an essential characteristic that it
includes a _will_ towards one’s country.

What is it that the patriot wills? Briefly, he is vitally interested in
the _selfhood_ of his country. The thought of _self_ as to the country
is always present. Patriotism is the will that the country do some such
thing as be, remain, express, or develop itself. The thorough-going
patriot in so far as he is such, is interested in the country, the
whole country, and nothing but the country.[144] It becomes the _this_
of his consciousness and affection. He has just one object in the
focus of his interests, and that object is _this country_. The patriot
says, “_This_,--_this_ is my own, my native land.” Patriotism shows an
intense singleness of affection. The country for the patriot is _the
one_.

And now, the fact that patriotism is a will toward the country as it
is in and for itself may be expressed in another way by saying that
the patriot has a will toward the country as an individual, and his
will as to its selfhood is a will toward its individuality. A self is
an individual considered as an identity. The country has an individual
place in the patriot’s heart; and he desires a singleness of the
country corresponding to his singleness of affection. Love of country
has done what all love does; it has individualized its object. It makes
its object the one, the individual, of its devotion. It is with country
as with woman. A man can love but one.[144] It is the one to him. And
he wants it to be the one among all others. What it means to him he
wants it to be objectively.

And so patriotism may be described as the will to national
individuality. It is individualism expressed upon the national plane.
One can see what it is when he observes the reaction of patriots to
any suggestion touching the identity of their country. Opposition to
the proposal for a league of nations is patriotism. It is narrow,
perhaps, but nevertheless patriotism it is. Those who oppose the idea
are actuated by the fear that loyalty to the league will develop at the
expense of loyalty to the nation. The patriot feels for his country,
puts himself in its place, and cannot bear to see its selfhood or
individuality impaired.

It should be noted that the will to individuality may exist in strong
measure when the external basis for it seems to be weak, and _vice
versa_. Switzerland has an active patriotism with a heterogeneous
people, while Sweden has a weaker patriotism with a homogeneous people.
However, this merely amounts to saying that patriotism is sometimes
weak and sometimes strong. The nature of patriotism remains the same.
There is simply a stronger set of stimuli urging it to express itself
in the one case than in the other. And the fact of individuality is not
exclusively the stimulus to the will to it. There might be a will to an
individuality which as yet existed only in ideal, and there can be a
real individuality which leads only to a very weak fervor for itself.
In the case of Switzerland and Sweden, the explanation is that the
Swiss have had to fight for their identity much more than the Swedish.
There must, however, be an actual individuality at least possible in
order to justify the will. What we are at present concerned with is the
description of patriotism as a sentiment. Where there is patriotism
it is such as described, whatever the stimuli may be. National
individuality is what the Swiss aim at. The next chapter will take up
the question of whether or not patriotism finds a real individuality
to rest itself upon. An integrating spectroscope is a spectroscope the
slit of which is illuminated by light from every part of the source
under examination; this concept of the will to national individuality
is the integrating spectroscope of the data of patriotism.

But the term individuality is an elastic one. It is necessary that it
should be so. It has to be able to cover a great deal as a concept
defining patriotism, for the manifestations of patriotism are various.
Patriotism is so manifold that the limits of the definition cannot
be drawn too closely. Individuality is a comprehensive term. It is,
however, comprehensible. What does it mean? What are the main forms
that the will to national individuality takes? And are the main forms
of patriotism discovered in the answer to that question? Does a
knowledge of the characteristics of an individual furnish the material
for the understanding of the tendencies of patriotism?

The first characteristic of an individual is that it is unique. This
proposition is agreed upon by practically all philosophers whatever
may be the school of metaphysics to which they belong. All would
agree with Royce, for instance, in saying that, “An individual is
unique. There is no other of its individual kind. If Socrates is an
individual, then there is only one Socrates in the universe. If you are
an individual, then in reality there is no other precisely capable of
taking your place. If God is an individual, then, as ethical monotheism
began by saying, _There is no Other_.”[145] “Taken individually” means
taken separately. Individuality means, in some sense, separateness.
An individual case is a distinct or isolated case. When, therefore,
one demands that he be allowed to be an individual, he means that he
demands the right _to be and remain himself_.

And just this is a fundamental demand in patriotism. It is of no use
to tell a country, even though it seems to others an insignificant
one, that it will be better off in another country; that its citizens
could enjoy to a greater extent the physical satisfactions of life; and
that they will be able to share in a greater _kultur_. They will not
listen. They do not wish to live more comfortably as animals; they do
not wish to live under the ægis of some one else’s greatness, no matter
how great that may be. An individual will hardly consent to unself
himself. The citizens of any country wish to be themselves, and retain
their own national individuality. Veblen[146] suggests that so far as
creature comforts are concerned, we might all be fairly well off if we
voluntarily surrendered to Germany. Art might also be furthered. And
in view of the high cost of resistance, so Veblen says, it might be
well to accept the German imperial rule. But Veblen also knows that no
nation will listen to his proposal. And why? It is simply because we do
not live primarily for creature comforts, or that a classical science
and philosophy should be developed. Self-preservation is the first
law of nature. We want to exist, and exist as separate and unique. We
want to be ourselves, and have an individuality that has a continuous
history of its own. At its lowest terms, the will to individuality is a
will to live. France will not listen to a counsel to negate that will;
neither will Belgium; neither will Britain; neither will America; and
neither will Germany. Patriotism seeks to make the country unique; that
very will itself becomes a factor making for the uniqueness of the
country. The country is what the patriot wills; it is his; he cherishes
it; and in its place he will accept no other. The will to uniqueness,
which is a form of the will to individuality, does in fact turn out to
be one of the important forms of patriotism.

In the second place, an individual is a unitary being. It is one
whole, an individuum. In comparison with others, it is separate;
in its own inner constitution, it is a unity. It is _one_ in both
its external and internal relations. Unity is of two grades, simple
and complex. The simple unity means solidarity and that in the last
analysis the individual cannot be further subdivided. An atom would
be an individual of this kind. But in our actual experience we do not
meet with such individuals. What we ordinarily mean by an individual
is not that which is such by virtue of its indivisibility. Taken
just as a physical fact, it is divisible. It is when we take it as
a fact of meaning that we see what we ordinarily have in mind as an
individual. An individual is such because nothing can be subtracted
from it without destroying its distinctive character. It is a unity not
because of physical indivisibility, not because it is a simple unit,
but because, even in complexity, it has in it a _principle of unity_.
The richness of variety in it only contributes to the richness of its
individuality. Bosanquet has made the distinction between the two kinds
of individuals. “Individuality, it has been said, has _prima facie_ two
extremes. An ‘atom’ may claim it, on the ground that it is less than
can be divided; a world may claim it, on the ground that its positive
nature is ruined if anything is added or taken away.”[147] In another
place he says that an individuality is “a world self-complete.”[148]
The principle that individuality means unity and the distinction
between the two kinds of unity are well summed up in the following
quotation: “That individuality always involves some sort of unity
will hardly be denied. That which is in no sense one is in no sense
an individual; and the more truly a thing can be called one, the more
truly can it be called an individual. We must distinguish, however,
between two aspects of unity,--the quantitative aspect or numerical
unity, and the qualitative aspect or inner coherence.”[149] The atom
was an example of numerical individuality; the qualitative individual
would be exemplified in the life of a man. A human being can of course
be rent limb from limb, but so far as bodily life is concerned he
ceases then to be a man; his identity as a human individual has been
destroyed.

Now a country is an individual by virtue of being a qualitative unity.
It is a unity in difference. Aristotle says: “A state is not made up
only of so many men, but of different kinds of men; for similars do
not constitute a state.”[150] The unity of a country is not a simple
but a complex unity. It is often quite rudimentary, but its essentials
are there, if there is any country at all. And those essentials may
be developed. They at least exist as the material for an ideal unity.
National individuality, to be sure, is often an ideal rather than a
present fact. But the patriot holds just this unity of his country
in ideal, and strives towards it. His is a will to national unity,
national individuality. There were in the revolutionary period two
movements developing side by side,--the movements towards independence
and unity. Washington was a patriot not only because he sought for
separation from England, but because he consistently counselled _unity_
as among the colonies. Lincoln was a patriot not in the sense that he
stood for the separation of his country from other countries (there was
no call for that), but in that he stood for the preservation of the
unity of the United States. He preserved the Union. The nationalistic
movements of the nineteenth century in Europe were directed in large
part towards unity. The Germans and Italians strove to the end that
all their people might be united. Those movements were struggles for
national unity, and hence struggles for national individuality.

The stimulus of war brings out in supreme degree the demand of the
patriot for national unity. The present war has compelled unity
within each individual nation to an unparalleled extent. The whole
population in each country has had to be organized for the war. The
civil and military populations are not now as distinct as they once
were. “The war is waged not only by the soldier but by the baker, the
manufacturer, the engineer, the farmer, the small investor, the women.
Unless, therefore, the emotions of the entire country can be keyed up
to volunteer pitch and maintained at the point of fighting efficiency,
the war machine loses momentum.”[151] The patriot sees the necessities
of the times, and insists upon absolute unity. It is the form that his
will to national individuality then takes.

The patriot ought, however, to remember that unity does not mean
solidarity, and that a true individual is not one which has to be
maintained by the suppression of all differences. The patriot insists
so strongly upon unity, no doubt, because he believes that to act
as one is the only way in which the national individuality can be
preserved. But he should remember, as some one has remarked, that “a
solid front does not necessitate a solid head.” The unity of patriotism
is one of will, and moreover is one of good will. There cannot be
national unity on any basis that ignores that fact. The honest pacifist
should be treated accordingly. On the other hand, there is no reason
why the pacifist should be made the recipient of peculiar honors or
the object of special solicitude. He has thrown his opinion into the
arena of human affairs, and will have to take his chances. And he in
his turn should remember that the patriot is fighting for priceless
possessions, more valuable than any material possessions, his own
individuality and the individuality of his country. If the pacifist has
a right to insist upon his opinion, he must accord the patriot the same
right to insist upon his. What will take place if the patriot happens
to have a large majority, and deems it most fair to enact a selective
draft law? The pacifist can do no other than insist upon his inmost
convictions. But neither can the patriot. There is inevitably a clash,
and the problem is to be solved not only as a question of right, but
also of expediency. It may easily be most expedient, it usually is so,
for the patriot to grant easy terms to the pacifist. And the latter’s
right to free speech and agitation, as long as he does not actually
break or incite to the breaking of a law, is really indisputable. But
the danger to national individuality may be great. It is conceivable
that an aggressive enemy may be at the very doors. In that case, the
nonconformist will have to become in some sense a martyr. If his
country needs him, he ought either to serve or pay the penalty. He
might have to suffer imprisonment. Or he might find it wisest and most
effective to martyr his convictions to the extent of performing some
patriotic service, even to bearing arms. The fact that the majority
differs from him might well be an indication that he is wrong, and that
he should revise his opinions or at least not insist upon them too
strongly; and moreover, if one martyrs his convictions to the extent of
helping win the war, he may expect then to get a more ready hearing
for his opinions. One is always listened to more respectfully when he
has identified himself with the group than when he has cut himself off
from it. Conformity for the present might prove the best method of
making his ideals effective in the long run. It is often easier to work
from the inside than from the outside. The chick within the shell is in
the very best position in the world for breaking through it.

But the essential point is that patriotism insists on unity within the
nation. There is no nation engaged in the war which is not insisting
upon the utmost unity of action and even of thought. And this rests
back upon the unity that had already really been developed. If each
country had not developed and marshaled its resources to such an
extent in peace time, they could not be so mobilized in war time, and
indeed there would be no need for it; the enemy would not be bringing
such resources to bear. It is just the very complexity and unity in
complexity in modern nations that makes war so drastic, and makes it so
necessary that neither side should neglect the bringing of any of its
resources to bear upon the waging of the war. The will to unity, a form
of the will to individuality, is quite characteristic of patriotism.

A characteristic of individuality in human beings and their
institutions is that an individual is self-directing; its destiny
is worked out from within. The following quotation sums up what is
meant: “We pass on to the third factor in individuality. We have
spoken of it as completeness or self-sufficiency; but in its higher
degrees it may also be called self-direction. That some measure of
independence is essential to our notion of individuality will hardly
be questioned.”[152] The phrase “have some individuality” means, in
part at least, that one make his actions the expression of his own true
self. It means to think and act for oneself. If one does not do that,
we say that he is not a real individual. If one is not self-directing,
and is subject to the will of another, his individuality is, in so far,
taken from him, and he becomes a part of the individuality of that
other. If he is integrated in the other’s will, he really in a true
sense ceases to be even unique. Fite says: “As a spiritual individual
I am found in every action that expresses my meaning, whether it be
that of my hand, my typewriter, my servant, or my political party; and
any object that refuses to express my meaning, though it be a member
of my own body, is so far not truly myself.”[153] It follows that one
has to be free and independent to be an individual. And this is the
reason that freedom is so precious; not because the free man will
live in better material circumstances, but because he wants to be an
individual. He wants to be himself, and have his chance of working out
his life in his own way.

And patriotism involves just this demand for liberty. The patriot
wants his country to be free. It must, to satisfy him, be not only a
recognizable separate unit as among the peoples of the world, but must
run its own affairs. He wants it to be self-directing and autonomous.
He cannot bear to have his country used as a thing, or a mere piece of
mechanism at the mercy of another’s will. Any one who is patriotic in
China will not be satisfied with a situation where any foreign power
has concessions over parts of his country’s soil. Weak governments
frequently find it necessary to guard their neutrality, and they do it
jealously because the patriotic spirit will not permit them to allow
others to put them in subjection as a means to the furtherance of alien
designs. Belgium is an instance. Belgium does not want to be a roadway
or the battlefield of Europe. She does not want to be a pawn in a game.
She wants her territory to be the expression of her own free life. To
stand for her neutrality is to stand for her sovereignty, and to assert
herself. Belgium might utterly perish, but in doing so, she would
have asserted herself, and she would rather die in that magnificent
self-assertion than to be the tool of another. It is not often that a
supposedly sovereign power will, like Luxemburg, allow its neutrality
to be disregarded without a struggle. President Wilson understood the
sensitiveness of patriots when he insisted that no foreign troops
should be landed in Russia without her consent. Patriotism is often
thought of altogether as the fight for freedom. The patriot insists
upon the freedom, the autonomy, the sovereignty of his country; the
will to self-direction is one of the moving forces of patriotism.

To be a true individual is to have some significance of one’s own.
Individuality comes to mean marked individuality. It stands for
the opposite of the quality of being common. The phrase “have some
individuality” often means to have something for which one stands, and
something that is really significant in the world. It means that one’s
activities should be the expression of a life plan which is his, and
which has real value. This characteristic takes a step beyond those of
mere separateness and independence. When we say of one that he has no
individuality, we do not mean that he is not numerically separate from
other men, but, in part at least, that he has no _life plan_ which is
specially his own. He has no significance. The man who is an individual
is one who has a specific character. And if he prides himself upon
being an individual he wants to “be somebody.” He has “self-respect.”
He regards himself as significant. He wants not only to count as one;
he wants to _count_.

And, again, this is a characteristic of patriotism. Patriotism is a
will to be nationally significant. It is national pride. It is
national ambition, a will to self-respect and the respect of others, a
will to national standing, greatness, distinction, importance, power.
The existence of this will to be significant is why nations are so
sensitive on points of honor and prestige. Their national significance
is lowered if they allow, let us say, a public insult to go unavenged.
It is a reason why nations cannot back down in a war when it once gets
started, and why they can all be for peace after the war, but not while
it is being waged. National significance, as national significance
now goes, will not permit them to do other than win the war. This
is why states like to regard themselves as “powers,” for it is as a
“power” that a nation finds itself significant in world politics. It
is why countries fight for their “civilization.” The predominance of
their civilization means the fulfillment of their desire for national
significance. It is why the knowledge of the history and literature of
one’s country is likely to produce patriotism; such knowledge creates
both a conviction of the country’s significance and the desire to
realize it further.

The grounds upon which a country asserts its significance is an
important matter. As long as military prowess and possession of much
territory are esteemed to be things of great importance, the nations
will strive to be significant by being distinguished for those things.
If the ideals of mankind can be more largely turned to constructive
activities, the nations will strive to be significant along those
lines. There are patriots whose ideals are of the latter type. They
seek the internal development of their country as a means of making
it more worth while and hence more significant. The significance
that they seek is not merely that which glories in the admiration
and perhaps envy of the world; it is not a significance adjudged by
a jury of mankind, but one that they themselves find in making their
country approximate an ideal. Patriotism is the will to be nationally
significant; another main characteristic of the will to individuality
is what is working in important manifestations of patriotism.

An individual, at least a finite individual, is one of a community.
And its individuality, therefore, rests upon a “broad basis of
likeness.”[154] The conscious individual, for instance, does not
strive to make his individuality consist in absolute difference. He
wants to be different only within certain limits. He does not want
to be “outlandish.” He wants in certain broad ways to be like his
fellows. He would, if it were called to his attention, agree that his
individuality rested in great measure upon membership in his community.

It is impossible for one to avoid seeing the fact that he is one in
a world with others. The human individual is a social animal.[155]
And this fact is formulative of his very individuality. Fite says,
“Not only does ... intercourse with others broaden the range of your
self-consciousness; it also furnishes the basis of contrast through
which you become aware of yourself, and define yourself, and are
enabled to assert yourself as a distinct and unique individual.”[156]
Two points are involved in what Fite says. First, we become
self-conscious in contrast with others; we know ourselves in that way.
Second, our own individuality becomes richer because others exist.
What they have become broadens one’s own vision of the range of human
possibilities by so much the more; and that broader vision enriches
and enlarges one’s own life. One will, then, find his life expanded
by the multiplication of his social relations. “If our argument has
shown anything, it has shown that through the extension of his social
relations, the individual becomes, not less, but more of an individual,
and acquires a greater individual freedom.”[157] The high integration
of society is not necessarily inimical to the development of the
individual. The fact is that as society has been builded into larger
wholes, the individual has also become more and more significant. Royce
says, “... our time shows us that _individualism and collectivism are
tendencies, each of which, as our social order grows, intensifies
the other_.”[158] And Royce draws this conclusion: “No individual
human self can be saved except through the ceasing to be a _mere_
individual.”[159]

The existence of others has important consequences for one’s practical
attitude toward life. When one becomes aware of such existence he
can no longer act as if it were not. “When I have perceived even a
chair standing in my way I can no longer proceed as if it were not
there.”[160] And one’s conduct will usually be more radically changed
when it is human individuals that are in the way. The same knowledge
which shows one himself shows him also other human beings who are just
as real and important as himself, and upon the basis of that knowledge
he can logically and ethically find no good reason for treating them
merely as means for the furtherance of his own interests. He cannot
simply walk over them as if they were not there. But if one is even
wise, he will adopt no such ruthless plan of life. He will realize
that consideration for others is best for himself. He will not only
have less trouble, but he will also find his individuality enriched
by his intercourse with other free beings who have their own meaning.
One cannot be a positive reality unless his neighbors are also. And if
these things are true, it means that the interests of the individuals
of a community may be harmonized. When each one understands his own
true nature, he at the same time realizes that his own good is best
found in harmony with the others of his community. Individualism,
rightly interpreted, attains the results desired by those who place
the emphasis upon collectivism. Howison says: “The very quality of
personality is, that a person is a being who recognizes others as
having a reality as unquestionable as his own, and who thus sees
himself as a member of a moral republic, standing to other persons in
an immutable relationship of reciprocal duties and rights, himself
endowed with dignity, and acknowledging the dignity of all the
rest.”[161] This is an ideal of individuality as it appears in persons.
The enlightened individual is really concerned about finding his proper
place in his world.

Does patriotism recognize that individuality involves membership in a
community? Does the patriot actually wish to realize the individuality
of his country in that way? The answer is that he often does. There
are patriots who have their hearts in the desire that their country
be a good neighbor. This desire is, of course, not always present in
the patriotic state of mind. But neither are the other characteristics
of individuality always invariably present. Some of them are always
present, and together they make up the will to individuality which is
the essence of patriotism. It must be admitted that only too often
does the patriot think of the individuality of his country as realized
apart from or at the expense of others. The more generous notion of
patriotism is still as much a problem as a fact. And yet, in times of
peace at least, the patriot sees the good of countries other than his
own. It is a defensible proposition that even the common man is capable
of and actually does possess such vision. Certainly there are examples
of illustrious patriots in whom it is found. The following has been
penned concerning Professor Royce: “... his ethical idealism is best
understood as an interpretation of the spirit of modern civilization
as it had found expression in his native land. Not that there was
anything of the Chauvinist in Royce. If there were aught of value in
our social and political ideals it was due to the fact that they rested
on principles that cross the boundaries between nations, and might
equally serve as the basis of that community of nations to which he
hopefully looked forward.”[162] But one can also place in evidence
the very words of one of the greatest patriots of all time, Joseph
Mazzini. Mazzini was devoted to the ideal of serving humanity. He wrote
to the laboring people of his country: “Your first duties--first as
regards importance--are, as I have already told you, towards Humanity.
You are _men_ before you are either citizens or fathers.”[163] But he
was also an ardent patriot. He was devoted to Italy, to her freedom,
unity, and significance. And he thought that Italians, like all other
men, could serve humanity effectively only by being in association.
“This means [of effective association],” he says, “was provided for
you by God when he gave you a country; when, as a wise overseer of
labor distributes the various branches of employment according to the
different capacities of the workman, he divided Humanity into distinct
groups or nuclei upon the face of the earth, thus creating the germ
of Nationalities.”[164] The duty of a nation was to be the servant of
humanity, but that was also its glory and its right to be. Patriotism
and internationalism were complementary. “In labouring for our own
country on the right principle, we labour for Humanity. Our country
is the fulcrum of the lever we have to wield for the common good.
If we abandon that fulcrum, we run the risk of rendering ourselves
useless not only to humanity, but to our country itself. Before men can
_associate_ with the nations of which humanity is composed, they must
have a National existence. There is no true association except among
equals. It is only through our country that we can have a recognized
_collective_ existence.”[165] This, then, patriotism quite often
actually is. And once more, in its positive recognition of the country
as truly one of a community, patriotism turns out to be the working of
the will to national individuality. This last phase is an altruistic
form of the will.

The concept of the will to national individuality, derived from the
popular definition of patriotism as the love of country and wrought
out in the light of the data which clusters about that popular idea,
proves to be a seminal principle. If one follows out the various forms
of the will, he comes to the main forms of patriotism. He could, by a
knowledge of the characteristics of the will to individuality, foretell
in general what the manifestations of patriotism would be found to be.



CHAPTER IX

THE NATION AS AN INDIVIDUAL


Patriotism is the will to national individuality. What justification
for its existence is there in the groundwork of fact? Is there really
any individuality for the will to rest itself upon? Is the country an
individual?

There are those who deny that patriotism really has anything objective
to feed upon. It is hard, they say, to find anything that the flag
stands for or to which one addresses his choral chant when he sings,
“My Country! ’tis of thee.” They ask what one’s country can mean to
him. When one speaks of country, is he not thinking of that spot of
earth which he calls home, those activities and institutions which
he has seen working in his own community, or perhaps only the map? A
country as big as the United States, for example, can hardly be said
to be appreciated by the mind of a single man. Most of the country
no one has ever even seen. The “collective mind” is shown to be a
fiction. A people does not form a “person,” but remains only a group
of individuals. And the corollary seems to be that the only ground
on which to posit a nation has been taken away. The state is said
to be unreal and artificial. Peoples may be the product of history;
a state can be made in a day. Ponsonby looks upon a nation as such
a construction: “A nation is not in its composition primarily a
geographical nor a racial, but a political unit.... It must be able
to uphold its independent political sovereignty.”[166] Without the
necessity for a common defense, that is, there would be no nation.
Charles Kingsley remarked in the preface to one of his books that while
there can be loyalty to a king or a queen, there cannot be loyalty to
one’s country.[167] And so it is that a “country” is an abstraction.
For the ordinary patriot at least there really is no such thing. The
country is not an individual, and there is no individuality in it for
the citizen to rest his patriotism upon. Patriotism is thus left up in
the air.

Now one is not driven to the extreme view of the nation as a “person”
in order to answer the criticisms suggested in the foregoing. That
the state is a “person” is a well-known theory. It is held by those
impressed by the philosophy of Hegel. It is reflected everywhere in the
terms they use. They talk constantly of such things as a “collective
mind” and a “general will.” But the state is not personal in the sense
in which human beings are personal. We expect a person to have a body,
a brain, and a nervous system. A state or nation has none such. But a
thing does not have to be a person in order to be an individual. Not
all individuals are personal. All individuals have inner unity. The
nation has such unity, and it is this which the philosophers feel whose
theory has just been described. They are the “unity philosophers.”
And they feel a unity in a state which they seek to describe in terms
of personality. We all feel the unity. For instance, we assume a
continuity as existent in a country. Even a democratic country must
through successive administrations employ the same policy abroad.
Only we do not feel it necessary to describe the unity in terms of
personality. The conception of organization will serve to explain the
unity we find in the nation. What the organization is like is further
to appear.

An indication that a great people forms a unit is the fact that it is a
growth. The ties that bind the nation together are, in a larger sphere,
very much like those that bind together the family and the tribe. The
ties of kinship were likely the first that bound together associations
of men. Perhaps what first appeared was an undifferentiated horde. But
at least the family must have been the first of any close associations
of men. The great majority of students are united on this point.
McDougall says: “Primitive human society was probably a comparatively
small group of near blood relatives.”[168] Green says, “Every form of
right first appeared within societies founded on kinship, these being
naturally the societies within which the constraining conception of a
common well being is first operative.”[169] Sumner’s words reflect his
view: “The kin tie, which had been the primitive mode of association
and coherence in groups, began to break down in the sixth century,
B. C., in Greece. It was superseded by the social tie of a common
religious faith and ritual. The Pythagorean and Orphic sects developed
this tie.”[170] The religious bond succeeded the kin tie in this case.
The well-knit state or _polis_ seems to have come even later. At any
rate, civil units come later than kin units, and grow out of them. The
Eskimos now have no civil organization outside of the family. But it is
only in backward areas that no larger unit than that of the family has
arisen. A process of integration has been working, and it is a process
which has resulted in nations. Spencer speaks on this point, “... In
the earliest stage of civilization, when the repulsive force is strong
and the aggressive force weak, only small communities are possible;
a modification of character causes these tribes, and satrapies,
and _gentes_ and feudal lordships, and clans, to coalesce into
nations.”[171] Friction and growing interests between families would
in some cases draw them together into a tribe; the same process would
draw tribes into a nation. The conception that holds these societies
together is that of a common well-being. But the conception first arose
in a natural group, the family, and was gradually extended through the
tribe and up to the nation. Green points out that while force has been
used in the formation of states, “it has only formed states as it has
operated in and through a pre-existing medium of political, or tribal,
or family rights.”[172] A people is a natural product of natural
forces. It at least is not an artificial creation.

Now a nation is formed when a people is organized under an institution,
a state. What of the state? Is it an artificial creation? It is charged
that states come to be ends in themselves, cut themselves off from the
people, and cause wars over artificial values.

Some philosophers, those who uphold the high sovereignty of the
state, in capital letters, really identify the state with the nation.
If this view be accepted the whole case of the critics of the state
as artificial is, of course, at once disposed of. But the state is
not identical with the nation. A state may embrace several nations.
The British empire is such a super-national state. The state is an
institutional organization. And yet there is good ground upon which to
maintain that the state is not an artificial creation. As a people is
a growth so also is the state. It is true, as is sometimes asserted,
that states can be made in a day and that there can be artificial
states, that is, states not resting upon a homogeneous people, but it
is not true that _the_ state was made in a day. As a people, the raw
material of a nation, grew out of the family and tribe units, so the
state which is the institution of a people, grew out of the political
institutions of the family and the tribe. The first institutions of
men, as for instance that of the family, were probably the result
of natural unreflective coöperation. They resulted almost as do the
effects of a natural law. The actions which gave rise to them were in
a way like the tropisms of primitive organisms. “Genuinely primitive
association must have been blind, without forethought of advantage
to those participating.”[173] Upon these unreflective associations
states grew, also without forethought on the whole, although some
reflection no doubt entered into the process. Spencer says, “Men did
not deliberately establish political arrangements, but grew into them
unconsciously--probably had no conception of an associated condition
until they found themselves in it.”[174] Men did not go about it
deliberately to form a state as represented in the contract theory
of Hobbes, but waked up to find they were in a state which had grown
out of their actions in pursuance of satisfaction for their needs.
The state did not precede man’s political character, but arose out of
it. Men recognized common rights and duties, and the state arose in
their efforts to safeguard and give expression to them. Thus Green
says, “The state, or the sovereign as a characteristic institution of
the state, does not create rights, but gives fuller reality to rights
already existing. It secures and extends the exercise of powers, which
men, influenced in dealing with each other by an idea of common good,
had recognized in each other as capable of direction to that common
good, and had already in a certain measure secured to each other in
consequence of that recognition.”[175]

The maturity of nations has come in the modern period. Likewise
patriotism, in the strong degree in which we know it, is comparatively
modern. The United States, Germany, Italy are modern states. Tribal
loyalty was once the strongest bond. But the tribe settled down to and
came to rule a definite extent of territory. Localized tribes formed
small units of government. The government was not the representative
of the will of the whole people, but expressed the will of the man or
small group of men strong enough to possess the seat of authority.
Gradually government became more representative. In time small states
arose. There were such city-states as Athens. These small states did
not organize all the people of the same race as those under their
jurisdiction. And when they were enlarged by conquest, they were
representative of only a comparatively small group near the seat of
government. All conquests were ruled from the outside and from the
height of superior power. This power became capable of tremendous
extension. The city of Rome became ruler of a large empire. Then ensued
the mediæval period in which the notion of catholicity was dominant,
and in whose political thinking the all-inclusive and sovereign empire
was the ideal. The period of nationalism had not yet come. The empires
of Rome and of Charlemagne were not nations. Their strength depended
not upon the spirit of the whole, but upon the existence of a strong
force at the center. The fact should be noted that the dialectic
toward nationalism has not been in a simple straight line. Sometimes
there have been cases of dissolution on the part of large and strong
integrations of government. But on the whole there is a pretty clear
movement toward larger and larger governmental integrations, and these
integrations have in the main been forced to follow the building up of
peoples. The mediæval empires fell. The papacy became distrusted as a
corrupt and tyrannical foreign power. The bloody chaos of feudalism
became unbearable. The Crusades acquainted men with others who were
like or unlike themselves. The Renaissance heightened the emotions of
men, and prepared the soil for nationalistic passion. Peoples became
welded together, and at the beginning of the modern period nations
emerged which took up into themselves the feudalistic establishments
and city-states which had flourished during the Middle Ages. These
nations met the needs of men, and persisted. They entrenched
themselves, and gathered force. Thus they came to the beginning of
the nineteenth century when the spirit of nationalism was fanned
into a consuming flame by the wars of Napoleon, and when again the
nationalistic passion was ministered to by the romantic movement which
aroused once more the emotional side of human nature. The crowning
height of the process has been reached at the present time when the
Great War has made nationalistic loyalty the ruling passion of mankind.

A state, then, is the outgrowth of the life of a people. The people is
a growth, and the state is an institution which has grown along with
the people. Therefore it would seem as if there were good indications
for calling each of them real.

What makes a nation? The elements of a nation show both objective
reality and inner unity. There are, roughly, three things which
enter into the makeup of a country. The first of these is a people
with a common language, customs, traditions, history, and land with
its associations. Sometimes religion has been an element. In the
case of cultured peoples, literature has also been such. “The dawn
of English nationality coincided with the dawn of a truly English
literature.”[176] We have already seen how such a people grows. It is a
natural group; it is based on instinctive association and the stress of
the struggle for existence. The instincts of patriotism are themselves
instrumental in forming the objective basis of patriotism. They make
for the solidarity of a people. This people doesn’t have to belong to
one race, for it may be made up of a fusion of races. There may be
a diversity of classes and interests within the nation. It does not
have to be absolutely homogeneous, for only a very small group indeed
could be such. Similars do not constitute a nation. A country is a
qualitative individual. A unity can be obtained in diverse elements.
The things that have been named seem to be sufficient to weld together
such a unity, a people. A people is an objective reality, and one of
the bases of a nation.

The second element is an organization, an institution, in other words,
a state. The Poles have a common language, customs, traditions, and
land, but they have no government of their own, and do not form a
nation. A nation comes into being when a state is formed by a people.
The state, if a true one, grows out of the life of the people, and is
to the people what the body is to the soul. The state and the people
form a unity. Moreover, the institution is just as real as the people
and their desires, and with the people forms the objective basis of a
nation.

The third element is that of a common consciousness. This is built upon
and implied in the conditions already named. A people and a state are
both external and internal facts. The raw material of which they are
formed is external and objective. But that raw material does not come
to its full meaning until there is added to it a consciousness in which
it is taken up in unity. There would really be no unified people and
no state, as the expression of united political life, in spite of the
external elements which are necessary to the being of people and state,
unless there existed in the individuals’ minds a common consciousness
or consciousness of community. The very existence of a common language
testifies to the existence of a common consciousness, as do common
customs, traditions, history, literature, and ideals. A land even is
something which a people possesses, and which furnishes a common bond
between the individuals of the group. There was a time when the land
was literally a common possession, in the sense that there was no
private property, but ownership is not the only way in which a people
can have a common interest in the land; there may be many associations
besides that of common ownership connected with it. Esthetic
appreciation is one of them. Affection for the scenes of childhood is
another. Esenwein, in describing the art of Gogol, the Russian author,
uses the following phrases: “Rarely do power and delicacy unite in a
stylist as they do in Gogol. For the one [power], we may find an origin
in his love for the sun-steeped and snow-blown plains of his native
Cossack country....”[177] What gifted writers have felt other more
common folk have felt also.

These things, then, imply a common consciousness. This consciousness is
a recognition and ratification of existing interrelationships, and such
a community of thought and feeling and will is fundamentally important
in the unity of a nation. “No mere interaction will constitute a social
relation. Nor yet an interaction of otherwise self-conscious agents.
Not merely must each agent know himself, he must know the others....
Unless there be on both sides a perfect consciousness of self and of
other, and of the relations of self and other--in a word, perfect
mutual understanding--there will be, so far, no completely social
relation. _A social relation is a self-conscious relation.... In other
words, society is constituted by mutual understanding_.”[178] This
understanding is that which enables the group to act as one. “Through
this mutual knowledge the group, like the individual, is enabled
to assert itself as an independent force.”[179] Mazzini understood
that the unity of a country rested upon a sense of oneness in the
minds of the people: “Country is not a mere zone of territory. The
true country is the Idea to which it gives birth; it is the thought
of love, the sense of communion which unites in one all the sons of
that territory.”[180] Here we get a suggestion regarding the unity
of Switzerland. It is, in large part, a unity in idea. That is not
saying that it has no objective basis. The Swiss have a common land and
other bonds of oneness. But the strongest bond seems to be that of a
conception of common welfare. The unity of Switzerland has, of course,
been stimulated from without. One of the most potent reasons for Swiss
unity is that of necessity for defence. They must be one to preserve
their freedom. But the fact is that whatever the stimulus was, whatever
the difficulties that stood in the way, however diverse the original
materials may have been, the Swiss are now one in the beliefs of the
individual members of the nation, and that feeling of communion is
actually unity in fact.

It is true, then, that in one way the essence of an institution is in
idea. “Perhaps the Identical, in this matter of groups, is neither a
real person nor a nominalist fiction. Let us call it an idea....”[181]
All true unity is really contributed by the mind. The external falls
apart, and becomes a mere congeries and not a unity when not held
together in idea. The external elements form the materials for a unity;
they make up the basis of an institution; they aid in giving rise to a
common consciousness; but it is the common consciousness itself that is
the essence of the unity. In this way the will to individuality as an
inner fact will in turn make for individuality in objective reality.
Only, it should be noted on the other hand, when the unity is based on
external grounds, it is not a mere fiction, and is not left up in the
air.

To have a common consciousness, the individuals of a group do not have
to be acquainted by sense experience with all their land or its people.
Imagination and sympathy are means by which men feel themselves one of
a society and parts of an institution. And if, even after imagination
and sympathy have come to one’s help, a country and its ideals are said
to be abstract and vague, even so, it is such abstract things that
become a cause, and it is such vague ideals that have the greatest
motive power. They possess us. We think with them rather than of them,
and they become a spirit in which we approach all things. It is not
necessary that we should have an exact formula of them in order to make
them real. Realities do not only then come to exist when we have a
clear-cut formula for them, nor do ideas first have being when they are
put into formal expression.

One quest of men has been, consciously or unconsciously, to create
for themselves a unified world. In doing this they have, among other
things, formed themselves into nations. Nations have met their needs,
and helped them to feel at home in their world. Countries are real, and
come close home. With this in mind we can appreciate the feeling of
the traveler abroad who has a sense of the wholeness of his home-land
and longs for it. The following quotation is an illustration of this
feeling at the same time that it catalogues some of the elements that
go into the makeup of a country. “Every time his passport is presented,
every time he enters a new dominion or crosses a new frontier, every
time he is delayed at the custom-house, or questioned by a policeman,
or challenged by a sentinel, every time he is perplexed by a new
language, or puzzled by a new variety of coinage or currency,--he
thanks his God with fresh fervency that through all the length
and breadth of that land, beyond the swelling floods, which he is
privileged and proud to call his own land, there is a common language,
a common currency, a common Constitution, common laws and liberties, a
common inheritance of glory from the past, and, if it be only true to
itself, a common destiny of glory for the future!”[182]

Is there anything to indicate that the organizing principles of a
nation are permanently necessary ones? The ultimate existence and value
of patriotism will be involved in the answer to that question. Is
patriotism called for by the fundamental order of reality?

One of the essential centers of life is a community, a neighborhood,
those who live near enough to one another that the interests of their
lives are closely interwoven by the fact of association in space. This
would seem to be a self-evident proposition. Mazzini hit the truth when
he said that mankind had been placed in groups or nuclei upon the face
of the earth. The community is an irreducible minimum of association
among mankind. It is a permanent association, and the sentiments that
grow out of it will be permanent. There is true reason why one of the
fundamental virtues is that of being a good neighbor. And Veblen was
right in saying, “Even with no patriotism, love of country, and use
and wont as it runs in one’s home area and among one’s own people,
would not pass.”[183] Patriotism seems to be vitally connected with a
permanent sentiment, community spirit.

A community is attached to the soil. It has its basis in a local area.
That is what makes a community. In other words, it is organized upon
the geographical principle. The geographical principle is one of the
permanently necessary principles of human association. Now a nation
is so associated. A country must have a territory, and it is the only
institution of which this can be said. “A nation ... is primarily a
group of men and women related physically.... The state represents not
the common interests of those who are intellectual, or musical, or
religious, but chiefly the common interest of those who live in the
same district.”[184] Patriotism is loyalty to one’s _native land_. At
least one fundamental principle of a country is a permanent one, the
geographical principle. We have here a suggestion as to why the soil
is so important in patriotism. Patriotism is nourished by the soil.
The soil not only is what sustains the vital economic interests of
those who live upon it, but is the basis of the existence of the nation
itself. Without the land, and land is _country_, there would be no
patriotism.

There has arisen of late the contention that it would be better
to do away with the geographical principle of government. Russell
says, “There is no reason why all governmental units should be
geographical.”[185] It is felt that if geographical frontiers were
destroyed the cause of peace would be furthered. “When civil war breaks
out in a country, no real fighting is possible until the contending
factions are organized on separate territory.”[186] It is worse when
trouble with another country arises. “In domestic affairs we live
with and know the men who disagree with us; in foreign affairs the
opposition lives behind a frontier, and probably speaks a different
language.”[187] But it is not clear that we shall gain anything by
heeding these suggestions to obliterate national frontiers. The
substitute planned is that of syndicalistic organizations. But under
such an arrangement frontiers would be infinitely multiplied. Men of
conflicting loyalties and interests would be in touch everywhere. It
would simply be an exchange of one antagonism for another. And class
wars would be no better than nationalistic wars. It would be no better
to have class against class than nation against nation. So what we come
back to is governmental organization upon the geographical principle.
And this means that we come back to some such unit as the nation. And
why not? Environment makes people alike, and to have a homogeneous
people is one of the necessities of a successful government. Moreover,
we must form an attachment somewhere, else live entirely alone. And it
is right to begin where we are.

  “God gave all men all earth to love,
    But since our hearts are small,
  Ordained for each one spot should prove
    Beloved over all.”

We have said that the territorial arrangement is an inescapable
one in government, and that the community is a unit below which we
cannot go. But there cannot help but be interests growing up between
communities. And historically these interests have led to association
of communities. Rivalry and friction arise. War follows. The mediæval
city-states fought with one another. New York and New Jersey are
rivals; the writer recalls one occasion when New Jersey was threatening
suit against New York for befouling the Hudson River. The only
safeguard against internecine warfare between communities is a more
comprehensive power. So a larger unit grows. And these units must be
still further integrated. The process will not stop until it comes to
the nation with its government, the state. How much further it will go
will be disclosed by future events.

Is the state a permanently necessary institution? The principle of
integration embodied in the state is a fundamental one. It is the
principle of coöperation for coöperation. The good of any institution
is that of coöperation for some end. The primary end of the state is
that of coöperation itself. Its purpose is that of enabling men to live
and work together in peace. Loyalty to the national group is loyalty to
the principle of human coöperation. The most valuable thing about the
state is not that it does this or that, but that it gets men working
together. It provides the setting for further cooperation. In its
protection against enemies either within or without the group, it is
acting to keep the coöperation of the members of the group from being
interfered with.

Thus it will be seen that the state is essentially a peace unit. There
are those who deny this. There are two theories of the state. One is
that it is a peace unit. The other is that it is a war unit. It is,
according to this latter view, organized for the waging of war. Because
of this latter view there has been of late a great deal of opposition
to and criticism of the state. It is alleged that all the other things
besides fighting which the state once did have been taken over by other
agencies better fitted to do them, and that really the only thing which
the state now has as its purpose is that of declaring and making war.
The citizens coöperate in the state only when they have a fight on with
another state. But it may be replied that it is hardly fair to charge
all our troubles in war to the state. Wars have been waged where there
was no state in the modern sense; they have been carried on by other
agencies than states; and states have lived together peaceably. Savage
individuals, savage tribes, feudal barons have all fought. Race riots
have given vent to hatred. Representatives of labor and capital have
fought pitched battles. The United States and Canada have lived side
by side without ever having found it necessary to declare war or even
fortify the frontier.

And the state is really a peace unit. It exists primarily for the
purpose of keeping order within the area of its jurisdiction. It
becomes apparent here how some of the beliefs of patriotism are
well-founded. The state is needed as the protector of one’s self.
In the Middle Ages, in the absence of any other agency to provide
protection, there grew up voluntary associations, founded and operated
usually by warriors, and called _regna_, whose business it was to keep
the peace. Here was an attempt to do the work of the state. But the
attempt failed, and there are now no such organizations. One would not
miss the mark far in hazarding the opinion that they failed because
they did not represent a peace unit composed of an integrated people
occupying a given extent of territory. What has been said here would
indicate that what we need to do is so to extend the integration of
society that the whole world will be a peace unit. The whole problem of
keeping peace should be made an internal problem. There should be no
foes without.

The state is the ultimate protector of all the values of life. The
citizen was right when he believed that his earthly salvation depended
upon his state. The state itself does not usually furnish the goods
of life, although it does on occasion furnish them. That is not its
primary business. It does not even guarantee the goods of life. Much,
of course, depends upon the individual himself. But the just state
does ultimately protect the individual in all rightful opportunities
in which he as an individual or in voluntary association with others
cannot protect himself. The civilized life itself at present depends
upon the state. The very word “civilization” is derived from a term
meaning “state.” It is that which is possible where there is a settled
order provided by the state. One can imagine what the state means if
he pictures himself at the fringe of civilization where he would miss
the many values of life which the state makes possible. The state does
its work for the most part noiselessly, but it is just because it is so
efficient that it is so noiseless. We are not conscious of its working,
and therefore assume that it is otiose. But it is with us all the time,
and providing the opportunity for all the values of life. The state
is a kind of second nature which does not guarantee happy living, but
offers the opportunities for such a life.

The state does, however, go beyond its primary purpose. It has not,
as a matter of fact, been restricted purely to acting the part of
policeman or night-watchman. Philosophers have disputed a good deal
about the functions of the state. But when all is said and done it has
been found necessary for the state to engage in some activities which
were not purely those of providing protection, but were designed to
promote positively the general welfare. The state truly, as Aristotle
said, even though it has originated in the bare needs of life, has
continued for the sake of the good life. The state strives to aid
men in a positive way. Some community interests thought to be in
the province of the state are those of education, transportation,
communication, sanitation, taxation, and the maintenance of economic
justice. And this positive character of the state’s functions renders
patriotism all the more strongly entrenched.

As already has been intimated, syndicalistic organizations are being
put forward as rivals of the state. Industry is one of the chief
interests of men, and is especially virulent at the present time.
There are those who would organize society according to occupation.
And when society was completely organized in this way there would be,
so it is thought, no further excuse for the existence of the state.
All the legitimate common concerns of men would be taken care of by
syndicalistic organizations. The economic arguments for or against
syndicalism are of secondary importance in this connection; the point
of interest is that which bears on syndicalism as a principle of
government. Graham Wallas has studied these questions. He points to
the mediæval experience under the guild system. He says that quarrels
between the crafts were rife, as were quarrels between the craftsmen
and the merchants; that the people hated strangers as well as the
police; that the public health was neglected; and that the cities
found it impossible to keep order in their own streets during a trade
dispute.[188] The fact is that the growth of power on the part of Labor
and Capital and the conflicts arising because of that power render the
state more necessary rather than less so.

There is a true sense in which the state embodies the general will.
It is, in the area of its jurisdiction, the representatives not of a
class, but of all the people living in that area. It is the repository
of the collective will of its citizens. Therefore, it is fitted to
keep the peace, and to be for the purpose of keeping peace, the user
of force. The cry has been raised, “Why is the state armed? No other
institution feels it necessary to be equipped with an armament.” But
the truth is that it is just because the state is armed that no other
institution needs to be. One police force is enough. We shall always
need the state to keep other institutions in harmony. And institutions
which exist for other purposes than that of the maintenance of law and
order will have to submit to regulation by the state for the sake of
law and order. It will be the state’s business, among other things, to
maintain a democracy of institutions.

The state, because of the generality of its character, plays an
important role in federating the loyalties of men. Economic interests,
religious interests, and so on, do not exhaust the catalogue of human
activities. Each individual will have touch with other individuals with
whom he would not outside the state be organized in any institution.
One may have a neighbor who is of another trade or church. The state
brings one into a common life with his neighbors. The state’s character
as a power helps it to occupy this role as federator of loyalties. It
is back of all the institutions of life; it sustains them. Consequently
the loyalties given to the other institutions tend to head up in the
state. It is a universal, too, because its unifying principle, that of
space, is so universal. Such a principle is very general, and may be
empty unless enriched by many differentiations within itself; the life
that it unifies may be very meagre without those differentiations, but
generality is akin to universality, and just because the principle is
so general, it may act as a unifier of many in one. A loyalty that
shall be an organizer of all loyalties is needed. For the individual,
even after he is a member of all the voluntary organizations to which
he is eligible, there ought to be that which will unify his whole
life. So likewise there ought to be that which will unify the whole
of mankind. The state and the church seem to be the only institutions
which in ideal are capable of achieving these results. And at the
present time we seem nearer a universal political than religious
unification of mankind. Human nature is a long way from being ready to
warrant putting one’s trust in it as the guarantee of peace and justice
because each human being loves his neighbor as himself. At any rate,
the state will have a fundamental purpose as an integration of mankind
for so long a time to come that it may be said to be permanently
necessary. The character of the state as being the condition of all the
values of civilized life, the embodiment of the general will, and the
federator of human loyalties, throws light upon the phenomenon that
when the state calls the individual every other loyalty must go.

The state seems still to be entitled to its place in the sun. But we
must keep ourselves at the point where we can criticize our political
loyalties. Some states on occasion need reform. The morality of nations
must be criticized. States have grown in response to the needs of human
beings. They must be kept subservient to those needs. The state is not
divine. There is no divine right of kings, and there is no divine right
of states, except as these institutions meet the real needs of real
human beings. The state has justified its existence, but that doesn’t
mean that the existence of any particular kind of state is justified.

In other words, patriotism seems to be necessitated by the fundamental
order of reality. Its existence is justified. Patriotism is essentially
a fundamental human good. But that fact doesn’t justify all that is
found in patriotism. Consequently, the problem is not only to evaluate
patriotism as an essential ideal, but also to criticize the faults and
virtues of its different forms. Something of that criticism will be the
effort of the concluding chapter.



CHAPTER X

THE ETHICAL VALUE OF PATRIOTISM IN THE CONCRETE


Patriotism serves a necessary purpose, and is therefore a fundamental
human good. In some form it is existentially necessary. The problem of
patriotism now becomes, then, “What is its form to be?” For patriotism
as it actually appears in persons and nations is not all good. It may
be, as an individual possession, morally colorless. There are barnacles
attached to the ship of state. Zimmermann made a keen remark when he
said, “The love of one’s country, however extolled, is, in many cases,
no more than the love of an ass for its stall.”[189] It may be either
noble or narrow. There is a higher and lower patriotism. It depends
on how it expresses itself. Before the ethical value of nationalistic
loyalty can be fully determined it must be looked at in its concrete
forms. The varying motives and effects of patriotism must be considered.

Why is patriotism noble? The reason why it has been popularly extolled
is that it is a form of unselfishness. There is hardly another cause
in the world today that calls forth such heroic self-sacrifice as the
cause of one’s country. Royce included the state among the causes
that have organized men in unselfish devotion. He said, “... we have
certain human activities that do now already tend to the impersonal
organization of the life of those engaged in them. Such activities
are found in the work of art, in the pursuit of truth, and in genuine
public spirit. Beauty, Knowledge, _and the State_, are three ideal
objects that _do actually claim from those who serve them harmony,
freedom from selfishness, and a wholly impersonal devotion_.”[190] And
unselfishness is one of the fundamental human virtues. It makes the
individual himself a better man, and is most certainly needed in the
structure of society.

Patriotism has the tendency to make men idealists. It is hard enough to
get men’s thoughts off of purely material things, and whatever can draw
their devotion to an ideal cause is, so far, worth while.

Patriotism has made for coöperation among men. The primary purpose
of the state is that of coöperation, that is, of making it possible
for men successfully to _live together_. That, on the face of it,
is a noble purpose. And the state has actually secured a larger
range of coöperation than what had been attained before it. It has
secured a wider range of peace. It is a larger peace unit. Hence,
the state as an integration of men is a gain, and is not, if it is
avoidable, to be destroyed. It would not, for instance, be a gain
to condemn even Germany to destruction as long as any other mode of
treatment is possible. Of course this argument assumes that the state
is indispensable as an institution for the integration of mankind.
But it really is indispensable. An irreducible unit of society is
a community--those living in close contact in some given limited
territory. Hence, the territorial principle is an inescapable one in
the organization of society. And, if so, communities will, by their
conflicts, if by nothing else, be organized into states. That is what
has happened. No organization of society on any other plan is likely to
find it possible to dispense with the state. And now, if the state is
so necessary and valuable in the organization of society, patriotism as
a force that preserves the state and its benefits is of value to men.

But the relations of patriotism to war and internationalism are now
its most crucial problems. It is often argued that while patriotism
has done and does what is claimed for it, it has in large measure
outlived its usefulness, and is a prolific source of the world’s
greatest troubles at the present time in that it makes for jealousy,
conflict, and war. Patriotism is said to be divisive, when thought of
in world terms. Hasn’t it, therefore, outlived its usefulness, and
isn’t it time to entrust the keeping of the coöperation of men to a
still larger institution that shall be worldwide, and thus avoid the
conflicts of the present? The feeling that prompts this argument is
embodied in the following words: “... a striking factor in today’s
thinking is the perception of the immoral consequences of patriotism.
We see that while devotion to country entails the final sacrifice of
self, it entails also the most inhumane sacrifice of others. We have
not yet been able to think the matter out. Distraught, we reverence the
men who are dying for their separate flags and strain our eyes beyond
the battlefields for the oriflamme of internationalism.”[191] It is
evident that when countries go to war, all cannot be right, and that
fact puts the patriots of some country in a false position. One cannot
take simply the attitude of uncritical patriotism. The good man and
the good patriot are not necessarily one and the same. If the contrary
were true, then neither we nor the Germans would have any moral grounds
upon which to be indignant at one another. Not all causes become just
simply for the reason that one’s country chooses to defend them.
Aristotle called attention to the fact of varying governments in the
world, and drew the following conclusion: “If, then, there are many
forms of government, it is evident that the virtue of the good citizen
cannot be the one perfect virtue. But we say that a good man is he who
has perfect virtue. Hence, it is evident that the good citizen need
not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man.”[192] A
larger view than that of uncritical patriotism is therefore needed, and
the critic says that such is just what the patriot cannot be expected
to attain. The critic makes the charge that the coöperation that has
been gained in patriotism is an obstruction in the way of attaining a
larger coöperation. Patriotism, in other words, is not a proper force
for saving the world. For one thing, it contents a man with his own
country; the patriot doesn’t strive for any higher organization of men,
and so the spirit of progress is deadened. Moreover, so the critic
sometimes says, patriotism is simply a coöperation for conflict. It is
setting men at each other’s throats.

It will have to be admitted first of all that patriotism may be the
kind of force that its critic describes it to be. And if it were
irrevocably and wholly committed to be such a spirit, one would have
to pass an unfavorable verdict upon it. Whatever its benefits might
otherwise be, the world would not tolerate it, if that meant to be
forever confronted with the possibility of another conflict such as the
present one. It may, however, be pleaded that the present internecine
conflict of patriots is not a permanent condition of mankind. It is
a stage through which the race is having to pass in its development
towards world-wide organization. And it is not altogether strange that
in the process, patriotism should be a temporary difficulty, just as
family, clan, and provincial pride once were. The factors making for a
world integration have not yet fully found themselves, and of course,
are not adequate for the job of overcoming the prejudices of patriots.
Moreover, it is natural for any stage of progress gained to be a bar
to further progress. Each stage has to be sharply and definitely
conceived in order to be reached, but that in turn makes it a bar to
further development. The vision of the next step simply doesn’t come
easily to men’s minds. Moreover, it is easy for them to take achieved
results as final. Those results have to be taken seriously, if they are
to yield their full value. And besides, a stage of progress doesn’t
know itself simply as a link in a single logical line of development;
it has many individual interests of its own,--interests which may
give it a tendency to fly out of what has been the line of progress.
Other things, too, get mixed up with it that tend to pull it out of
its straight and narrow path. Patriotism has been mixed up with
and betrayed by junkeristic, dynastic, and profiteering interests.
Patriotism itself surely should not have to bear the full blame for
the faults of those evil companions, although patriotism, it must be
admitted, has been in bad company. In the light of all the facts, it
seems most accurate to say that patriotism taken as a whole does offer
difficulties in the way of welding men into larger peace units. But
after all they are only difficulties, and not impassable barriers. They
are practical rather than theoretical, not rational and necessary. They
offer no grounds for a final condemnation of patriotism.

It does not seem to be fair, at any rate, to say that patriotism is
a disintegrating factor in world affairs. There is no larger unit of
cooperation that it is breaking up. And patriotism can claim for itself
that it has come in as a force making for larger groupings of men. If
patriotism were at one sudden blow stricken out of the world, we should
be set backward rather than forward in the process of winning the
conditions of world peace.

Patriotism cannot be set down as an ultimate enemy of peace on earth
and good will among men because it sometimes supports a war. The
purpose of a state is not primarily that of waging war, but that of
enabling men to live together in peace. And correspondingly patriotism
is not exclusively or mainly a war-waging virtue. In fact, it more
commonly expresses itself as a peaceful and constructive public spirit.
Patriotism, as matters now stand, is not likely to cause the opening
of hostilities, although it will support a war which has already been
started. And it is, even in war, usually a defensive rather than an
offensive attitude. This is virtually proved by the fact that all the
belligerent countries have to make their peoples believe that they are
fighting a defensive war. That is the way in which the martial spirit
of patriots has to be appealed to. And it is a significant thing that
such is the case. It indicates that the destruction of patriotism
is not necessary to the attainment of world peace, but that the end
may be secured simply through the decay of the bellicose spirit. As
a matter of fact, the conscience of the world has already undergone
great changes with regard to war. It is probable that the earliest
savage state was that of almost incessant warfare. And in those days,
it wasn’t necessary to find any pretext for opening hostilities. The
sufficient reason for an attack was that the other group had something
that the party of the first part wanted. The earliest stage of savage
and even civilized life, therefore, was one in which wars could quite
uniformly be frankly wars of aggression. The stage in which the present
generation seems to be living is that of “wars of defense.” There are
some signs that the next era will be that of peace. The whole world
is getting tired of war, and longing for internationalism. And, what
is new, these feelings are springing up all over the world _at the
same time_. Perhaps we are already in the transitional period. At any
rate, it does not seem to be quite accurate to charge that patriotism
is the first cause of wars in these days. It is safe to say that the
populations of the world wanted peace in 1914. Something else is the
first cause of wars. A dispute arises between two governments, and
patriotism, to be sure, adds fuel to the flames. But patriotism in
itself is for the most part peaceful until it is fanned into fury.

But even if patriotism does go to war, it is not simply for that to
be condemned without further ado. The resistance that a nation offers
is often really a service to the cause of integration in the world.
_For world coöperation cannot be based upon world conquest._ That is
not the way to a broader unity. And whoever opposes such conquest is
the friend of true unity. There can be such a thing as an integration
on a thoroughly bad principle. A robber band or a conscienceless
monopolistic “trust” would be examples of just such an organization.
And there also may be a thoroughly _unholy alliance_ in the political
realm. It is just that which the spirit of patriotism is at the
present time preventing. World domination and world brotherhood are
incompatible, and that proposition right now just as truly has a
practical application, although in a different way, for those who
live west of the Rhine as for those who live on the other side. If it
is wrong for Germany to build up a world-empire on the principle of
domination, it is wrong for us to let her do it. Integration implies
a unity of differences. There can, then, be no true integration
where significant differences are ignored. And there will be no just
organization of all the peoples of the world where the individuality
of some of the parts is disregarded. Within the nation, we demand that
the individuality of each unit be respected. The pacifist makes that
demand for himself. And it is just as much right that the individuality
of each nation should be respected in the community of which it is a
part. The nation occupies the same position with regard to the world
that the individual occupies with regard to the country. Similar rights
and similar duties may be claimed for both. It is fair that the
same organizing principle should be applied on both the national and
international levels, namely, unity in difference.

In other words, the same principles of justice and liberty that must
guide within the nation must also be normative of the relations between
states. The integration of a nation is one of will, and, moreover, one
of _good will_. The same thing can be said of a world organization.
_The permanent integration of the world will have to be upon the basis
of good will._ And that cannot have been accomplished where a great
many apparently within the fold are not in it at heart. Peace wouldn’t
necessarily mean good will or true integration. If, for instance, we
voluntarily surrendered to Germany, as the pacifists sometimes urge,
and showed good will on our part, that wouldn’t necessarily call forth
the same spirit on the part of Germany. Their spirit might simply be
that of exaggerated egoism. But on the other hand, will it make for
good will to go on fighting Germany? In the long run, it seems to be
the way that is necessary to follow in order to bring her to a frame of
mind where she can be coöperated with.

It is therefore not completely out of harmony with the cause of world
coöperation that a state should sometimes go to war. And the nation
itself has rights and duties. It would not be any more morally good
for a country to consent to its extinction or the serious crippling
of its individuality than it would be for the human individual to
commit suicide or incapacitate himself. The state fights for its
individuality, and individuality is a thing worth fighting for. It is
right that each individual nation should have the privilege of living a
life of its own, that is, as long as it does not forfeit its privilege
by ignoring the rights of others.

The recognition of the tendencies and power of patriotism shut one
up to the conclusion that a world organization will have to be
established along the lines of internationalism rather than those
of cosmopolitanism. Each group has its own consciousness which will
have to be taken into account. Wallas says that, “In England the
‘particularism’ of trades and professions and the racial feeling of
Wales and Ulster, of Scotland or Catholic Ireland, seem to be growing
stronger and not weaker.”[193] It will be the same with patriotism
in a world organization. The successful line of development in world
organization seems to be one in which the preceding stages are not
wiped out, but are preserved and made the basis of a new integration.
Therefore, it seems as if the next larger grouping or groupings of men
will have to be joined onto nationalism. Sumner stated a truth when he
said, “... changes which run with the mores are easily brought about,
but ... changes which are opposed to the mores require long and patient
effort, if they are possible at all.”[194] If a reform is to be made in
the direction of a world integration, it will, if it wishes to succeed,
have to be joined onto patriotism.

But there are reasons why it is better that we should develop into
internationalism rather than cosmopolitanism. The latter contains
fundamental dangers. It makes too much for detachment, aloofness, and
selfishness. The Stoics were an example of how cosmopolitanism passed
into those things. The eighteenth century was an “age of Reason” which
tended towards cosmopolitanism, and it was a cosmopolitanism which
though enlightened was chill and abstract. Cosmopolitanism tends to
reduce all life to a mediocre type. This danger is well pointed out in
the following words: “I believe largely in the comparative permanence
of what we call racial characteristics; I sincerely hope they will not
be merged into a common humanity.... Nearly every group of peoples has
developed its own mentality, its own psychology, ideas and ideals. We
need to preserve the difference between those ideas and ideals. If you
merge them, you get a common--a very common--humanity. All progress
takes place in the reaction between extremes. All philosophy has arisen
from a mixture of races which brought to one another different ideas
and ideals.”[195] The condition of progress is the preservation of
national characteristics. But, what is even more important, there are
in cosmopolitanism grave moral dangers involved. G. F. Barbour says:
“The great meeting-places where the currents of Oriental and Occidental
life have come together have indeed produced a vivid and brilliant type
of life, but hardly one that has been morally stable and sound.”[196]
Each side finds it easy to adopt the vices of the other, but not the
virtues, and both sides are liable to become superficial. The brilliant
but shallow and immoral life of Corinth in the days of Paul offers an
example.

The problem at the present time is to federate groups. Individuals have
already become unified. But what sets the problem gives rise also to a
hope. The existence of groups will prove an aid in the accomplishment
of world unification. And the wise humanitarian will work through the
groups that already exist, that is, countries.

World cosmopolitanism would, at least at present, leave the individual
cold; he could not comprehend it, and could not be intelligently loyal
to it. Hence, in order to get effective sympathy and action among
men, there must exist a group of the size and meaning that is able to
appeal to the individual. There must be aroused something like what
Royce called “provincialism.” Provincialism might be interpreted in
one way as loyalty to that integration of men whose individuality
expressed the individuality of oneself. And from it will be derived
dynamic for humanitarianism. Royce said that, “... philanthropy that
is not founded upon a personal loyalty of the individual to his own
family and to his own personal duties is notoriously a worthless
abstraction.”[197] And the application was that “the province will not
serve the nation best by forgetting itself, but by loyally emphasizing
its own duty to the nation and therefore its right to attain and to
cultivate its own unique wisdom.”[198] Therefore Royce said that,
“Every one ... ought, ideally speaking, to be provincial,--and that no
matter how cultivated, or humanitarian, or universal in purpose or in
experience he may be or may become.”[199] Provincialism did not mean
exclusiveness or jealousy. To Royce, “... our province, like our own
individuality, ought to be to all of us rather an ideal than a mere
boast.... The better aspect of our provincial consciousness is always
its longing for the improvement of the community.”[200] But the point
is that the spirit of provincialism is a useful force in securing
the attachment of men. And the clue that one finds in it is that the
best way to get a world integration is to do it by the federation of
nationalities. The organization of patriotic loyalties would secure
an integration that would hang together. Under such an arrangement,
the patriot would contribute strength to internationalism by his very
attachment and loyalty to his own nation. Nationalism would thus become
a spur to a wider humanitarian impulse. And patriotism can, if properly
educated, be counted upon to support international government. The
patriot himself will develop an insistent demand for internationalism
when he once clearly sees, what is true, that the individuality of his
own nation is best realized in a community of nations where legitimate
national differences are synthesized in justice.

This program of the unification of nationalities is to be taken
seriously. Emphasis must be laid not only on nationality but also upon
unification. The patriot must really recognize that he has another
loyalty than that to country, namely, that to internationalism. It
is plain that improvements can be made upon the present world order,
and the most important thing to do is to work towards some kind of
arrangement whereby national disputes can be settled according to
international law, and the peace can be kept at the same time that
justice is done. As a matter of fact, most thoughtful individuals do
long for some kind of internationalism at the same time that they are
patriotic. In a situation like the present many are torn by a conflict
between loyalty to humanitarianism on the one hand and patriotism on
the other. And it is a situation with which the individual cannot deal
satisfactorily alone. There must be an end put to the system which
makes such conflicts possible. But one must remember also that the
nation is just about as helpless as the individual. The nation, too, is
faced with a conflict of loyalties which it cannot by itself solve. The
rescue must come out of a concerted action of nations. The situation
must be dealt with in the very beginning by an international act. It is
not to be expected that any one country can deal adequately with the
present world problems. The disarmament or non-resistance of any one
nation will not be a solution, and it seems unreasonable for any one
to counsel his own country to take any such action. However, we must
relate our patriotism to internationalism. “We must keep patriotism,
and yet go beyond it, if we are to save what is best in patriotism
itself, just as for the sake of religion, religious men had to go
beyond their own willingness to die for their own faith. Toleration
demanded not irreligion, but a better religion, and we might have a
better patriotism if we could remember that we are also citizens of the
world.”[201] The nations must be in some respects like the planets in
the system of the universe. The planets have each a free swing in their
own orbits, but they do not collide. Each helps to hold all the rest
in place, and together they all form one system. We all have, at the
present time, in addition to the duty of winning the war, the further
obligation of working for permanent conditions of peace. We may fairly
claim that we have inherited this war and are not really responsible
for it, but if we do not discharge our international duties both now
and when the conditions of peace are being planned at the end of this
present conflict, _we shall be responsible for the next war_.

It is a reassuring fact to the internationalist at the same time
that it is a justification for the continued existence of patriotism
that there actually have been and are tendencies making not only for
closer relations between nations, but also for the moralizing of those
relations.[202] In material things countries have been drawn closer
and closer together. They are not economic wholes. They are debtors
and creditors of one another. They do not keep improved methods of
industry in the country where they originated; even improved methods
of war have not been so restricted. And they are interdependent in
non-material things. Physicians and surgeons do not hide their ideas
within their own group. And art and science, of course, have long
been ties that have bound together associations of the citizens of
diverse countries. There is, in short, a wide unofficial intercourse
between the citizens of different countries, a fact which leads Burns
to exclaim, “Nor will even diplomatic subtleties be able to keep us
back: for trust between the citizens of diverse states is trust between
the states, and the official governments will soon have to submit to
the new situation.”[203] But states as such consider themselves to be
in moral relations with one another. What else can it mean that they
have foreign secretaries, and employ an extensive diplomatic service
which does a continuous business; that they have been increasingly
taking common action for the control of disease or the management of
postal and telegraphic communication; that they have been more and more
concluding such peace treaties as exist, for instance, between England
and the United States?[204]

The present war even is proving that the nations of the world are
closely interrelated. The struggle is world-wide, and it could not
have assumed such tremendous proportions were not every part of the
world in close touch with all the rest. And it is significant that
the contestants are alliances. Lippman well remarks: “The process of
fusion has gone so far that war itself has ceased to be a national
enterprise.”[205] The existence of alliance is portentous of the
relations of the future. It will do something towards creating a
feeling of sympathy between the citizens of the allied countries,
and it will show that the nations can work together. And if they can
coöperate in war, it ought to be fairly easy for them to draw the
conclusion that they can act together in peace. Moreover, if the Allies
win the present war, the peace that will result will be representative
of the interests of a large group of very different peoples. It is
encouraging, too, in the attitude of at least one nation that President
Wilson, at the very time when he went to war, declared for a league
of nations. We should do well to remind ourselves that one form of
patriotism finds its satisfaction in its country as a good neighbor and
a servant of humanity.

The observation of moral relations as expressed in the “rules of
war” has received a jolt in this present conflict. But that doesn’t
necessarily mean that the morality of nations is smashed. The
essential moral temper of the world is shown by the horror that
has been manifested at the atrocities that have been committed.
And, moreover, every belligerent nation has been eager to justify
itself before the world. That in itself is an indication that a world
sentiment has been formed on the conduct of nations in the declaring
and waging of war. A century ago militarists did not need to bother
themselves much about the world’s opinion. The moral relationships of
states in war is further illustrated by the fact that we even hear what
is officially announced in the war bulletins of our enemies, and that
we send word to them upon questions in which they still have a common
interest with ourselves.[206] In view of all these facts it may well be
asked what forces are doing any better in the direction of a broader
integration of mankind than the several countries and the patriotic
citizens of those countries.

The fact of the business is that patriotism is a stage in the growth
of loyalty. States and nations are steps in the process of world
integration. After families, tribes, city-states, and all the rest,
have come nations. Nations must have the loyalty of mankind because
they are the largest peace units so far attained, and because they
will be the foundations of larger peace units. The next step in the
organization of the race seems to be that of internationalism. And the
logic of history seems to indicate that international government will
come. The tendency of societal organization has been toward larger and
larger wholes. “The tendency to the enlargement of the social unit has
been going on with certain temporary relapses throughout human history.
Though repeatedly checked by the instability of the larger units, it
has always resumed its activity, so that it should probably be regarded
as a fundamental biological drift the existence of which is a factor
which must always be taken into account in dealing with the structure
of human society.”[207] The process of enlargement is still carrying
on. States and nations have actually grown very close together, and are
increasingly establishing official relations between themselves. And
the temper of the patriotic spirit has become such that on the whole
it will not only welcome but further international government. In this
character patriotism shows itself to be a force making not only for
the salvation of the one country but of mankind. This is at once its
justification and an indication of what there is in it that the morally
good man ought to approve and support. If the fundamental justification
of patriotism is that it strengthens the principle of coöperation
among men and makes for peace, then its continued vindication will
be in its further support and extension of the primary principle for
which it stands. There is good reason why its relations to war and
internationalism are crucial problems of patriotism. The fundamental
good of the nation is that it is a peace unit, and if patriotism comes
to the place where it stands for war more than for peace, and is in
the way of larger groupings of men, it will have defeated itself. The
higher patriotism is that which looks toward internationalism.

The practical ethical problem in patriotism is that of separating the
good from the evil, and of preserving the former while allowing the
latter to fall into disuse. It is fairly certain that nationalism and
patriotism could not be destroyed even if one thought that such was the
best thing to do. Some form of an organization of men based upon the
geographical principle is with us to stay in at least the predictable
future. And countries will not consent to extinction. _Patriotism is
the will to national individuality_, and patriots will insist upon that
individuality. In view of these facts, it seems that our salvation does
not lie in breaking up the units that already exist, but in securing
a larger measure of coöperation between them. And it is all the more
sure that we should proceed in that way for the reason that patriotism
secures things of great value in the world. If we destroyed it, we
should lose the good along with the evil. This can be illustrated.
Patriotism in one way is national pride. And pride often causes
trouble. But on the other hand, it often causes good. It may be said
of national pride along with Zimmerman: “Virtues and vices are often
put in motion by the same spring. It is the philosopher’s part to make
known these springs, and the legislator to profit by them. Pride is
the gem of so many talents and apparent virtues, that to destroy it is
wrong, it should only be turned to good.

 “_Were men not proud what merit should we miss!_”[208]

If patriotism were destroyed, it is likely that we should be forced to
recreate it.

The literature on the subject of the details of reconstruction after
the war proposes two main lines of approach. Some writers place the
greatest stress upon the readjustment of the arrangements of national
and international government. For instance, this school emphasizes the
need for the international control of backward countries and the main
highways upon the seas. Lippmann says, “... the supreme task of world
politics is not the prevention of war, but a satisfactory organization
of mankind. Peace will follow that.”[209] The idea seems to be that
if the causes of friction are effectively removed, trouble will not
arise. Another school of writers places its reliance upon broadening
the vision of men. Powers represents this method of approach. He
says, “The chief remedy--perhaps we may say the only remedy--for ills
that flesh is heir to, is to be found in the increased intelligence
and forbearance of men.”[210] These methods will have to be used
in conjunction with each other. It is not safe in the near future
to trust entirely to human nature as long as irritating causes of
friction remain, and by removing the causes of friction we may allow
the belligerent type of patriotism to fall into disuse. But neither
will any merely external arrangements provide security so long as human
nature finds its glory in a chauvinistic patriotism. Patriotism is the
_will_ to national individuality. It is a major task of mankind to see
that that will is intellectualized and ethicized.



NOTES


PART I

[1] There is a widespread recognition among psychologists and
students of character that the study of conduct should begin with
these unreasoned impulses. For examples of such a recognition see the
following: Jas. R. Angell, _Chapters from Modern Psychology_, pp. 24,
25; Wm. McDougall, _An Introduction to Social Psychology_, pp. 2,
3, 43; Gilbert Murray, Herd Instinct and the War, a lecture in _The
International Conflict_ by Murray and others, p. 23; Wilfred Trotter,
_The Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War_, p. 15; Graham Wallas,
_The Great Society_, p. 41; E. B. Holt, _The Freudian Wish_, p. 132;
Walter Lippmann, _The Stakes of Diplomacy_, p. 50; A. F. Shand, _The
Foundations of Character_, Introduction, pp. 1-9.

[2] Cf. Francis Galton: _Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its
Development_, p. 72.

[3] Wm. James: _The Principles of Psychology_, Vol. II, p. 430. Quoted
by Wm. McDougall: _Social Psychology_, pp. 85, 86.

[4] Wilfred Trotter: _The Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War_.
Other writers have emphasized gregariousness, but Trotter’s book is the
most elaborate and important in recent literature. Aristotle declared
that man was a social animal. See _Politics_, Book I, Chap. I. Cf. also
McDougall: _Social Psychology_, p. 84.

[5] W. G. Sumner: _Folkways_, p. 15.

[6] Martin Conway: _The Crowd in Peace and War_, p. 76.

[7] Gilbert Murray: _Herd Instinct and the War_, p. 34.

[8] _Ibid._, p. 37.

[9] Conway: _The Crowd_, p. 79.

[10] Bertrand Russell: _Why Men Fight_, p. 51.

[11] We have been following here an article by Anne C. E. Allinson
entitled “Virgil and the New Patriotism” in the _Yale Review_, October,
1917.

[12] Prof. Max F. Meyer, of the University of Missouri, in a letter in
the _New York Times_ of August 16, 1917.

[13] McDougall: _Social Psychology_, p. 208. Footnote.

[14] The terms _out-group_ and _in-group_ are borrowed from Sumner. See
W. G. Sumner: _Folkways_.

[15] Alfred Loisy: _The War and Religion_.

[16] _Ibid._, p. 65.

[17] _Ibid._, p. 62.

[18] _Ibid._, p. 20.

[19] _Ibid._, p. 79.

[20] J. M. Robertson: _Patriotism and Empire_.

[21] _Ibid._, p. 36.

[22] Wm. McDougall: _Social Psychology_, p. 55.

[23] Walter Lippmann: _The Stakes of Diplomacy_, p. 208.

[24] J. M. Robertson: _Patriotism and Empire_, p. 138.

[25] Goethe: _Faust_, Part II, Act 2. The translation here used is
quoted by F. M. Stawell: Patriotism and Humanity. _I. J. E._, April,
1915, p. 299.

[26] McDougall: _Social Psychology_, p. 140.

[27] For a book that emphasizes the emulative impulse in its account of
the behavior of nations see Thorstein Veblen: _The Nature of Peace_.
Cf. pp. 31 ff.

[28] William James has contended that the center of the problem of
peace and war is that there is an impulse of pugnacity. Cf. The Moral
Equivalent of War and Remarks at the Peace Banquet in _Memories and
Studies_.


PART II

[29] Graham Wallas: _The Great Society_, p. 50.

[30] _Ibid._, p. 50.

[31] Lessing: _Nathan the Wise_, Act IV, Scene IV. The translation used
here is that of the edition of Geo. Alex. Kohut. New York, 1917.

[32] W. G. Sumner: _Folkways_, p. 23.

[33] For data concerning such societies in America see Sydney Aaron
Phillips: _Patriotic Societies of the United States_. No less than
forty-four are listed.

[34] J. M. Robertson: _Patriotism and Empire_. Part II. The Militarist
Regimen.

[35] Hegel: _The Philosophy of Right_, Dyde’s edition.

[36] _Ibid._, p. 310.

[37] _Ibid._, pp. 313, 314.

[38] Edward Everett Hale: _The Man Without a Country_.

[39] J. M. Robertson: The Jingoism of Poets. See his _Criticisms_, Vol.
II.

[40] Graham Wallas: _The Great Society_, p. 153.

[41] Sumner: _Folkways_, pp. 630, 631.

[42] The Teaching of Patriotism. In _Social and International Ideals_.
Lect. I.

[43] _The Citizen_ of Milford, Conn.

[44] Cf. Harry Pratt Judson: _The Young American_; Ella Lyman Cabot and
Others: _A Course in Citizenship_; Constance D’Arcy Mackay: _Patriotic
Plays_ and _Pageants for Young People_.

[45] Russell: _Why Men Fight_, pp. 160, 161.

[46] W. G. Sumner: _Folkways_, pp. 635, 636.

[47] _Ibid._, p. 177.

[48] Trotter: _Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War_, p. 205.

[49] Russell: _Why Men Fight_, p. 154.

[50] McDougall: _Social Psychology_, p. 97.

[51] Cooley: _Human Nature and the Social Order_, p. 265.

[52] Graham Wallas: _The Great Society_, pp. 281, 282.

[53] M. Gabriel Tarde has made more of this disposition than any other
writer. See Tarde: _The Laws of Imitation_. His definition of imitation
is on p. XIV, in preface to the second edition.

[54] Sumner: _Folkways_, p. 5. Italics mine.

[55] C. D. Burns: _The Morality of Nations_, p. 106.

[56] Lippmann: _The Stakes of Diplomacy_, p. 51.

[57] Sumner: _Folkways_, p. 30.

[58] _Ibid._, pp. 77, 173, 174.

[59] _Ibid._, p. 71.

[60] Cf. C. D. Burns: _The Morality of Nations_, pp. 14, 15.

[61] Lessing: _Nathan the Wise_, Act III, Sc. VII. Kohut’s edition.

[62] Cooley: _Human Nature and the Social Order_, p. 36. Quoted by
Ross: _Social Psychology_, p. 4.

[63] Ross: _Social Psychology_, p. 273.

[64] Russell: _Why Men Fight_, p. 236. The fact that patriotism has
been relatively uncriticized is not its only source of strength; it is
an important one.

[65] Sumner: _Folkways_, p. 95. Italics mine.


PART III

[66] The beliefs, however, are often closely related to the impulses
and habits, and may simply be the latter raised to the level of
consciousness. In fact, when an impulse or a habit gets raised to the
conscious level, it becomes a belief.

[67] Graham Wallas: _The Great Society_, p. 36.

[68] Alfred Tennyson. Poem has no title. Stanza given is the opening
one. See _The Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson_, London and New York,
MacMillan Co., 1892, p. 64.

[69] Herbert Spencer: _Social Statics_, p. 283.

[70] Daniel Webster: Reply to Hayne. Jan. 26, 1830.

[71] Green: Works. Vol. II. _The Principles of Political Obligation_,
p. 384. Italics mine.

[72] Cf. Thomas Hobbes: _Leviathan_.

[73] J. S. Mill. In letter to John Sterling, Oct. 20-22, 1831. Elliott:
_Letters_, Vol. I, p. 15.

[74] Josiah Quincy, Jr.: Second Centennial of Boston. Sept. 17, 1830.

[75] L. T. Chamberlin: _Patriotism and The Moral Law_, p. 10.

[76] J. S. Mill: _Principles of Political Economy_, Vol. II, p. 397.

[77] Cf. Aristotle: _Politics_, Bk. I, Chap. 1, p. 3. Jowett’s edition.

[78] Cf. Plato: _The Republic_.

[79] Edward Everett Hale: _The Man Without a Country_. Preface, pp. IV,
V. School edition; Boston; Little, Brown, and Co.; 1905.

[80] The term “syndicalism” as here used means roughly the principle
that societal control should be in the hands of organizations based
upon the fact of common occupation. Cf. G. D. H. Cole: _The World of
Labour_.

[81] Plato: _Crito_, pp. 371 ff. Jowett’s edition.

[82] Bernard Bosanquet: _Social and International Ideals_, p. 8.

[83] Bertrand Russell: _Why Men Fight_, p. 55.

[84] Herbert Spencer: _Social Statics_, pp. 296, 297.

[85] Loisy: _The War and Religion_, pp. 36, 37.

[86] Zimmermann: _On National Pride_, p. 94.

[87] Patrick Henry: Speech in Virginia Legislature, 1775.

[88] Abraham Lincoln: Gettysburg Address. Nov. 19, 1863.

[89] Bacon: _De Augmentis Scientarum_, B. VI, Ch. III. (Spedding and
Ellis). Quoted by Alexander F. Shand: _The Foundations of Character_,
p. 7.

[90] Walter Lippmann: _The Stakes of Diplomacy_, pp. 74, 75.

[91] Samuel Adams: Protest of Boston Against Taxation. May 24, 1764.

[92] John Dewey: Progress, _I. J. E._, April, 1916, p. 321.

[93] Cf. Veblen: _The Nature of Peace_, pp. 166, 167.

[94] Chamberlain: _Patriotism and The Moral Law_, p. 6.

[95] L. P. Jacks: _The Changing Mind of a Nation at War_, pp. 78, 79.
Jacks is talking of war-time conditions.

[96] George Washington: Letter to the Governors. June 18, 1783. Italics
mine.

[97] McDougall: _Social Psychology_, p. 207.

[98] C. D. Burns: _The Morality of Nations_, p. 11.

[99] Bosanquet: _Social and International Ideals_, p. 3.

[100] Royce: _The Philosophy of Loyalty_, p. 40.

[101] _Ibid._, p. 41.

[102] Zimmermann: _On National Pride_, pp. 280, 281.

[103] William Cowper: The Task, II, 206.

[104] Sir Walter Scott: The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto Sixth.

[105] Cf. Mill: _On Liberty_; and Spencer: _Social Statics_.

[106] Hegel: _The Philosophy of Right_, pp. 330, 337.

[107] Cf. H. P. Judson: _The Young American_. Chap. I, pp. 9, 10.

[108] H. H. Powers: _The Things Men Fight For_, p. 283.

[109] Nitobe: _Bushido, The Soul of Japan_, p. 116.

[110] C. D. Broad: The Prevention of War. _I. J. E._, Jan., 1916, p.
243.

[111] For a clear statement of the diplomatic aims of the different
nations in this present war see H. H. Powers: _The Things Men Fight
For_.

[112] J. S. Mill: Letter dated Oct. 25, 1865. Elliott: _Letters_. Vol.
II, p. 47.

[113] Chas. Sumner: The True Grandeur of Nations. Boston, July 4, 1845.

[114] Powers: _The Things Men Fight For_, p. 340.

[115] Green: Works. Vol. II. _The Principles of Political Obligation_,
p. 338.

[116] See Anne C. E. Allinson: Virgil and the New Patriotism, _Yale
Review_, Oct., 1917, p. 158.

[117] King: Washington or Greatness. In _Patriotism and Other Papers_,
pp. 72, 73.

[118] L. S. Woolf: International Morality. _I. J. E._, Oct., 1915, p.
18.

[119] Loisy: _The War and Religion_, p. 21.

[120] Elroy Headley: _Patriotic Essays_, Introduction, p. XV.

[121] Mazzini: 1834. Quoted by Rose: _Nationality in Modern History_,
p. 74.

[122] Longfellow: The Building of the Ship.

[123] Josiah Quincy, Jr. Speech at Second Centennial of Boston, Sept.
17, 1830.

[124] Wm. Watson: The True Patriotism. See _The Poems of William
Watson_, New York and London, Macmillan Co., 1893, p. 76.

[125] Chamberlin: _Patriotism and The Moral Law_, pp. 24, 25.

[126] Chas. E. Hughes: _Addresses Before the Empire State Society, S.
A. R._ Nov. 26, 1906.

[127] Bosanquet: _Social and International Ideals_, preface, pp. VI,
VII.

[128] Chamberlin: _Patriotism and The Moral Law_, p. 14.

[129] John Grier Hibben: _The Higher Patriotism_, p. 18.

[130] J. M. Robertson: _Patriotism and Empire_, p. 202.

[131] International Reform Bureau: _Patriotic Studies_, 1888-1905.

[132] Thos. S. King: _Patriotism and Other Papers_, p. 49.

[133] Cf. E. A. Venturi: _Joseph Mazzini_, with two essays by Mazzini:
_Thoughts on Democracy_ and _The Duties of Man_.

[134] Royce: _Loyalty_, pp. 214, 215, 118.

[135] Royce: Duties of Americans in the Present War. In _The Hope of
the Great Community_, pp. 3, 4. Italics mine.

[136] Graham Wallas: _Human Nature in Politics_, p. 100.


PART IV

[137] J. M. Robertson: _Patriotism and Empire_.

[138] W. Trotter: _The Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War_.

[139] T. Veblen: _The Nature of Peace_.

[140] Loisy: _The War and Religion_.

[141] H. H. Powers: _The Things Men Fight For_.

[142] Cf. statement of procedure in the preface.

[143] Sophie Bryant: _Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics_,
Vol. IX, p. 678:2.

[144] Of course, one can care about the fate of countries other than
his own and be interested in institutions of another order, the church,
for instance, but when he does these things, he does them in his
character as something other than a patriot. No person is merely a
patriot. In so far as he is a patriot his interest is absorbed in his
country.

[145] Royce: _The World and the Individual_, Vol. I, p. 292.

[146] Veblen: _The Nature of Peace_. Cf. Chap. IV, Peace Without Honour.

[147] Bosanquet: _The Principle of Individuality and Value_, p. 68.

[148] _Ibid._, margin of p. 68.

[149] E. B. Talbot: Individuality and Freedom. _Philosophical Review_,
November, 1909, p. 600.

[150] Aristotle: _Politics_. Book II, Chap. 2, p. 28. Jowett’s
translation.

[151] Gertrude B. King: The Servile Mind. _I. J. E._, July, 1916, p.
503.

[152] Ellen B. Talbot: Individuality and Freedom. _Philosophical
Review_, November, 1909, p. 603.

[153] Warner Fite: _Individualism_, p. 14.

[154] Ellen B. Talbot: Individuality and Freedom. _Philosophical
Review_, November, 1909, p. 602.

[155] Cf. Aristotle: _Politics_. Book I, Chap. 2, p. 4. Jowett’s
edition.

[156] Warner Fite: _Individualism_, p. 126.

[157] _Ibid._, p. 122.

[158] Royce: _The Problem of Christianity_, Vol. I, p. 152.

[159] _Ibid._, preface, p. XXV.

[160] Fite: _Individualism_, p. 173.

[161] Howison: _The Limits of Evolution_, p. 7.

[162] C. M. Bakewell: Royce As an Interpreter of American Ideals. _I.
J. E._, p. 307, April, 1917, Vol. XXVII.

[163] Joseph Mazzini: _On the Duties of Man_, Ch. V. In E. A. Venturi:
_Joseph Mazzini_, p. 312.

[164] _Ibid._, p. 313.

[165] _Ibid._, pp. 314, 315.

[166] Arthur Ponsonby, _I. J. E._, Jan., 1915, pp. 143, 144.

[167] Cited by Edward Everett Hale: _The Man Without a Country_,
introduction, p. VIII.

[168] McDougall: _Social Psychology_, p. 85.

[169] Green: _Works_, Vol. II, _Principles of Political Obligation_, p.
523.

[170] Sumner: _Folkways_, pp. 566, 567.

[171] Spencer: _Social Statics_, p. 300.

[172] Green: _Works_, Vol. II, _Principles of Political Obligation_,
table of contents, p. XXXV, for p. 446.

[173] H. C. Brown: Human Nature and the State, _I. J. E._, Jan., 1916,
p. 179.

[174] Spencer: _Social Statics_, p. 279.

[175] Green: _Works_, Vol. II, _Principles of Political Obligation_, p.
444.

[176] Rose: _Nationality in Modern History_, p. 12.

[177] J. Berg Esenwein: _Short Story Masterpieces: Russian_.
Introduction to Gogol, p. 67.

[178] Warner Fite: _Individualism_, p. 100. Italics mine. The last
sentence, also, comes before the rest of the passage in the author’s
own text.

[179] _Ibid._, p. 112.

[180] Joseph Mazzini: _On the Duties of Man_, Ch. V. In E. A. Venturi:
_Joseph Mazzini_, p. 317.

[181] Ernest Barker: The Discredited State, _Political Quarterly_,
Feb., 1915, p. 111.

[182] Robert C. Winthrop: The Patriot Traveler in a Foreign Land. See
H. P. Judson: _The Young American_, p. 118.

[183] Veblen: _The Nature of Peace_, p. 142.

[184] C. D. Burns: _The Morality of Nations_, pp. 7, 65.

[185] Russell: _Why Men Fight_, p. 151.

[186] Lippmann: _The Stakes of Diplomacy_, p. 38.

[187] _Ibid._, p. 50.

[188] Cf. Graham Wallas: _The Great Society_, p. 308.

[189] Zimmermann: _On National Pride_, p. 137.

[190] Royce: _The Religious Aspect of Philosophy_, p. 212. Italics mine.

[191] Anne C. E. Allinson: Virgil and the New Patriotism, _Yale
Review_, October, 1917, p. 141.

[192] Aristotle: _Politics_, Book III, Ch. 3, p. 72. Jowett’s
translation.

[193] Graham Wallas: _The Great Society_, p. 10.

[194] Sumner: _Folkways_, p. 94.

[195] A. C. Haddon: _Universal Races Congress, Record of Proceedings_,
London, 1911, p. 26. Quoted by G. F. Barbour, _I. J. E._, Oct., 1913,
pp. 14, 15. Footnote.

[196] G. F. Barbour, _I. J. E._, Oct., 1913, p. 15.

[197] Royce: _Provincialism_, p. 99. In _Race Questions and Other
American Problems_.

[198] _Ibid._, p. 99.

[199] _Ibid._, p. 65.

[200] _Ibid._, pp. 100, 102.

[201] F. Melian Stawell, _I. J. E._, April, 1915, pp. 296, 297.

[202] C. D. Burns and L. S. Woolf have made a good deal of these
tendencies. Cf. C. D. Burns: _The Morality of Nations_, and L. S.
Woolf: _International Government_.

[203] C. D. Burns: _The Morality of Nations_, p. 237.

[204] For these and similar facts see C. D. Burns: The State and
Its External Relations. _Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society_,
1915-1916, p. 300.

[205] Lippmann: _The Stakes of Diplomacy_, p. 45.

[206] The _New York Times_ of Nov. 27, 1917, contained a report to
the effect that the United States Government was preparing to notify
Berlin of the steps that had been taken in the United States regarding
the internment of unnaturalized Germans in this country. It was the
purpose to inform Germany of the number of those interned, who they
were, and how they were treated. The object was to reassure Germany
that the interned Germans were not being ill-treated, and so to protect
Americans interned in Germany.

[207] Trotter: _The Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War_, pp. 121,
122.

[208] Zimmerman: _On National Pride_, p. 306.

[209] Lippmann: _The Stakes of Diplomacy_, p. 224.

[210] H. H. Powers: _The Things Men Fight For_, p. 7.



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Transcriber’s Note

In a few cases, obvious errors in punctuation have been corrected.

Page 28: “essentials in the disipline” changed to “essentials in the
discipline”

Page 32: “There is a compusion” changed to “There is a compulsion”

Page 33: “is is put under” changed to “it is put under”

Page 47: “it is not admissable” changed to “it is not admissible”

Page 48: “ties which binds” changed to “ties which bind”

Page 81: “will be to be nationally” changed to “will to be nationally”

Page 85: “existence in there” changed to “existence is there”

Page 103: “At at rate” changed to “At any rate”



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