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

[Pg 5]

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[Pg 10] 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[Pg 11] 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[Pg 12] 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.

[Pg 13]

“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[Pg 14] 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.

[Pg 15]

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.

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[Pg 17] 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[Pg 18] 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[Pg 19] 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.

[Pg 20]

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.

[Pg 21]

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[Pg 22] 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.

[Pg 23]

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.

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.

[Pg 28]

“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[Pg 29] 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[Pg 30] 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[Pg 31] 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.

[Pg 32]

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[Pg 33] 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[Pg 34] 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.

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,[Pg 36] 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[Pg 37] 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[Pg 38] 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.[Pg 39] 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[Pg 40] 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[Pg 41] 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.

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,[Pg 46] 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[Pg 47] 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[Pg 48] 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[Pg 49] 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[Pg 50] 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[Pg 51] 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.

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[Pg 53] 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[Pg 54] 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[Pg 55] 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]

[Pg 56]

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.

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.

[Pg 58]

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[Pg 59] 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[Pg 60] 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.[Pg 61] 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[Pg 62] 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[Pg 63] 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]

[Pg 64]

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[Pg 65] 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[Pg 66] 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[Pg 67] 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.

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[Pg 72] 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[Pg 73] 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.

[Pg 74]

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[Pg 75] 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.[Pg 76] 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[Pg 77] 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[Pg 78] 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[Pg 79] 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[Pg 80] 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[Pg 81] “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[Pg 82] 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[Pg 83] 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[Pg 84] 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.

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[Pg 86] 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,[Pg 87] 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[Pg 88] 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[Pg 89] 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[Pg 90] 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[Pg 91] 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.

[Pg 92]

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[Pg 93] 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[Pg 94] 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[Pg 95] 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[Pg 96] 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[Pg 97] 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[Pg 98] 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.

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[Pg 100] 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[Pg 101] 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[Pg 102] 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[Pg 103] 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[Pg 104] 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[Pg 105] 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[Pg 106] 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[Pg 107] 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[Pg 108] 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[Pg 109] 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[Pg 110] 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.

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[Pg 111] 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.

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.

[Pg 114]

[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.

[Pg 115]

[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.

[Pg 116]

[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.

[Pg 117]

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.

[Pg 118]

[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.

[Pg 119]

[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.