out at London, Berlin and St. Petersburg, and no one dreams of asking the consent of the inhabitants of those continents.

This astonishing progress is not due alone to the North Mediterranean branch of the Eurafrican race. The representatives of the South Mediterranean branch are for a large part in it. In the forefront of it, whether in the great capitals of Europe or in the pioneer towns of the frontiers, we find the acute and versatile Semite full of energy and knowledge, guiding in councils, his master hand on the levers of the vastest financial schemes, his subtle policy governing the diplomacy of statesmen and the decisions of directors. As Professor Gerland has well said, there is something in the Semitic character which is complementary to that of the Aryan, and it is not without significance that the surprising development of the latter began when the religious prejudices against the Jews commenced to yield to more enlightened sentiments. They are now the growing people. Statistics show that in Europe, while the Aryac population doubles in number in thirty-four years, the Semites double in twenty-five years, having more children to a marriage and less infantile mortality. When bigotry ceases on both sides, and free intermarriage restores the Aryo-Semitic stock to its original unity, we may look for a race of nobler capacities than any now existing.

III. NATIONALITY

35. Nationality and the formation of states. The part played by the spirit of nationality in the formation of modern states is thus stated by Bluntschli :

At all times in the history of the world nationality has had a powerful influence on States and on politics. It was the sense of national kinship and national freedom which inspired the Greeks in their struggle with Persia, and the Germans in their conflict with the Romans. Differences of nationality were at the root of the division of the Roman world between the Latin and Greek emperors. The split in the Frankish monarchy, and the separation of France and Germany, was largely due to the difference between the Roman and German languages. Even in the middle ages differences of nationality at times became prominent. But it was not till the present age that the principle of nationality was asserted as a definite political principle. During the middle ages the State was based on dynastic or class interests, and was rather territorial than national. Later centuries saw the growth of the great European peoples, but the State did not as yet gain a basis of nationality nor a national expression: it developed a magisterial character, finding a center in the king and his officials. . .

When Napoleon, at the beginning of this century, attempted to revive the empire of Charles the Great, and, resting on the French people as a support, to erect a universal monarchy over Europe, he found a stumblingblock in the other peoples, who regarded the French rule with disgust and hatred. In spite of his genius, national resistance proved too strong for the Emperor who could not appreciate nationality. Even then the sense of nationality was only imperfectly developed. Though the sentiment was at work among the unconscious masses, the spirit of nationality was not yet aroused. Even the stubborn and enduring hatred of the English for the French was not so much based on a desire of freeing nationalities from French oppression, as on the hatred of the English aristocracy for the French Revolution, on fear of French preponderance in Europe, and on commercial interests.

The English, in spite of the heightened political consciousness which springs from their manly pride and sense of law, distrust nationality as a political principle. They know that their island kingdom includes different nationalities, and that the national feeling of the Celtic Irish has more than once threatened the unity of the State. Their Indian Empire, too, might be endangered by too strong an insistence on nationality. The Spaniards, in their struggle with the French, felt their own unity as a nation, and hated the French as foreigners: but they regarded it not so much as a struggle for nationality, as a war for their legitimate prince and the Catholic religion against the fiends of the Revolution. The Germans, owing to the differences of religion and the disintegration of the empire into independent dynastic kingdoms, had lost all sense of nationality in politics, and only a few educated people listened to the inspiring words of Fichte and songs of Arndt, when they tried to revive it. The Russians went to battle and to death to defend their Czar and his holy empire against the godless West: they had no thought for their claims. as a nation. The French Revolution vaguely proclaimed the principle of the independence of nationalities, but it was trodden under foot at the Restoration. The Congress of Vienna, with utter disregard of national rights, distributed fragments of great peoples among the restored dynasties. As Poland had been already divided among Russia, Austria, and Prussia, so now Italy and Germany were cut up into a number of sovereign states, and Belgium and Holland pieced together into one kingdom, in spite of conflicting nationalities.

The fact that neither the statesmen of the Revolution nor those of the Restoration recognized nationality as a political principle makes its influence on the political history of to-day more marked and striking. Science, especially in Germany and Italy, had already pointed to the idea of nationality, and hinted at its consequences in politics. But only since

about 1840 has the natural right of Peoples to express themselves in the State been appealed to as a practical principle. The impulses to nationality were roused more strongly than ever before, even among the masses, and demanded satisfaction in politics. Peoples desired to give their union a political form and to become Nations. The dynastic system which European States had inherited from the middle ages was now threatened by national demands and passions. Austria especially was shaken by the consequent striving for independence among its various nationalities. The foundation of a united Italy and of the German Empire was inspired by the idea of nationality which gathered the scattered members of one people and organized them in one State. The power of this national impulse is unquestionable, though its limits are not so certain.

Nationality clearly has a closer and stronger connection with the State than with the Church, for it is easier for the Church to be universal. The State is an organized nation, and nations receive their character and spirit mainly from the peoples which live in the State. Hence there is a natural connection and constant interaction between People and Nation.

A people is not a political society; but if it is really conscious of its community of spirit and civilization, it is natural that it should ask to develop this into a full personality with a common will which can express itself in act; in fact, to become a State.

36. Nationality in modern politics. The emphasis placed upon national unity by modern states, and their efforts to secure it at all costs, is clearly brought out in the following:1

In spite of the cosmopolitan tendencies of modern socialism, there can be no doubt that the spirit of nationality in one form or another is still a tremendous political force. The last hundred years are full of examples of its action in building up and in destroying. By welding together into national communities states long separated, and by throwing off foreign dominion, it has forged modern Germany, Italy, Roumania, Greece, Servia and Bulgaria. It has nerved the resistance of Poles, Finns, Armenians, and others against the attempts of alien peoples to absorb them. Under its influence, Norway has separated herself from Sweden, Austria is in peril of going to pieces, and even Great Britain is weakened by Irish disaffection. But the same spirit of nationality that awakens the longing for independence also leads to the persecution of recalcitrant minorities. Race conflicts to-day are as intense in their fierceness as the religious ones of earlier times, and are even harder to adjust by fair compromise. When favored by fortune, the oppressed easily become the oppressors.

1 Copyright, 1908, by The Macmillan Company.

Governments and nations fear, and not without reason, that what is at first harmless pride in race and language on the part of some minority may easily take the form of political sedition dangerous to the existence of the state. If the American republic is ever threatened with the formation of distinct national communities within its borders, its unity for the future will cease to be secure.

One difficulty in dealing with all such topics as this is the looseness in meaning of the terms we have to use. When we speak of a nation, we usually have in mind an independent people with a common language; but the Swiss, the Belgians, the Austrians, are nations and each composed of several nationalities with equally acknowledged rights. Nor need a nation be all of the same race, according to the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, the people of the United States are not. Nor is it always politically independent: the Poles are a nation, though they are under several governments; and the term is sometimes applied to the Jews, who have neither a common speech nor a common dwelling place. Nevertheless, as the history of the last century has shown, the tendency nowadays is for nations and nationalities to correspond as nearly as may be, and for the idea of nationality to be based on language alone, regardless of descent or of the preferences of those concerned, — a tendency which the French have experienced to their cost in the case of Alsace, which was taken away from them on the ground that its inhabitants were Germans, whether they wanted to be or not, and hence properly belonged to Germany. The movement known as Pan-Germanism is a logical outcome of the same theory. The earlier nationalistic movements proclaimed the right of peoples to determine their own destinies; the later extensions have tended to look on nationality as a sort of higher law which is as much justified in overriding the opposition of minorities as were the Northern States of the Union in putting down the rebellion of the Southern. Such a doctrine may easily be pushed to great lengths: sweet reasonableness, not to say common fairness, is seldom a characteristic of ardent champions of nationality, who, as a rule, calmly overlook the most obvious inconsistencies, and while warmly advocating a policy for the assimilation of all alien elements at home, cry out oppression if the same treatment is given to those of their ilk in foreign lands. The German who favors severe measures in order to denationalize the Poles in Posen is sure to be full of indignation at the way in which the German language is discriminated against in Hungary and in the Baltic provinces; and many an American who has condemned the iniquity of trying to Russianize the Finns or the Armenians believes as a matter of course that the English language should be imposed as soon as possible on the inhabitants of Porto Rico.

37. Nationalism in recent politics. Reinsch points out the importance of nationalism and the dangers of its exaggeration :

When we view the historical development of the world since the Renaissance, we find that the one principle about which the wealth of facts can be harmoniously grouped is that of nationalism. Ever since the world-state ideals of the Middle Ages were left behind, this principle has been the touchstone of true statesmanship. The reputation of a statesman, as well as his permanent influence on human affairs, depends on his power to understand and aid the historical evolution, from out the medieval chaos, of strong national states. . .

Especially during the nineteenth century has nationalism been a conscious influence in political life. The nations that, at its beginning, had partly achieved their independent political existence, have since been striving for the attainment of completely self-sufficing life; while those races that regard themselves as unjustly held in bondage by others have been engaged in a stern struggle to obtain national independence. . .

It has thus come about that the successful nations have developed a clearly marked individuality. The cosmopolitanism of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance, the dreams of world unity, have been replaced by a set of narrower national ideals concerning customs, laws, literature, and art, by a community of independent states, each striving to realize to the fullest its individual aptitudes and characteristics.

It will, however, be difficult to preserve a balance of this kind, as the nationalistic principle bears within it the possible source of its own destruction, and unless carefully guarded against exaggeration, will of itself lead to a disturbance of the equilibrium upon which the diversity of our civilization depends. Within the latter half of the nineteenth century, nationalism has been thus exaggerated; going beyond a healthy desire to express the true native characteristics of a people, it has come, in some quarters, to mean the decrying, as barbarous or decadent, of everything originating outside of the national boundary. Within the state itself, there is a growing tendency to enforce, by custom and law, absolute uniformity of characteristics. Languages and literatures peculiar to smaller communities are not encouraged, the effort being rather made to replace them by the national language. In international politics the motives of foreign nations are being constantly misunderstood. Each nation looks upon itself as the bearer of the only true civilization. . . . Even in art and science, perhaps the most cosmopolitan of all pursuits, this nationalizing tendency has left its mark.

1 Copyright, 1900, by The Macmillan Company.