Chapter XXXIII (2)

In the archaic State the national feeling is in some cases greatly strengthened by the religious feeling; whilst in other instances religion inspires devotion to the family, clan, or caste rather than to the nation, or constitutes a tie not only between compatriots but between members of different political communities. The ancestor-worship of the Chinese has hardly been conducive to genuine patriotism. Whatever devotion to the common weal may have prevailed among the Vedic Aryans, it has certainly passed away beneath the influence of Brahmanism, or been narrowed down to the caste, the village, or the family.[147] The Zoroastrian Ahura-Mazda was not a national god, but "the god of the Aryans," that is, of all the peoples who inhabited ancient Iran; and these were constantly at war {175} with one another.[148] Muhammedans, whilst animated with a common hatred towards the Christians, show little public spirit in relation to their respective countries,[149] composed as they are of a variety of loosely connected, often very heterogeneous elements, ruled over by a monarch whose power is in many districts more nominal than real. In ancient Greece and Rome patriotism no doubt contained a religious element--each state and town had its tutelary gods and heroes, who were considered its proper masters;[150] but in the first place it was free citizens' love of their native institutions, a civic virtue which grew up on the soil of liberty. When the two Spartans who were sent to Xerxes to be put to death were advised by one of his governors to surrender themselves to the king, their answer was, "Had you known what freedom is, you would have bidden us fight for it, not with the spear only, but with the battle-axe."[151] And of the Athenians who lived at the time of the Persian wars, Demosthenes said that they were ready to die for their country rather than to see it enslaved, and that they considered the outrages and insults which befell him who lived in a subjugated city to be more terrible than death.[152] In classical antiquity "the influence of patriotism thrilled through every fibre of moral and intellectual life."[153] In some Greek cities emigration was prohibited by law, at Argos even on penalty of death.[154] Plato, in the Republic, sacrificed the family to the interests of the State. Cicero placed our duty to our country next after our duty to the immortal gods and before our duty to our parents.[155] "Of all connections," he says, "none is more weighty, none is more dear, than that between every individual and his country. Our parents are dear to us; {176} our children, our kinsmen, our friends, are dear to us; but our country comprehends alone all the endearments of us all. What good man would hesitate to die for her if he could do her service?"[156]

[Footnote 147: Wheeler, _History of India_, ii. 586 _sq._ See also Leist, _Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_, p. 529.]

[Footnote 148: Meyer, _Geschichte des Alterthums_, i. 540. Spiegel, _Erânische Alterthumskunde_, iii. 687 _sqq._]

[Footnote 149: Polak, _Persien_, i. 12. Urquhart, _Spirit of the East_, ii. 427, 439 (Turks). Burckhardt, _Bedouins and Wahábys_, p. 204 _sq._ (Turks and Arab settlers).]

[Footnote 150: Leist, _Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_, p. 529. Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 221.]

[Footnote 151: Herodotus, vii. 134 _sq._]

[Footnote 152: Demosthenes, _De Corona_, 205, p. 296.]

[Footnote 153: Lecky, _History of European Morals_, i. 200.]

[Footnote 154: Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, xxvii. 5. Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, xv. 29.]

[Footnote 155: Cicero, _De officiis_, i. 45 (160). _Cf._ _ibid._ iii. 23 (90).]

[Footnote 156: _Ibid._ i. 17 (57). _Cf._ Cicero, _De legibus_, ii. 2, (5).]

The duty of patriotism springs, in the first instance, from the patriotic feeling; when the love of country is common in a nation public resentment is felt towards him who does not act as that sentiment requires him to act. Moreover, lack of patriotism in a person may also be resented by his fellow-countrymen as an injury done to themselves; and as we have seen before, anger, and especially anger felt by a whole community, has a tendency to lead to moral disapproval. For analogous reasons deeds of patriotism are apt to evoke moral praise. However, in benefiting his own people the patriot may cause harm to other people; and where the altruistic sentiment is broad enough to extend beyond the limits of the State and strong enough to make its voice heard even in competition with the love of country and the love of self, his conduct may consequently be an object of reproach. At the lower stages of civilisation the interests of foreigners are not regarded at all, except when sheltered by the rule of hospitality; but gradually, owing to circumstances which will be discussed in the following chapter, altruism tends to expand, and men are at last considered to have duties to mankind at large. The Chinese moralists inculcated benevolence to all men without making any reference to national distinctions.[157] Mih-tsze, who lived in the interval between Confucius and Mencius, even taught that we ought to love all men equally; but this doctrine called forth protests as abnegating the peculiar devotion due to relatives.[158] In Thâi-Shang it is said that a good man will feel kindly towards every creature, and should not hurt even the insect tribes, grass, and trees.[159] Buddhism {177} enjoins the duty of universal love:--"As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, protects her son, her only son, so let a man cultivate goodwill without measure toward all beings, . . . unhindered love and friendliness toward the whole world, above, below, around."[160] According to the Hindu work Panchatantra it is the thought of little-minded persons to consider whether a man is one of ourselves or an alien, the whole earth being of kin to him who is generously disposed.[161] In Greece and Rome philosophers arose who opposed national narrowness and prejudice. Democritus of Abdera said that every country is accessible to a wise man, and that a good soul's fatherland is the whole earth.[162] The same view was expressed by Theodorus, one of the later Cyrenaics, who denounced devotion to country as ridiculous.[163] The Cynics, in particular, attached slight value to the citizenship of any special state, declaring themselves to be citizens of the world.[164] But, as Zeller observes, in the mouth of the Cynic this doctrine was meant to express not so much the essential oneness of all mankind, as the philosopher's independence of country and home.[165] It was the Stoic philosophy that first gave to the idea of a world-citizenship a definite positive meaning, and raised it to historical importance. The citizen of Alexander's huge empire had in a way become a citizen of the world; and national dislikes were so much more readily overcome as the various nationalities comprised in it were united not only under a common government but also in a common culture.[166] Indeed, the founder of Stoicism was himself only half a Greek. But there is also an obvious connection between the cosmopolitan idea and the Stoic {178} system in general.[167] According to the Stoics, human society has for its basis the identity of reason in individuals; hence we have no ground for limiting this society to a single nation. We are all, says Seneca, members of one great body, the universe; "we are all akin by Nature, who has formed us of the same elements, and placed us here together for the same end."[168] "If our reason is common," says Marcus Aurelius, "there is a common law, as reason commands us what to do and what not to do; and if there is a common law we are fellow-citizens; if this is so, we are members of some political community--the world is in a manner a state."[169] To this great state, which includes all rational beings, the individual states are related as the houses of a city are to the city collectively;[170] and the wise man will esteem it far above any particular community in which the accident of birth has placed him.[171]

[Footnote 157: _Lun Yü_, xii. 22. Mencius, vii. 1. 45. Douglas, _Confucianism and Taouism_, pp. 108, 205.]

[Footnote 158: Edkins, _Religion in China_, p. 119. Legge, _Chinese Classics_, ii. 476, n. 45. de Groot, _Religious System of China_, (vol. ii. book) i. 684.]

[Footnote 159: _Thâi-Shang_, 3.]

[Footnote 160: Quoted by Rhys Davids, _Hibbert Lectures on the History of Buddhism_, p. 111.]

[Footnote 161: Muir, _Religious and Moral Sentiments rendered from Sanskrit Writers_, p. 109.]

[Footnote 162: Stobæus, _Florilegium_, xl. 7, vol. ii. 80. _Cf._ Natorp, _Die Ethika des Demokritos_, p. 117, n. 41.]

[Footnote 163: Diogenes Laertius, _Vitæ philosophorum_, ii. 98 _sq._]

[Footnote 164: _Ibid._ vi. 12, 63, 72, 98. Epictetus, _Dissertationes_, iii. 24. 66. Stobæus, xlv. 28, vol. ii. 252.]

[Footnote 165: Zeller, _Socrates and the Socratic Schools_, p. 326 _sq._ _Idem_, _Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics_, p. 327.]

[Footnote 166: _Cf._ Plutarch, _De Alexandri Magni fortuna aut virtute_, i. 6, p. 329.]

[Footnote 167: See Zeller, _Stoics, &c._ p. 327 _sq._]

[Footnote 168: Seneca, _Epistulæ_, xcv. 52.]

[Footnote 169: Marcus Aurelius, _Commentarii_, iv. 4. _Cf._ _ibid._ vi. 44, and ix. 9; Cicero, _De legibus_, i. 7 (23); Epictetus, _Dissertationes_, i. 13. 3.]

[Footnote 170: Marcus Aurelius, iii. 11.]

[Footnote 171: Seneca, _De otio_, iv. 1. _Idem_, _Epistulæ_, lxviii. 2. Epictetus, _Dissertationes_, iii. 22. 83 _sqq._]

But the Roman ideal of patriotism, with its utter disregard for foreign nations,[172] was not opposed by philosophy alone: it met with an even more formidable antagonist in the new religion. The Christian and the Stoic rejected it on different grounds: whilst the Stoic felt himself as a citizen of the world, the Christian felt himself as a citizen of heaven, to whom this planet was only a place of exile. Christianity was not hostile to the State.[173] At the very time when Nero committed his worst atrocities, St. Paul declared that there is no power but of God, and that whosoever resists the power resists the ordinance of God and shall be condemned;[174] and Tertullian says that all Christians send up their prayers for the life of the emperors, for their ministers, for magistrates, for the good of the {179} State and the peace of the Empire.[175] But the emperor should be obeyed only so long as his commands do not conflict with the law of God--a Christian ought rather to suffer like Daniel in the lions' den than sin against his religion;[176] and nothing is more entirely foreign to him than affairs of State.[177] Indeed, in the whole Roman Empire there were no men who so entirely lacked patriotism as the early Christians. They had no affection for Judea, they soon forgot Galilee, they cared nothing for the glory of Greece and Rome.[178] When the judges asked them which was their country they said in answer, "I am a Christian."[179] And long after Christianity had become the religion of the Empire, St. Augustine declared that it matters not, in respect of this short and transitory life, under whose dominion a mortal man lives, if only he be not compelled to acts of impiety or injustice.[180] Later on, when the Church grew into a political power independent of the State, she became a positive enemy of national interests. In the seventeenth century a Jesuit general called patriotism "a plague and the most certain death of Christian love."[181]

[Footnote 172: _Cf._ Lactantius, _Divinæ Institutiones_, vi. ('De vero cultu'), 6 (Migne, _Patrologiæ cursus_, vi. 655).]

[Footnote 173: _St. Matthew_, xxii. 21. _1 Peter_, ii. 13 _sq._]

[Footnote 174: _Romans_, xiii. 1 _sq._ See also _Titus_, iii. 1.]

[Footnote 175: Tertullian, _Apologeticus_, 39 (Migne, _op. cit._ i. 468). See also Ludwig, _Tertullian's Ethik_, p. 98 _sq._]

[Footnote 176: Tertullian, _De idololatria_, 15 (Migne, _op. cit._ i. 684).]

[Footnote 177: Tertullian, _Apologeticus_, 38 (Migne, _op. cit._ i. 465):--"Nec ulla magis res aliena, quam publica."]

[Footnote 178: See Renan, _Hibbert Lectures on the Influence of Rome on Christianity_, p. 28.]

[Footnote 179: Le Blant, _Inscriptions chrétiennes_, i. 128.]

[Footnote 180: St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, v. 17.]

[Footnote 181: von Eicken, _Geschichte und System der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung_, p. 809.]

With the fall of the Roman Empire patriotism died out in Europe, and remained extinct for centuries. It was a feeling hardly compatible either with the migratory life of the Teutonic tribes or with the feudal system, which grew up wherever they fixed their residence. The knights, it is true, were not destitute of the natural affection for home. When Aliaumes is mortally wounded by Géri li Sors he exclaims, "Holy Virgin, I shall never more see Saint-Quentin nor Néèle";[182] and the troubadour Bernard de Ventadour touchingly sings, "Quan la doussa aura venta--Deves nostre païs,--M'es veiaire que senta--Odor de {180} Paradis."[183] But to a man of the Middle Ages "his country" meant little more than the neighbourhood in which he lived.[184] Kingdoms existed, but no nations. The first duty of a vassal was to be loyal to his lord;[185] but no national spirit bound together the various barons of one country. A man might be the vassal of the king of France and of the king of England at the same time; and often, from caprice, passion, or sordid interest, the barons sold their services to the enemies of the kingdom. The character of his knighthood was also perpetually pressing the knight to a course of conduct distinct from all national objects.[186] The cause of a distressed lady was in many instances preferable to that of the country to which he belonged --as when the Captal de Bouche, though an English subject, did not hesitate to unite his troops with those of the Compte de Foix to relieve the ladies in a French town, where they were besieged and threatened with violence by the insurgent peasantry.[187] When a knight's duties towards his country are mentioned in the rules of Chivalry they are spoken of as duties towards his lord:--"The wicked knight," it is said, "that aids not his earthly lord and natural country against another prince, is a knight without office."[188] Far from being, as M. Gautier asserts,[189] the object of an express command in the code of Chivalry, true patriotism had there no place at all. It was not known as an ideal, still less did it exist as a reality, among either knights or commoners. As a duke of Orleans could bind himself by a fraternity of arms and alliance to a duke of Lancaster,[190] so English merchants were in the habit of supplying nations at war against England with provisions bought at English fairs, and weapons wrought by English hands.[191] If, as M. Gaston Paris maintains, a {181} deep feeling of national union had inspired the Chanson de Roland,[192] it is a strange, yet undeniable, fact that no distinct trace of this feeling displayed itself in the mediæval history of France before the English wars.

[Footnote 182: _Li Romans de Raoul de Cambrai_, 210, p. 185.]

[Footnote 183: Quoted by Gautier, _La Chevalerie_, p. 64.]

[Footnote 184: See Cibrario, _Della economia politica del medio eve_, i. 263; de Crozals, _Histoire de la civilization_, ii. 287.]

[Footnote 185: _Ordre of Chyualry_, foll. 13 b. 32 b.]

[Footnote 186: See Mills, _History of Chivalry_, i. 140 _sq._]

[Footnote 187: Scott, _Essay on Chivalry_, p. 31.]

[Footnote 188: _Ordre of Chyualry_, fol. 14 b.]

[Footnote 189: Gautier, _op. cit._ p. 33.]

[Footnote 190: Sainte-Palaye, _Mémoires sur l'ancienne Chevalerie_, ii. 72.]

[Footnote 191: Pike, _History of Crime in England_, i. 264 _sq._]

[Footnote 192: Paris, _La poésie du moyen age_, p. 107. M. Gautier says (_op. cit._ p. 61) that Roland is "la France faite homme."]

Besides feudalism and the want of political cohesion, there were other factors that contributed to hinder the development of national personality and patriotic devotion. This sentiment presupposes not only that the various parts of which a country is composed shall have a vivid feeling of their unity, but also that they, united, shall feel themselves as a nation clearly distinct from other nations. In the Middle Ages national differences were largely obscured by the preponderance of the Universal Church, by the creation of the Holy Roman Empire, by the prevalence of a common language as the sole vehicle of mental culture, and by the undeveloped state of the vernacular tongues. To make use of the native dialect was a sign of ignorance, and to place worldly interests above the claims of the Church was impious. When Macchiavelli declared that he preferred his country to the safety of his soul, people considered him guilty of blasphemy; and when the Venetians defied the Papal thunders by averring that they were Venetians in the first place, and only Christians in the second, the world heard them with amazement.[193]

[Footnote 193: 'National Personality,' in _Edinburgh Review_, cxciv. 133.]

In England the national feeling developed earlier than on the Continent, no doubt owing to her insular position and freer institutions; as Montesquieu observes, patriotism thrives best in democracies.[194] At the time of the English Reformation the sense of corporate national life had evidently gained considerable strength, and the love of England has never been expressed in more exquisite form than it was by Shakespeare. At the same time the sense of patriotism was often grossly perverted by religious {182} bigotry and party spirit.[195] Even champions of liberty, like Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney, accepted French gold in the hope of embarrassing the King; and Sidney went so far as to try to instigate De Witt to invade England. Loyalism, in particular, proved a much stronger incentive than love of country. A loyalist like Strafford would have employed half-savage Irish troops against his own countrymen, and the Scotch Jacobites invited a French invasion.

[Footnote 194: Montesquieu, _De l'esprit des Lois_, iv. 5 (_[OE]uvres_, p. 206 _sq._).]

[Footnote 195: See _Edinburgh Review_, cxciv. 133, 136 _sq._; Pearson, _National Life and Character_, p. 190.]

In France the development of the national feeling was closely connected with the strengthening of the royal power and its gradual victory over feudalism. The word _patrie_ was for the first time used by Charles VII.'s chronicler, Jean Chartier, and he also condemned as _renégats_ those Frenchmen who, at the end of the hundred years war, fought on the side of the English.[196] But patriotism was for a long time inseparably confounded with loyalty to the sovereign. According to Bossuet "tout l'État est en la personne du prince";[197] and Abbé Coyer observes that Colbert believed _royaume_ and _patrie_ to signify one and the same thing.[198] In the eighteenth century the spirit of rebellion succeeded that of devotion to the king; but the key-note of the great movement which led to the Revolution was the liberty and equality of the individual, not the glory or welfare of the nation. Men were looked upon as members of the human race, rather than as citizens of any particular country. To be a citizen of every nation, and not to belong to one's native country alone, was the dream of French writers in the eighteenth century.[199] "The true sage is a cosmopolitan," says a writer of comedy.[200] Diderot asks which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains for ever, or to save one's fatherland, which is {183} perishable.[201] According to Voltaire patriotism is composed of self-love and prejudice,[202] and only too often makes us the enemies of our fellow-men:--"Il est clair qu'un pays ne peut gagner sans qu'un autre perde, et qu'il ne peut vaincre sans faire des malheureux. Telle est donc la condition humaine, que souhaiter la grandeur de son pays, c'est souhaiter du mal à ses voisins."[203] In Germany, Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller felt themselves as citizens of the world, not of the German Empire, still less as Saxons or Suabians; and Klopstock, with his enthusiasm for German nationality and language, almost appeared eccentric.[204] Lessing writes point-blank:--"The praise of being an ardent patriot is to my mind the very last thing that I should covet; . . . I have no idea at all of love of the Fatherland, and it seems to me at best but an heroical weakness, which I can very readily dispense with."[205]

[Footnote 196: Guibal, _Histoire du sentiment national en France pendant la guerre de Cent ans_, p. 526 _sq._]

[Footnote 197: Legrand, _L'idée de patrie_, p. 20.]

[Footnote 198: Block, _Dictionnaire général de la politique_, ii. 518.]

[Footnote 199: Texte, _Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Cosmopolitan Spirit in Literature_, p. 79.]

[Footnote 200: Palissot de Montenoy, _Les philosophes_, iii. 4, p. 75.]

[Footnote 201: Diderot, _Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron_, ii. 75 (_[OE]uvres_, vi. 244).]

[Footnote 202: Voltaire, _Pensées sur l'administration publique_, 14 (_[OE]uvres complètes_, v. 351).]

[Footnote 203: _Idem_, _Dictionnaire philosophique_, art. Patrie (_[OE]uvres complètes_, viii. 118).]

[Footnote 204: See Strauss, _Der alte und der neue Glaube_, p. 259 _sq._]

[Footnote 205: Lessing, quoted by Ziegler, _Social Ethics_, p. 121.]

The first French revolution marks the beginning of a new era in the history of patriotism. It inspired the masses with passion for the unity of the fatherland, the Republic "one and indivisible." At the same time it declared all nations to be brothers, and when it made war on foreign nations the object was only to deliver them from their oppressors.[206] But gradually the interest in the affairs of other countries grew more and more selfish, the attempt to emancipate was absorbed in the desire to subjugate; and this awoke throughout Europe a feeling which was destined to become the most powerful force in the history of the nineteenth century, the feeling of nationality. When Napoleon introduced French administration in the countries whose sovereigns he had deposed or degraded, the people resisted the change. The resistance was popular, as the rulers were absent or helpless, and it was national, being directed against foreign institutions.{184} It was stirred by the feeling of national rather than political unity, it was a protest against the dominion of race over race. The national element in this movement had in a manner been anticipated by the French Revolution itself. The French people was regarded by it as an ethnological, not as an historic, unit; descent was put in the place of tradition; the idea of the sovereignty of the people uncontrolled by the past gave birth to the idea of nationality independent of the political influence of history. But, as has been truly remarked, men were made conscious of the national element of the revolution by its conquests, not in its rise.[207]

[Footnote 206: Block, _op. cit._ ii. 376.]

[Footnote 207: See 'Nationality,' in _Home and Foreign Review_, i. 6 _sqq._]

Ever since, the racial feeling has been the most vigorous force in European patriotism, and has gradually become a true danger to humanity. Beginning as a protest against the dominion of one race over another, this feeling led to a condemnation of every state which included different races, and finally developed into the complete doctrine that state and nationality should so far as possible be coextensive.[208] According to this theory the dominant nationality cannot admit the inferior nationalities dwelling within the boundaries of the state to an equality with itself, because, if it did, the state would cease to be national, and this would be contrary to the principle of its existence; or the weaker nationalities are compelled to change their language, institutions, and individuality, so as to be absorbed in the dominant race. And not only does the leading nationality assert its superiority in relation to all others within the body politic, but it also wants to assert itself at the expense of foreign nations and races. To the nationalist all this is true patriotism; love of country often stands for a feeling which has been well described as love of more country.[209] But at the same time opposite ideals are at work. The fervour of nineteenth century nationalism has not been able to quench the {185} cosmopolitan spirit. In spite of loud appeals made to racial instincts and the sense of national solidarity, the idea has been gaining ground that the aims of a nation must not conflict with the interests of humanity at large; that our love of country should be controlled by other countries' right to prosper and to develop their own individuality; and that the oppression of weaker nationalities inside the state and aggressiveness towards foreign nations, being mainly the outcome of vainglory and greed, are inconsistent with the aspirations of a good patriot, as well as of a good man.

[Footnote 208: _Ibid._ p. 13 _sq._]

[Footnote 209: Robertson, _Patriotism and Empire_, p. 138.]

* * * * *

Our long discussion of moral ideas regarding such modes of conduct as directly concern other men's welfare has at last come to an end. We have seen that they may be ultimately traced to a variety of sources: to the influence of habit or education, to egoistic considerations of some kind or other which have given rise to moral feelings, to notions of social expediency, to disinterested likings or dislikes, and, above all, to sympathetic resentment or sympathetic approval springing from an altruistic disposition of mind. But how to account for this disposition? Our explanation of that group of moral ideas which we have been hitherto investigating is not complete until we have found an answer to this important question. I shall therefore in the next chapter examine the origin and development of the altruistic sentiment.