The patriot believes that his country is intrinsically a fundamental value. It is a cause that is worthy. He sees various things in the country that furnish the bases for this belief. Sometimes he beholds in the state a sacred or semi-sacred institution. A philosophy which put the theory of the state in such a way as to furnish a basis for this belief was that of Hegel. For Hegel, the state was the development of the absolute Idea in the world. The state did not arise in response to the needs of men, as philosophers like Mill and Spencer[105] have held, and as would probably be held by the patriot who looks upon the country as protector or expression of himself. Hegel said, “It is a very distorted account of the matter when the state, in demanding sacrifices from the citizens, is taken to be simply the civic community, whose object is merely the security of life and property. Security cannot possibly be obtained by the sacrifice of what is to be secured.... The nation as a state is the spirit substantively realized and directly real. Hence, it is the absolute power on earth.”[106] Hegel felt that way about the Prussian State. And others have felt almost the same way about their state. The desire for a solid and immutable condition of life that the view represents is a fundamental one. And when Hegel or any one else takes that view of his state, he is at once likely to be a devoted patriot.
The popular parallel to Hegel’s conclusion is the belief that the country comes from God. Men seem to want to feel that their origins are worthy of reverence, and that they are especially favored. In ancient times most people traced their ancestry back to their God. The Japanese do the same thing in modern times, and have a religion which is the expression of that belief. The Shinto religion inculcates reverence for the sovereign, ancestral memory, filial piety, nature worship, and the belief that the imperial family, which is descended from their god, is the fountain head of the whole nation. These elements have been infused into Bushido, which Nitobe calls The Soul of Japan, and which embodies and inculcates the Japanese national ideals. But the belief in the semi-sacred character of the nation is common in all countries. How often do we hear it said that America is God’s Modern Chosen People. And at least one of the sovereigns of Europe does not cease to mention the patriotism of his tutelary god not only in his prayers, but also in his proclamations.
This belief in the sacredness of one’s country has in monarchies a splendid symbol to which to attach itself in the person of the king or emperor. The ruling classes encourage this attachment; they themselves feel that they rule by divine right. They have inherited the belief from the traditions of the Middle Ages and from such philosophical theories as that of Hegel. And the people, also habituated to a certain extent in those ideas, share the same belief. If they are thoroughly loyal, they take an attitude towards their king similar to that assumed by religious devotees towards their God. But emperor-worship is not at all necessary to state-worship. Many who no longer believe in the divine right of kings still believe in the divine right of states. The state is still often looked upon as sacred and sovereign. The Greek conception of the omnipotent polis is in the hinterland of our minds. There has come down from the Middle Ages a habit of sovereignty which the world has not shaken off. And, moreover, men want a supreme power which guarantees safety. Patriotism thrives in such soil. When people are possessed of these beliefs, patriotism with them can become almost a religion.
The belief that one has a glorious country is a form of the belief in its value. This kind of patriotism is fed by contemplation of the great names of the past and the deeds of conquering heroes. It can attach itself to any characteristic in which the country excels. Some of the reasons for patriotism advanced in a school textbook ran somewhat as follows: Our country is a great nation. Our territory is big. We have an immense population. Our wealth is surpassingly great. Our power is tremendous. Our educational standards are high. And we are the great exponent of a land of freedom.[107] The moral was that any American boy or girl ought to recognize that he lived in a grand and glorious country. One of the very common causes of pride is the extent of commerce, and in this way the economic factor makes another connection with patriotism. A few years ago, one of the potent reasons for the proposal to subsidize an American merchant marine was that the country did not like to feel that the flag was not floating over the sea as it once had.
The consciousness of national glory grows on the pride of power. The belief in the country’s greatness fuses with and derives dynamic from the impulse to power. National power is precious to a certain type of patriot. It is even more precious than peace. “The plain fact is that people do not prize tranquillity above all other goods. They desire influence and power, and are willing to accept the responsibilities and the suffering that these entail.”[108] These facts throw light upon the patriotism of aggressive nations. The patriots of those nations glory in their country’s glory, and grow great in the consciousness of its power. Imperialism grows out of this temper. And once a country is embarked on a career of imperialism, it is hardly to be satisfied short of dominion over the world. Even then it will sigh for new worlds to conquer. And this characteristic of an insatiable lust for glory should not be lost sight of when we are considering the taming of an enemy by nonresistance.
The patriotism that feeds upon the country’s glory is jealous of the national prestige. Prestige is glory. And a nation cannot continue to glory either at home or abroad if it suffers its prestige to be lowered. Consequently it must sometimes fight simply to protect that prestige. Many of our citizens during the period of crisis with Mexico over the exploits of Villa and also during the critical time in our affairs with Germany before war was declared, believed that if we did not fight, our prestige value would be lowered all over the world, and that we should be deprived of the power of acting effectively in world politics. The desire of a nation for revenge also is the desire, as much as anything else, to restore her fallen prestige.
Solicitude for the country’s honor is another outgrowth of the patriotism that delights in national glory. One kind of honor is that of Belgium standing up in the face of aggression for its integrity and for its loyalty to its international obligations. A weaker kind is very much like the desire for prestige. It is a desire for the respect of others. It appears in the reason that Nitobe gives for Japan’s opening its doors to the western world. “The sense of honor which cannot bear being looked down upon as an inferior power,—that was the strongest of motives.”[109] This sense of honor will lead to high achievements, but the tragedy is that it will so easily lead to war. C. D. Broad says, “... It is chiefly when people can be persuaded that questions of honor are involved that they can be got to fight.”[110] And when a war is started, no country wants to accept defeat. Each one emblazons on its sword the device which is said to have been on the sword of a faithful knight of feudal times: “Never draw me without right; never sheathe me without honor.”
The trouble which is implicit in the situation is that nations believe that their glory and welfare are matters of competitive success. It is all too commonly believed that the gain of one nation must mean the loss of another. Consequently, the attitude that is taken on all sides is simply that of intelligent self-interest. Jealousy arises out of such a situation, and jealousy is one of the effective causes of war. One of the most significant factors in the diplomatic history preceding the present war was that of the rivalry of the great European powers for strategic land areas, and for control of the important sea routes of the world. There has been a problem of the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, Constantinople, the North Sea, the Baltic, the China Sea, the Persian Gulf, and so on. Germany, younger than the other nations, has been making a desperate effort to catch up with them, and the present war is in great part the outgrowth of the friction arising out of that effort.[111]
But it is encouraging that the glory of nations does not consist exclusively in competitive success, and that there are those who realize it. There are those who see that the true good of all countries may be worked out at the same time. J. S. Mill expressed a high ideal of patriotism when he said: “I believe that the good of no country can be obtained by any means but such as tend to that of all countries, nor ought to be sought otherwise, even if attainable.”[112] This may be matched by a passage from American patriotic eloquence uttered by no less a patriot than Charles Sumner: “I hope to rescue those terms [national glory], so powerful over the minds of men, from the mistaken objects to which they are applied, from deeds of war and the extension of empire, that henceforward they may be attached only to acts of justice and humanity.”[113] The highest good of nations really lies in the use of those things which do not perish in the using and of which there is enough for all. They are the things of the mind and of the spirit. The hope is that the rivalry of nations may be transferred from destructive to constructive pursuits. Much better would be friendly rivalry in the accomplishments of science, art, scholarship, social welfare, and like things.
The belief in the value of one’s country sometimes expresses itself in the conviction that the country embodies lofty ideals. Patriots believe that their nation represents a great tradition, and stands for ideals that are important to the human race. A country may be said to be organized about these beliefs. A people is not really effectively unified until it is held together by the power of a common ideal. And that ideal is a source of strength to patriotism. This idealistic character has impressed itself upon even the warlike temper of peoples. They do not usually fight over causes that are avowedly materialistic and predatory. It takes a big idea to appeal to the people. “... Peoples in their larger corporate activities are not mercenary, but idealist. They know that wars do not ‘pay’ in the low, material sense. They are not seeking present ease and comfort, seldom a present good of any kind, but the triumph of an ideal which they associate with their national life. Their method may be wrong, but their purpose is essentially altruistic, perhaps the least selfish of any activity we know.”[114] And the ideal that moves a people must be a morally high ideal, or at least must seem to be so. A government could scarcely hope to win a hard war without having first enlisted the community’s moral convictions.
Ideals are in part inherited from the nation’s past. What has united in the past has been these common ideals; and it is because there were such that the memory of the past is so valuable. But for the idealist the future is fully as important as the past. A people is held together by what Green calls its “social expectation.”[115] What binds us together in America is not so much the past as the future. Our past is a vital factor in our unity. It is remarkable how the various elements in our population can apparently so naturally appropriate “the Puritan fathers” as their own. The Puritan fathers were only one element in the founding of the United States, and at least three-quarters of the present inhabitants of this land have no physical inheritance from them, but a far greater proportion of the American people count themselves as their spiritual progeny. Nevertheless, the American people contains great heterogeneous groups and masses who have never been assimilated to the Puritan ideals or traditions. There is no common past for all our people. We root back into many lands and many traditions. The tie that really binds is what we believe to be our common destiny, the ideals that we believe ourselves to be progressively realizing. The roots of our unity are in the sky.
The ideals which a nation believes that it exemplifies are various. Sometimes it is that of good government. Virgil felt that Rome was spreading peace and order throughout the world.[116] Sometimes it is the ideal of justice. The patriot seems to feel that in his country’s just cause eternal justice itself is being incarnated. “A patriot he [Washington] was in the highest sense, not because he loved his country with a selfish love, but because he loved justice on the broadest scale, and believed that the cause of his country was that of eternal justice.”[117] But the ideal which has been exploited perhaps more than any other is that of freedom. Patriots thrill at the thought that not only is their country the guardian of their freedom, but is the champion of freedom throughout all the world. This ideal has the honor of having most keenly aroused the consciences of states. “It is a curious fact that practically every case in which altruistic action has been professed by or recommended to a nation has been a case in which the ‘liberty’ of some human beings was in question. Thus both the antislavery and the Bulgarian agitations [in England] were questions of liberty; and the whole Palmerstonian policy was directed against tyranny. There is indeed some ground for believing that the positive international moral sense has at present only developed with regard to freedom. There are many people, especially in this country, who would say that it is the duty of a state, regardless of its own interests, to protect the freedom of another state, especially if the inhabitants of the latter are of kindred race to themselves.”[118]
Patriotism often rests upon the belief in the value of the country’s civilization. The civilization of a country is its art, culture, customs, and in general its way of living. It is its kultur. Loisy speaks for France, “... though we do not brag of our culture, we are sure that the ruin of France would be no gain to civilization.... We are safeguarding a notable portion of our human inheritance from the madness of the destroyer.”[119] Sometimes the element of the civilization cherished most is that of religion. The Jewish patriotism was an example of this. Sometimes there is a belief that one’s own nation has a way of doing things better than others. Germany is an example. At other times, pride is founded upon the greatness of one’s institutions. The English and Americans feel such pride. Sometimes patriotism waxes enthusiastic over economic accomplishment. The following is an expression of patriotism which, while it will no doubt be astonishing to most people, nevertheless seems to be sincere: “It is an element of patriotism to reverence the successful business man of America, and Our Nation must request and heed the advice and admonitions of men experienced in affairs.”[120] The context shows that the author likes the status quo of industry and wealth, and wants more of the same thing.
Each state group has its own history, and is convinced that it makes its own contribution to the world’s civilization. The patriot applies to his own country the spirit that was expressed by Mazzini: “Every people has its special mission, which will coöperate towards the fulfillment of the general mission of Humanity. That mission constitutes its nationality. Nationality is sacred.”[121] The sense of having a mission possessed Israel; it possesses Germany; it possesses America. Longfellow wrote to America,
“Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate.”[122]
In fact, the number of the civilizing missions that the world is favored with is identically equal to the number of countries that have each a national consciousness. The consciousness of being the anointed one sometimes strikes the level of the ludicrous. The following is not an example,—for the New Englander: “As from the first to this day, let New England continue to be an example to the world of the blessings of free government, and of the means and capacity of men to maintain it. And in all times to come, as in all times past, may Boston be among the foremost and boldest to exemplify and uphold whatever constitutes the prosperity, the happiness, and the glory of New England.”[123]
The patriotism that justifies itself with the reason that the country is an intrinsic value often expresses itself in a desire for a better country. Patriotism is not exclusively love of country just as it is. It is love of an ideal country. The actual country becomes a subject of criticism. Literary men have often satirized their country at the same time that they loved it. And the criticism may be all the more bitter because the love is great. The country’s shortcomings are felt by those who love it the most. The following lines inflict the faithful wound of a true patriot:
“The ever-lustrous name of patriot
To no man may be denied because he saw
Where in his country’s wholeness lay the flaw,
Where, on her whiteness, the unseemly blot.
England! thy loyal sons condemn thee.—What!
Shall we be meek who from thine own breasts draw
Our fierceness? Not ev’n thou shalt overawe
Us, thy proud children nowise basely got.
Be this the measure of our loyalty—
To feel thee noble and weep thy lapse the more.
This truth by thy true servants is confess’d—
Thy sins, who love thee most, do most deplore.
Know thou thy faithful! Best they honour thee
Who honour in thee only what is best.”[124]
Patriotism consequently does not mean blind devotion to country, right or wrong. And the plain fact is that there actually are patriots who do not conceive that devotion to country must be consistent even at the expense of one’s moral convictions. Loyalty to country with them does not set aside loyalty to the moral law. The following lines are taken from an essay commendatory to patriotism: “Let patriotism wholly conform itself to the moral law; let it judge all things, national as well as individual, by the unalterable, supreme, standard of right and wrong; let it sanction no blind following of the flag, nor any unethical exalting of the country’s dominance above the country’s righteousness; let it reject the notion that because war has been declared, patriots must enlist; let it repudiate the idea that because a war has been begun, it must be allowed to end only when victory has been secured;—and there will not only be fewer wars, but also, on one side at least, wars more in keeping with justice and truth.”[125] The author is a patriot, but his patriotism is directed by a high ethical ideal.
It follows that patriotism is not inextricably bound up with jingoism. Patriotism is not exclusively a war-time virtue. In truth pacifists may well assert, and do sometimes, that they are patriots, and differ from other patriots only in the way in which they show their patriotism. There are uses for the patriot in time of peace as well as in time of war. A practical statesman in a patriotic address has said, “We need men who will not only be ready to sacrifice for their country in time of war, but who will not be a menace to it in time of peace! We want patriots in finance. We want patriotism in the organization of corporations. We want patriots in the conduct of public utilities. We want patriots in rendering loyal obedience to the law.”[126] Washington, who was a patriot in war, preferred peace, and was a patriot in peace as well as in war. When he was about to resign his commission as commander-in-chief of the army, he wrote his “Letter to the Governors” in which he made suggestions for putting the Federal Government on a right basis. His “Farewell Address” was characterized by paternal solicitude for the future of his country. On both occasions Washington, first in peace as well as in war, expressed what was a true spirit of patriotism.
The patriotism that looks within the country demands public spirit. It calls for unselfishness on the part of the individual and devotion to the betterment of the country. J. S. Mill’s Autobiography shows in its pages that Mill was actuated in his work by an unselfish and devoted public spirit. High-minded patriots demand everyday devotion to the country. Bosanquet tells us what patriotism means to him. He says: “In their patriotism, their feeling for the community, Hegel tells us, people are apt to follow their custom of being generous before they are just, and excuse themselves by a potential romantic magnanimity for a lack of prosaic everyday loyalty to the commonwealth. But it is this latter, the sense of daily duty, which is real patriotism—the foundation and seed-plot of the former.”[127]
This public spirit means, for one thing, that the individual himself be a good citizen. “... Patriotism demands that, in ourselves, we be good and true. The country’s worthy citizen must be personally worthy,—emulous of culture, devoted to virtue. No man personally dishonorable, can be patriotic in the highest degree.”[128] It means, for another thing, that a man shall be interested in the welfare of the people of his country. Although an enthusiasm for the people sometimes weakens nationalistic feeling, as in the case of Tolstoy, nevertheless patriotism often derives great strength from humanitarian sympathy. This sympathy shows itself nowadays in the desire for a greater measure of justice in the relations between the classes. In a patriotic address, John Grier Hibben says: “In the throes of its new birth the world today needs a new industrial conscience, a new sense of social responsibility, a new standard of national integrity. We must realize that the strength of a nation lies ultimately not in its natural resources, or in its method of efficiency, or in its numerical superiority, or in its army, or navy, but in its moral and spiritual vigor.”[129] Even J. M. Robertson, who on the whole thinks that patriotism is a bad thing, has for the nation an ideal of “scientific social development.”[130] It is easy to see in his book that he has a large sympathy with “the people” not only of other countries, but also of his own. That is his patriotism. The International Reform Bureau published a book entitled “Patriotic Studies.” And it was not, as one might suppose, a series of learned articles on the subject of Patriotism. It was a compilation of Congressional documents of the years 1888-1905 for the study of public questions. The questions treated in this volume were the following: “1. Moral and Social Functions of Education. 2. Municipal Reform. 3. Immigration. 4. The Lord’s Day and the Rest Day. 5. The Labor Problem. 6. The Family. 7. National Reforms. 8. Amusements, With Special Reference to Purity. 9. Gambling. 10. Prevention and Punishment of Crime. 11. The Liquor Problem. 12. The New Charity.”[131] All this was considered by an International Bureau of Reform to be “patriotic studies.” Patriotism then, reveals itself in the doing of those things that aim at the true welfare of mankind within a country. And such activities are patriotism. “In the peace movement, the temperance reform, the judicious and practicable schemes for the abolition of bondage, the attempts to discover a more Christian organization of society;—in every association and all efforts that seek the highest welfare of man, and prepare the way for his free culture and rightful enjoyment, as a creature of God, the American idea justifies itself and culminates; and by strengthening this tendency, and only thus can Patriotism be faithful to its law, and vindicate its nature.”[132]
It is quite consistent with patriotism that the country should be cherished as the servant of humanity. The ideal of service sometimes becomes a reason for patriotism. Mazzini’s[133] patriotism was of this kind. His ideal was that a nation should claim not its own aggrandizement, but its right to serve humanity as a distinct group. This kind of patriotism is that which Royce would recommend as an example of the best loyalty. “Enlightened loyalty takes no delight in great armies or in great navies for their own sake. If it consents to them, it views them merely as transiently necessary calamities. It has no joy in national prowess, except in so far as that prowess means a furtherance of universal loyalty. ... We want loyalty to loyalty taught by helping many people to be loyal to their own special causes, and by showing them that loyalty is a precious common human good, and that it can never be a good to harm any man’s loyalty except solely in necessary defense of our own loyalty. ... And so, a cause is good, not only for me, but for mankind, in so far as it is essentially a loyalty to loyalty, that is, is an aid and a furtherance of loyalty in my fellows.”[134] And Royce, in his last book, made the application to patriotism: “Let us, with all our might, with whatever moral influence we possess, with our own honor, with our lives if necessary, be ready, if ever and whenever the call comes to our people, to sacrifice for mankind as Belgium has sacrificed; to hazard all, as Belgium has hazarded all, for the truer union of mankind and for the future of human brotherhood”.[135] The truest patriot, from this point of view, will be the man whose insight will reveal to him what his nation can most naturally and best do for humanity, and who uses his powers to win the devotion of the nation to the ideal of performing that service.
What conclusions now are yielded by the bearings of the reasons of patriotism? Is patriotism either justified or discredited by them? Once more it is apparent that no ground has been reached upon which alone to base a general judgment. To begin with, no reason simply as such is either good or bad; some of the reasons of patriotism are good and some are evil. Moreover, these beliefs are often based merely upon impulse and regimentation. There is “instinctive inference as well as ... instinctive impulse.”[136] One will hunt reasons for what he believes; many of his reasons are simply after-thoughts. And sometimes beliefs are not as accurate as instincts and habits. A man’s feelings may often have more meaning than his beliefs. So the fact that a thing appears to be reasoned does not necessarily make it reasonable.
The reasons found in patriotism are another element adding to its complexity. And the complexity is all the more involved because impulses and habits have remained in patriotism along with reasons. Patriotism is composed of all three,—impulses, habits, and reasons. The nature of patriotism will have to be found in a concept that unifies all these elements, and its ethical value can be clearly assessed only in the light of that concept. Therefore, the nature and value of patriotism will be the objects of attention in the remaining chapters.