perhaps have agreed to. That standing armies are likely to increase seems probable. What we have to say, on the other hand, is, that wars need not necessarily increase in proportion, and that the training of a soldier may prove a valuable adjunct to the primary school. That cities will increase more and more upon country districts seems inevitable; and it has to be admitted that the life of the poor in an overgrown town is stunted and etiolated: neither physically sound nor morally complete. On the other hand, science and State Socialism may gradually improve the condition of the dweller in towns, and the reaction against town life may lead to changes that will make existence in the country more tolerable. That nations will plunge deeper and deeper into indebtedness as the State becomes more and more industrial seems not unlikely. The worst to be apprehended from this will be its effect upon national character. Whether we are changing in the direction of a higher or of a lower morality is, therefore, the point that is most really at issue.

CHAPTER IV

SOME ADVANTAGES OF AN ENHANCED NATIONAL FEELING

The future of society depends very much on the perpetuity of national feeling. Patriotism is generally regarded as an accidental and not very high altruism.-In antiquity it was largely alloyed with self-interest and the municipal feeling.-Patriotism is now the filial feeling to a mother country; the acknowledgment that we owe duties to our fellow-men, and cannot adequately perform them to the human race.- -A nation from its richer memories and larger life ought to command more devoted allegiance than a city. —The rival feeling of personal loyalty is now disappearing, and need not be regretted.-The Church has incidentally done good work for society in vindicating the limits within which thought and morals ought to be independent of the State. On the other hand, the attempt of the State to force morality upon the immoral will was never more than partially successful, and ended by provoking general revolt.-The State, which restrains immorality only when it becomes dangerous to society, has practically done more than the Church to enforce the moral law.— Sacrilege has ceased since it has been treated only as a secular offence. The substitution of restraint by moderate laws and public opinion for ecclesiastical censures and punishments has not been visibly unfavourable to sexual purity.—The hypocritical formalism of modern society is not so dangerous to individuality as pressure by a Church inquisition. Moreover, under the Church rich offenders escaped, and these are now the most severely restrained.—The Church relieved poverty in a casual and ineffective way, and from a wrong motive, the idea that the alms-giver would be benefited. The State relieves it in a way better calculated to preserve self-respect in the poor, and from the higher motive, that every member of the community who will work is entitled to live. Both systems have been only partially effective; but the Church system was a complete failure, while the State system,

under all disadvantages, has reduced pauperism till it is a comparatively small feature of society.—Though the Church has in some respects and in some times and places mitigated slavery, slave emancipation has been a triumph of secular statesmanship. -The Medieval Church has been overpraised for its services to learning. Its real object always was to save the soul, not to inform the mind. -The great extension of primary education in modern times is an achievement of secular statesmanship, and has been repeatedly and violently opposed by the Churches.-The State has superseded the Church in its hold on popular imagination by the great benefits it assures its members.-In some instances the morality of the State is higher than that of the Churches; for instance, in the treatment of women and children and dumb animals.-The feeling of the industrial classes for industrial organisations is not likely to supersede national feeling, and industry is likely to be restricted within national limits. The nation is bound to remain the unit of political society, because the interests and feelings of different races and countries are too discordant to be harmonised under a central Government. The modern State does incomparably more for men and women than ancient forms of society attempted, and ought to inspire deeper reverence and love.—In return for its services it is entitled to demand a more complete surrender of selfish personal interests.

THE argument thus far has attempted to show that what we now call the higher races will not only not spread over the world, but are likely to be restricted to a portion only of the countries lying in the Temperate Zone; that under the pressure which will be increasingly felt as outlets to trade and energy are closed, State Socialism will be resorted to as the most effective means of securing labour from want; that great armies will need to be maintained; that the population of cities will grow in number year by year; and that in proportion as the State's sphere of activity is increased will the indebtedness of the State increase also in every civilised country. Whether this condition of things will be good, tolerable, or bad, must depend very much on the spirit in which the community takes it. If we

compare the description in Thucydides of the state of Athens during the Peloponnesian war and that in Synesius of a Roman provincial city, surrounded and sometimes blockaded by barbarians, we shall see that the great difference lies in the temper of the men rather than in the circumstances of the time.1 If the people of Athens had not been quickened with the inspiration of empire, if they had stooped to count heads or ships, they would have acquiesced in the secondary place which was all their leading families were disposed to claim for them. As it was, they staked their existence upon a splendid adventure, and, though they eventually failed, crowded centuries of glorious life into the achievements of two generations. Had the people of Ptolemais been led and inspired as the Athenians were, they might have made their city a stronghold of civilisation; and what is true of Ptolemais is true, of course, in a much higher degree of the Roman Empire. It fell to pieces, not because its administrators were always inefficient, or its armies weak, or its finances and mechanical resources inferior to those of the nations which overpowered it, but because there was really no sense of national life in the community. Unless the general feeling in a people is to regard individual existence and fortunes as of no practical account in comparison with the existence and self-respect of the body politic, the

1 Synesius, Epistolae, civ. It may be admitted that Ptolemais was never as populous as Athens in its best days, though Procopius speaks of the African town as having been anciently prosperous and wellpeopled (De Aedif. vi. 2); but if Athens was the more powerful, it was assailed by more formidable enemies. The great difference is the measureless inferiority of the Roman governor of Ptolemais, Phryx Johannes, to Pericles.

disintegrating forces of time will always be stronger in the long run than any given organisation.

Now patriotism, or the readiness to make sacrifices for fatherland, is a very peculiar virtue. It is generally treated as a mere phase of altruism, and is more praised by poets and orators than taken into account by moralists. For instance, Kant strikes at the root of patriotism by denying that the country has any original and natural right to claim obedience from its citizens,1 and theologians and writers on ethics commonly hold that patriotism is dangerously apt to be a misleading force, diverting men from their obedience to a higher law, such as the recognition of Papal authority, or of the supreme dictates of morality. Mr. Lowell-surely a patriot of very rare and high type-has laid it down that our true country is that ideal realm which we represent to ourselves under the names of religion, duty, and the like. Mr. Lowell adds: "That it is an abuse of language to call a certain portion of land,

1 Kant no doubt conditions this principle by saying that the independence of other men, which is inalienable to humanity, must not be exercised so as to encroach on the independence of others (RechtsLehre, Band iii. SS. 38, 39). At the same time he recognises the right of the citizen to emigrate: "Der Unterthan (auch als Bürger betrachtet) hat das Recht der Auswanderung," Band iii. S. 174. Mr. Sidgwick observes, "the duties of patriotism are difficult to formulate," and goes on to remark, that "whether a citizen is at any time morally bound to more than certain legally or constitutionally determined duties does not now seem to be clear; nor, again, whether he can rightfully abrogate these altogether by voluntary expatriation" (The Methods of Ethics, pp. 223, 224). The question is certainly not a simple one; but if thousands of citizens, who have supported a policy of lavish expenditure, leave the country when the burden of taxation becomes unpleasant, the very existence of the State may be threatened. moralist will defend this extreme case; but is there no duty upon the sons of men who ran into debt for the general good, as they not unreasonably conceived it, to take the consequences of their fathers' mistakes upon themselves?

No