As a fourth of these general changes favorable to the prospect of enduring peace, I would reckon the diffusion of organizing capacity among the people, not only by education and political democracy, but quite as much through economic experience. The administration of business in its innumerable branches and the participation in labor-unions and other economic groups have developed on a great scale that power of the individual to understand and create social machinery which is essential to any well-knit organization. The industrial nations, at least, are equipped with all kinds and degrees of organizing ability, and if they do not organize peace it will be because they do not want to.
The changes I have mentioned may all be summed up in the statement that the world has been taking on a larger and higher organization, which now demands expression in the international sphere. There is no doubt of the preparation, and the time seems fully ripe for achievement.
And, finally, we have the lessons of the Great War. I am far from presuming to expound these, but it is certain that there is scarcely anything in the way of social ideas and institutions that has not been tested and developed. We know the extent and disaster of modern war as we could not before, and a fierce light has been cast upon all its antecedents.
We hold that the war must establish at least one great principle, fundamental to any tolerable plan of peace, namely, that no nation, however powerful, can hope to thrive by power alone, without the good-will of its neighbors. From this point of view the main purpose of the war is to vindicate the moral unity of mankind against self-assertion. We are resolved that it shall register the defeat of self-sufficiency and domination, and so point the way to an international group within which national struggle can go on under general control.
Assuming that the general conditions have become favorable, I wish further to inquire whether it is reasonable to expect that a society of nations may be formed upon the same principles that we rely upon in the association of individuals. How far is a group of nations like a group of persons? Can we anticipate that the members will be guided, for better or worse, by the ordinary impulses of human nature, or must we have a new psychology for them?
Whether the behavior of a social whole will be personal or not depends upon whether the members identify themselves heartily with it. If they do, then, in times of aroused feeling, those sentiments and passions which are similar in all men and are easily communicated will inflame the whole group and be expressed in its behavior. It will act personally in the sense that it is ruled by the live impulses of human nature and not by mere routine or special interest. Most groups are far from answering to this description, which, as a rule, applies only to those that are small and intimate, like the family. But the case of the nation is peculiar, since it is known to evoke the emotion of patriotism, which has a special power to draw into itself the whole force of personality.
The psychological background of patriotism I take to be the need of human nature to escape from the limitations of individuality and to immerse the spirit in something felt to be larger, nobler, and more enduring. This need is expressed also in devotion to leaders, like Napoleon or Garibaldi; in the passion for causes, like socialism and the labor movement, and in many forms of religious service. Its main object in our time, however, is one’s country; and it is because of the wholeness with which men put themselves into it that a nation comes to have a collective self in which such sentiments as pride, resentment, and aspiration are fully alive. A self-conscious nation is a true socius, and consequently may unite with others in a social and moral group. The whole doctrine of international relations might well start from this point, that the units with which we deal are truly human and not mere corporations or sovereignties.
It is true that their relations have been mostly selfish or hostile in the past, but this is true also of persons except in so far as, by working together, they have acquired habits and sentiments of co-operation. And nations, even in their conflicts, confess their unity by seeking one another’s admiration. Each wants to distinguish itself in the eyes of the international audience, and war itself is waged largely from this motive. We wish our country to be glorious, to excel in the world-game; and the fact that the game is destructive does not destroy the social character of the impulse. If this were not present, we should not find our leaders instigating us by appeals to national honor, resentment, and pride. Perhaps there is no better proof of the personal nature of national feeling than the large part which “insults” play in arousing it. An entity that can be insulted is essentially human.
If the national spirit is truly human and social it should be capable of a moral development and of participating in a moral order similar to that which prevails in personal relations. And perhaps the surest proof that international social control is possible is that nations have shown themselves capable of feeling and acting upon a sympathetic indignation at aggression upon other nations, as in the case of Belgium. Such indignation is in all societies the most active impulse making for the enforcement of justice. There is an incredible doctrine taught by some writers that the national self can feel greed and hate, but cannot rise to justice, friendship, and magnanimity. Why should its human nature be so one-sided? Is it not quite conceivable that we might come to demand an even higher standard of honor and conduct from our country than we do from ourselves, because the idea of country, like the idea of God, is the symbol of a higher kind of life? The gods have been in the mud too, and as they have risen from it to an ethical plane we may hope the same of the nations.
If this view is sound, it follows that if we can change the ruling ideal so that nations come to admire one another for being righteous, magnanimous, and just, as well as strong and successful, we shall find them as eager to live up to this ideal as they now are to conform to a lower one. It is all a matter of the standards of the group.