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.