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.
PART IV
THE NATURE AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM
CHAPTER VIII
The Will to National Individuality
Patriotism is a complex sentiment. It grows out of a great variety of roots and reasons, and finds expression in many forms. In the preceding parts of this treatise these foundations and expressions of patriotism have been dealt with. They throw light upon the questions of why patriotism is and why it is what it is. It remains for patriotism to be defined.
No one of the many causes or appearances of the sentiment adequately defines it. Those who fix upon some one impulse, habit, or reason, and try to fit all the facts of patriotism into that, oversimplify the situation. They leave out essential features. This would hold true of J. M. Robertson,[137] who makes patriotism to consist of the impulses of fear and hatred. There are important kinds of patriotism, directed toward the internal improvement of the country for instance, which cannot be so classified. If one followed the clue of Trotter,[138] he would explain the phenomenon as the result of the herd instinct. But patriotism is not purely instinctive. Veblen[139] would lead one to make the economic motive and the impulse of rivalry or emulation prominent. But patriotism is something more than a contest and a contest, too, which is mainly for material goods. Loisy[140] would make patriotism a worthy religion, and recommend it as such. But the love of country does not always attain the dignity that it has in Loisy. Powers[141] makes men’s interest in their civilization the root of their patriotism. But he opens his book with the recognition that men do fight over material things. None of these accounts can be used as an adequate basis from which to define and present the central concept of patriotism.