In other words, the same principles of justice and liberty that must guide within the nation must also be normative of the relations between states. The integration of a nation is one of will, and, moreover, one of good will. The same thing can be said of a world organization. The permanent integration of the world will have to be upon the basis of good will. And that cannot have been accomplished where a great many apparently within the fold are not in it at heart. Peace wouldn’t necessarily mean good will or true integration. If, for instance, we voluntarily surrendered to Germany, as the pacifists sometimes urge, and showed good will on our part, that wouldn’t necessarily call forth the same spirit on the part of Germany. Their spirit might simply be that of exaggerated egoism. But on the other hand, will it make for good will to go on fighting Germany? In the long run, it seems to be the way that is necessary to follow in order to bring her to a frame of mind where she can be coöperated with.
It is therefore not completely out of harmony with the cause of world coöperation that a state should sometimes go to war. And the nation itself has rights and duties. It would not be any more morally good for a country to consent to its extinction or the serious crippling of its individuality than it would be for the human individual to commit suicide or incapacitate himself. The state fights for its individuality, and individuality is a thing worth fighting for. It is right that each individual nation should have the privilege of living a life of its own, that is, as long as it does not forfeit its privilege by ignoring the rights of others.
The recognition of the tendencies and power of patriotism shut one up to the conclusion that a world organization will have to be established along the lines of internationalism rather than those of cosmopolitanism. Each group has its own consciousness which will have to be taken into account. Wallas says that, “In England the ‘particularism’ of trades and professions and the racial feeling of Wales and Ulster, of Scotland or Catholic Ireland, seem to be growing stronger and not weaker.”[193] It will be the same with patriotism in a world organization. The successful line of development in world organization seems to be one in which the preceding stages are not wiped out, but are preserved and made the basis of a new integration. Therefore, it seems as if the next larger grouping or groupings of men will have to be joined onto nationalism. Sumner stated a truth when he said, “... changes which run with the mores are easily brought about, but ... changes which are opposed to the mores require long and patient effort, if they are possible at all.”[194] If a reform is to be made in the direction of a world integration, it will, if it wishes to succeed, have to be joined onto patriotism.
But there are reasons why it is better that we should develop into internationalism rather than cosmopolitanism. The latter contains fundamental dangers. It makes too much for detachment, aloofness, and selfishness. The Stoics were an example of how cosmopolitanism passed into those things. The eighteenth century was an “age of Reason” which tended towards cosmopolitanism, and it was a cosmopolitanism which though enlightened was chill and abstract. Cosmopolitanism tends to reduce all life to a mediocre type. This danger is well pointed out in the following words: “I believe largely in the comparative permanence of what we call racial characteristics; I sincerely hope they will not be merged into a common humanity.... Nearly every group of peoples has developed its own mentality, its own psychology, ideas and ideals. We need to preserve the difference between those ideas and ideals. If you merge them, you get a common—a very common—humanity. All progress takes place in the reaction between extremes. All philosophy has arisen from a mixture of races which brought to one another different ideas and ideals.”[195] The condition of progress is the preservation of national characteristics. But, what is even more important, there are in cosmopolitanism grave moral dangers involved. G. F. Barbour says: “The great meeting-places where the currents of Oriental and Occidental life have come together have indeed produced a vivid and brilliant type of life, but hardly one that has been morally stable and sound.”[196] Each side finds it easy to adopt the vices of the other, but not the virtues, and both sides are liable to become superficial. The brilliant but shallow and immoral life of Corinth in the days of Paul offers an example.
The problem at the present time is to federate groups. Individuals have already become unified. But what sets the problem gives rise also to a hope. The existence of groups will prove an aid in the accomplishment of world unification. And the wise humanitarian will work through the groups that already exist, that is, countries.
World cosmopolitanism would, at least at present, leave the individual cold; he could not comprehend it, and could not be intelligently loyal to it. Hence, in order to get effective sympathy and action among men, there must exist a group of the size and meaning that is able to appeal to the individual. There must be aroused something like what Royce called “provincialism.” Provincialism might be interpreted in one way as loyalty to that integration of men whose individuality expressed the individuality of oneself. And from it will be derived dynamic for humanitarianism. Royce said that, “... philanthropy that is not founded upon a personal loyalty of the individual to his own family and to his own personal duties is notoriously a worthless abstraction.”[197] And the application was that “the province will not serve the nation best by forgetting itself, but by loyally emphasizing its own duty to the nation and therefore its right to attain and to cultivate its own unique wisdom.”[198] Therefore Royce said that, “Every one ... ought, ideally speaking, to be provincial,—and that no matter how cultivated, or humanitarian, or universal in purpose or in experience he may be or may become.”[199] Provincialism did not mean exclusiveness or jealousy. To Royce, “... our province, like our own individuality, ought to be to all of us rather an ideal than a mere boast.... The better aspect of our provincial consciousness is always its longing for the improvement of the community.”[200] But the point is that the spirit of provincialism is a useful force in securing the attachment of men. And the clue that one finds in it is that the best way to get a world integration is to do it by the federation of nationalities. The organization of patriotic loyalties would secure an integration that would hang together. Under such an arrangement, the patriot would contribute strength to internationalism by his very attachment and loyalty to his own nation. Nationalism would thus become a spur to a wider humanitarian impulse. And patriotism can, if properly educated, be counted upon to support international government. The patriot himself will develop an insistent demand for internationalism when he once clearly sees, what is true, that the individuality of his own nation is best realized in a community of nations where legitimate national differences are synthesized in justice.
This program of the unification of nationalities is to be taken seriously. Emphasis must be laid not only on nationality but also upon unification. The patriot must really recognize that he has another loyalty than that to country, namely, that to internationalism. It is plain that improvements can be made upon the present world order, and the most important thing to do is to work towards some kind of arrangement whereby national disputes can be settled according to international law, and the peace can be kept at the same time that justice is done. As a matter of fact, most thoughtful individuals do long for some kind of internationalism at the same time that they are patriotic. In a situation like the present many are torn by a conflict between loyalty to humanitarianism on the one hand and patriotism on the other. And it is a situation with which the individual cannot deal satisfactorily alone. There must be an end put to the system which makes such conflicts possible. But one must remember also that the nation is just about as helpless as the individual. The nation, too, is faced with a conflict of loyalties which it cannot by itself solve. The rescue must come out of a concerted action of nations. The situation must be dealt with in the very beginning by an international act. It is not to be expected that any one country can deal adequately with the present world problems. The disarmament or non-resistance of any one nation will not be a solution, and it seems unreasonable for any one to counsel his own country to take any such action. However, we must relate our patriotism to internationalism. “We must keep patriotism, and yet go beyond it, if we are to save what is best in patriotism itself, just as for the sake of religion, religious men had to go beyond their own willingness to die for their own faith. Toleration demanded not irreligion, but a better religion, and we might have a better patriotism if we could remember that we are also citizens of the world.”[201] The nations must be in some respects like the planets in the system of the universe. The planets have each a free swing in their own orbits, but they do not collide. Each helps to hold all the rest in place, and together they all form one system. We all have, at the present time, in addition to the duty of winning the war, the further obligation of working for permanent conditions of peace. We may fairly claim that we have inherited this war and are not really responsible for it, but if we do not discharge our international duties both now and when the conditions of peace are being planned at the end of this present conflict, we shall be responsible for the next war.
It is a reassuring fact to the internationalist at the same time that it is a justification for the continued existence of patriotism that there actually have been and are tendencies making not only for closer relations between nations, but also for the moralizing of those relations.[202] In material things countries have been drawn closer and closer together. They are not economic wholes. They are debtors and creditors of one another. They do not keep improved methods of industry in the country where they originated; even improved methods of war have not been so restricted. And they are interdependent in non-material things. Physicians and surgeons do not hide their ideas within their own group. And art and science, of course, have long been ties that have bound together associations of the citizens of diverse countries. There is, in short, a wide unofficial intercourse between the citizens of different countries, a fact which leads Burns to exclaim, “Nor will even diplomatic subtleties be able to keep us back: for trust between the citizens of diverse states is trust between the states, and the official governments will soon have to submit to the new situation.”[203] But states as such consider themselves to be in moral relations with one another. What else can it mean that they have foreign secretaries, and employ an extensive diplomatic service which does a continuous business; that they have been increasingly taking common action for the control of disease or the management of postal and telegraphic communication; that they have been more and more concluding such peace treaties as exist, for instance, between England and the United States?[204]
The present war even is proving that the nations of the world are closely interrelated. The struggle is world-wide, and it could not have assumed such tremendous proportions were not every part of the world in close touch with all the rest. And it is significant that the contestants are alliances. Lippman well remarks: “The process of fusion has gone so far that war itself has ceased to be a national enterprise.”[205] The existence of alliance is portentous of the relations of the future. It will do something towards creating a feeling of sympathy between the citizens of the allied countries, and it will show that the nations can work together. And if they can coöperate in war, it ought to be fairly easy for them to draw the conclusion that they can act together in peace. Moreover, if the Allies win the present war, the peace that will result will be representative of the interests of a large group of very different peoples. It is encouraging, too, in the attitude of at least one nation that President Wilson, at the very time when he went to war, declared for a league of nations. We should do well to remind ourselves that one form of patriotism finds its satisfaction in its country as a good neighbor and a servant of humanity.
The observation of moral relations as expressed in the “rules of war” has received a jolt in this present conflict. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the morality of nations is smashed. The essential moral temper of the world is shown by the horror that has been manifested at the atrocities that have been committed. And, moreover, every belligerent nation has been eager to justify itself before the world. That in itself is an indication that a world sentiment has been formed on the conduct of nations in the declaring and waging of war. A century ago militarists did not need to bother themselves much about the world’s opinion. The moral relationships of states in war is further illustrated by the fact that we even hear what is officially announced in the war bulletins of our enemies, and that we send word to them upon questions in which they still have a common interest with ourselves.[206] In view of all these facts it may well be asked what forces are doing any better in the direction of a broader integration of mankind than the several countries and the patriotic citizens of those countries.