These observations throw light upon the question whether patriotism is a political or national emotion. Is patriotism attachment to the government or state, or is it love of one’s national group? There can be no doubt that it is the latter rather than the former. It is an outgrowth of tribal feeling. Bertrand Russell is only overstating a truth when he says that “Tribal feeling, which always underlay loyalty to the sovereign, has remained as strong as it ever was, and is now the chief support for the power of the State.”[10]
There is an egoistic element in the attachment of patriotism. It is an adhesion to one’s own, and one’s own is but an extension of himself. Patriotism is a personal matter. That is, it is based upon a personal relationship. One cleaves to his group not on account of its intrinsic worth simply but because of what it is worth to him. The majority of men are most loyal to what is nearest themselves. Each one of them seems to himself to be the center of his sphere, and things vary in importance in direct ratio to their nearness to the center. This fact gives the key to a very common kind of patriotism. It is simply the loyalty that men feel to the extension of their own ego.
“One’s own” includes the people of his group, i. e., the people who are most like himself. These people share many things in common with himself. They have similar habits and customs, and all this conduces to render them one’s own. “One’s own” also includes the soil. It is that which is beneath one’s very feet; it sustains one; it nourishes one. Furthermore, one knows it as he cannot know any strange land, and as no stranger can know his land. He lives in it throughout the whole year, and knows it intimately in all its peculiarities and changing moods. Consequently, his patriotism has in it a love of the “land where his fathers died.” Virgil understood the meaning of this love of the soil. He himself felt it keenly, and because of it refused to accept the old home estate of a Roman sent into exile. It was characteristic that he made Æneas lament Troy even when he was going out to establish Rome itself. It was because of this understanding, in part at least, that he was led to urge the Romans to get back to the soil, realizing that from a love of the soil to a love of our soil is but a step.[11]
However, what one has been used to should not be taken as the only kind of the patriotism of attachment that there is. If adhesion to one’s own could not be overcome, loyalty to one’s earliest home would quite uniformly be stronger than patriotism. But sometimes one begins to feel that his childhood was spent in cramped quarters, and that his early opinions were inadequate. The emotion that he may be very likely to feel under such conditions is not that of affection but that of contempt and disgust. Quite often when there is a conflict between loyalty to the nation and loyalty to the community, loyalty to the nation proves the stronger. Another indication that men are not inseparably bound to what they have been used to is that they change their nation, adopt another country, and side with it even against the country of their birth. Some time ago there appeared in one of the large newspapers a letter from a naturalized German in which was this sentence: “Perhaps you would appreciate your American citizenship better if, like me, you had been born and brought up in Germany.”[12]
A reason for this attachment to one’s own is the impulse which impels one to want to feel at home in his world. It is an impulse which craves order; and it shows itself in a desire for a unified world. There seems to be an esthetic element in it; the normal mind with a sense of beauty cannot endure chaos. It represents a rational demand; it is, for instance, a driving force in philosophy. It finds another root in the desire for safety. One wants a friendly world in which he feels sure of himself and where he can live freely without being troubled by the strange or unknown. Now one’s country presents a world that he knows and can find his way in; consequently, it satisfies this demand for a unified world organized about one’s own life, and by virtue of this character it is able to furnish an additional item in the stimuli to patriotism.
Man is attached to his country very much as he is attached to himself; he could not very well help the one any more than he could help the other. But what is in one way a mere expression of egoism becomes also an affection. Unless there is some special reason for the contrary, one is likely to cherish a real affection for that with which he has long been associated, and especially so, if it has been of use to him. This fact gives justification for the popular definition of patriotism as “the love of country.” This affection even may be selfish, but it may also take on a more altruistic character. Altruism naturally and perforce develops in a gregarious society. And, moreover, the parental instinct adds its strength. The protection of the home is a strong sentiment in patriotism. And the tender emotion of the parental instinct may be extended to others besides offspring. Patriotism gets colored by it, and becomes very much like it. McDougall says that, “Like the fully developed parental sentiment, the patriotism of many men is a fusion of this quasi-altruistic extension of the self-regarding sentiment with the truly altruistic sentiment of love.”[13] Patriotism is, then, in part egoistic and in part altruistic. In a nation beset with enemies it will indeed take the form of animosity toward the enemy, but in a prosperous nation will direct itself very frequently to internal improvement. And it may be said that it retains something of altruism as well as egoism even in war. It is, even while being combative towards the out-group, altruistic towards the in-group.[14]
The spirit of attachment in patriotism may even go so far as to become a worship. Religious impulse has frequently been an element in patriotism. Religion and patriotism were almost the same thing in Israel. But there are modern parallels. A clergyman not long ago was reported to have said that the men who died upon the field of battle (he was thinking of men of his own nation) would straightway reach heaven, since they had died for their fellow men. It is evident that being a patriot held something of a religious fervor for that clergyman. Probably the Kaiser feels a religious exaltation which sustains him in the belief that he is the instrument of God.
Alfred Loisy[15] opposes Christianity and patriotism to one another, much to the credit of patriotism. According to Loisy, the teachings of Christianity and patriotism are incompatible, and those of Christianity are quite inadequate for the present crisis. Therefore patriotism is much nobler and not only should but will supplant Christianity. The only living faith, so he says, is that of devotion to one’s country. For that men will sacrifice. “Certainly,” says Loisy, “it is an august life for which a man will sacrifice his own without grudging it; but it is not for a blessed immortality in the company of Christ and the saints; it is for the life of the country.”[16] This account of what Loisy says is set down here not so much because it gives an idea of patriotism, but because through it Loisy passionately expresses his own ideal. In his book there breathes a most intense love for France. This love, he says, is the absorbing passion of the people of France, and is what unites them. Again we quote his own words: “There are a faith and love in which it [the army] is unanimous [as against the lack of unanimity in Christianity]: the love of our country, and an imperishable belief in her future; over these sentiments, all are in communion, and the whole country agrees with the army. Here is our common religion: one which has no unbelievers; in which those who are faithful to the old creed may fraternize indiscriminately with the adherents of the newer principles.... Differences [of religion] count no longer in face of the absorbing interest, the burning passion, the true religion, both of this and of every moment, namely devotion to the immortality of France.”[17] “So long as we live, we are determined to live in our own way; and that which gives us our vigour now against the invader is neither a lust of conquest, nor the hate which an unjust, cruel, and fanatical enemy deserves, but the love of our ancient France, who is our all, whom we yearn to preserve, and whom we are vowed to save.”[18] Here is a devotion which amounts to a religion, and it furnishes an example of the working of the religious impulse in patriotism.
It is not yet time to draw final conclusions, but it is not out of place to note in passing that patriotism was not condemned by its egoistic ingredients, and is not now justified by its elements of altruism. Viewed as a religion, one may say that it is too likely to become fanatical. The willingness to die upon the battlefield, rather than goodness, becomes the final test of the desirable citizen. Moreover, the injury worked upon others is apt to be overlooked. As a religion, patriotism has the strength, but not the necessary universality. What it does is wrongly to elevate a good to the standard of the Good.