[148] Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, i. 540. Spiegel, Erânische Alterthumskunde, iii. 687 sqq.
[149] Polak, Persien, i. 12. Urquhart, Spirit of the East, ii. 427, 439 (Turks). Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahábys, p. 204 sq. (Turks and Arab settlers).
[150] Leist, Alt-arisches Jus Gentium, p. 529. Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 221.
[151] Herodotus, vii. 134 sq.
[152] Demosthenes, De Corona, 205, p. 296.
[153] Lecky, History of European Morals, i. 200.
[154] Plutarch, Lycurgus, xxvii. 5. Ovid, Metamorphoses, xv. 29.
[155] Cicero, De officiis, i. 45 (160). Cf. ibid. iii. 23 (90).
[156] Ibid. i. 17 (57). Cf. Cicero, De legibus, ii. 2, (5).
The duty of patriotism springs, in the first instance, from the patriotic feeling; when the love of country is common in a nation public resentment is felt towards him who does not act as that sentiment requires him to act. Moreover, lack of patriotism in a person may also be resented by his fellow-countrymen as an injury done to themselves; and as we have seen before, anger, and especially anger felt by a whole community, has a tendency to lead to moral disapproval. For analogous reasons deeds of patriotism are apt to evoke moral praise. However, in benefiting his own people the patriot may cause harm to other people; and where the altruistic sentiment is broad enough to extend beyond the limits of the State and strong enough to make its voice heard even in competition with the love of country and the love of self, his conduct may consequently be an object of reproach. At the lower stages of civilisation the interests of foreigners are not regarded at all, except when sheltered by the rule of hospitality; but gradually, owing to circumstances which will be discussed in the following chapter, altruism tends to expand, and men are at last considered to have duties to mankind at large. The Chinese moralists inculcated benevolence to all men without making any reference to national distinctions.[157] Mih-tsze, who lived in the interval between Confucius and Mencius, even taught that we ought to love all men equally; but this doctrine called forth protests as abnegating the peculiar devotion due to relatives.[158] In Thâi-Shang it is said that a good man will feel kindly towards every creature, and should not hurt even the insect tribes, grass, and trees.[159] Buddhism enjoins the duty of universal love:—“As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, protects her son, her only son, so let a man cultivate goodwill without measure toward all beings, … unhindered love and friendliness toward the whole world, above, below, around.”[160] According to the Hindu work Panchatantra it is the thought of little-minded persons to consider whether a man is one of ourselves or an alien, the whole earth being of kin to him who is generously disposed.[161] In Greece and Rome philosophers arose who opposed national narrowness and prejudice. Democritus of Abdera said that every country is accessible to a wise man, and that a good soul’s fatherland is the whole earth.[162] The same view was expressed by Theodorus, one of the later Cyrenaics, who denounced devotion to country as ridiculous.[163] The Cynics, in particular, attached slight value to the citizenship of any special state, declaring themselves to be citizens of the world.[164] But, as Zeller observes, in the mouth of the Cynic this doctrine was meant to express not so much the essential oneness of all mankind, as the philosopher’s independence of country and home.[165] It was the Stoic philosophy that first gave to the idea of a world-citizenship a definite positive meaning, and raised it to historical importance. The citizen of Alexander’s huge empire had in a way become a citizen of the world; and national dislikes were so much more readily overcome as the various nationalities comprised in it were united not only under a common government but also in a common culture.[166] Indeed, the founder of Stoicism was himself only half a Greek. But there is also an obvious connection between the cosmopolitan idea and the Stoic system in general.[167] According to the Stoics, human society has for its basis the identity of reason in individuals; hence we have no ground for limiting this society to a single nation. We are all, says Seneca, members of one great body, the universe; “we are all akin by Nature, who has formed us of the same elements, and placed us here together for the same end.”[168] “If our reason is common,” says Marcus Aurelius, “there is a common law, as reason commands us what to do and what not to do; and if there is a common law we are fellow-citizens; if this is so, we are members of some political community—the world is in a manner a state.”[169] To this great state, which includes all rational beings, the individual states are related as the houses of a city are to the city collectively;[170] and the wise man will esteem it far above any particular community in which the accident of birth has placed him.[171]