“Perhaps they would, for with all the selfishness of the period there was a deep-seated belief in a divine being. But even so, I still would not allow them to be right.”
“Why,” I asked, “is there more than one motive higher than patriotism?”
“Yes, love is higher,” answered Thorwald. “Let me explain. What did love of country mean? At first one’s country was a single family, then a tribe, and later a city, when the measure of one’s patriotism was the measure also of his hatred for everything foreign. In time a state was formed from many cities and towns, and its citizens were taught to look on all other states as enemies. Then these states that had been fighting each other consolidated into a nation, made up, perhaps, of different races and languages. By this time patriotism became a lofty theme, but it was the same spirit essentially as that which prompts the members of two savage tribes to fight to the death through a blind and unreasoning devotion to their leaders. So do you not think that love to all, which can only come from a generous heart, is more to be praised than love to a part, which necessitates enmity to all the rest? I should think it would have puzzled the people of that age sometimes to tell of what their country really consisted. Was their highest allegiance due to their city, or their county, or their state, or their nation?
“To what did this immoderate love of country lead? To a passion for aggrandizement at the expense of others, and what was this but selfishness with a gloss so bright as to make it look like a virtue? It led to the strangling of conscience in national affairs, so as to make wrong seem right, and, more than that, to persistence in a course when it was well known to be wrong. It taught false ideas of honor and made the world one grand dueling field, where the energy of nations was spent in watching for insults from their neighbors, and where the quick blow followed every real or fancied offense.
“Do not imagine, by what I have said, that I would have advised these people to love their country less. On the contrary, I should tell them to love it so much that they could not see it do wrong; to love it so much that they should have no room in their hearts for bitterness toward others; so much that they should strive to have it lead the world in a march toward universal brotherhood. Love for one’s neighbor should not stop at state or national boundaries. Love should know neither caste nor country, but should take in the world, and, I might add for your benefit, other worlds if necessary. Love is a condition of the heart, something within, not without, the man, and when fully developed reaches out to everything that God has made.”
“It seems to me, Thorwald,” I ventured to say, “that these sentiments, which I can see are admirable, belong to your present high development, while we of the earth have reached only about the condition of the people whose traits you have been describing.”
“Then,” resumed Thorwald, “you can perhaps understand another evil of those times. It did not grow directly out of love for country, but that too much lauded sentiment prevented the people from seeing its full enormity. This was the practice of attempting by law to protect the inhabitants of one country by shutting out the goods of all others. This prohibition included both the manufactured articles and natural products, and the means adopted was the placing of a high duty on imports. If the political leaders of a people could succeed in convincing them that such a course would raise wages, increase the opportunities for accumulating money, and make them in general more prosperous, then it was forthwith adopted, entirely without regard to the effect it might have on the rest of the world. It is not at all plain to be seen, from reading the history of those times, that the happiest results always followed the passage of these laws, but the experiment was tried whenever a majority felt that there was a fair expectation of such benefits. The only question considered was whether it would be good policy for their particular country. And if one result of this selfish legislation was the closing of mills and the loss of employment to thousands of workmen in some other part of the world, these facts were paraded in the public prints as though they were matter for rejoicing. Men were yet to learn that the maxim which the politicians were fond of quoting, ‘the greatest good to the greatest number,’ should have a world-wide application to give it any meaning at all.”
While my prejudices were receiving another shock, I knew the doctor was really enjoying this part of Thorwald’s talk. So, in order to draw him out, I said to him, as Thorwald paused:
“Doctor, I think our friend must belong to your party.”
“I should rather belong to his party,” replied the doctor.