2 perishable. According to Voltaire patriotism is composed of self-love and prejudice, and only too often makes us the enemies of our fellow-men :-"Il est clair qu'un pays ne peut gagner sans qu'un autre perde, et qu'il ne peut vaincre sans faire des malheureux. Telle est donc la condition humaine, que souhaiter la grandeur de son pays, c'est souhaiter du mal à ses voisins." 3 In Germany Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller felt themselves as citizens of the world, not of the German Empire, still less as Saxons or Suabians; and Klopstock, with his enthusiasm for German nationality and language, almost appeared eccentric. Lessing writes point-blank :-" The praise of being an ardent patriot is to my mind the very last thing that I should covet ; . . . I have no idea at all of love of the Fatherland, and it seems to me at best but an heroical weakness, which I can very readily dispense with." 5 The first French revolution marks the beginning of a new era in the history of patriotism. It inspired the masses with passion for the unity of the fatherland, the Republic "one one and indivisible." At the same time it declared all nations to be brothers, and when it made war on foreign nations the object was only to deliver them from their oppressors." But gradually the interest in the affairs of other countries grew more and more selfish, the attempt to emancipate was absorbed in the desire to subjugate; and this awoke throughout Europe a feeling which was destined to become the most powerful force in the history of the nineteenth century, the feeling of nationality. When Napoleon introduced French administration in the countries whose sovereigns he had deposed or degraded, the people resisted the change. The resistance was popular, as the rulers were absent or helpless, and it was national, being directed against foreign instituPatrie (Euvres complètes, viii. 1 Diderot, Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron, ii. 75 (Œuvres, vi. 244). 2 Voltaire, Pensées sur l'administra tion publique, 14 (Euvres complètes, v. 351). $ Idem, Dictionnaire philosophique, art. 118). + See Strauss, Der alte und der neue Glaube, p. 259 sq. Lessing, quoted by Ziegler, Social Ethics, p. 121. 6 Block, op. cit. ii. 376. tions. It was stirred by the feeling of national rather than political unity, it was a protest against the dominion of race over race. The national element in this movement had in a manner been anticipated by the French revolution itself. The French people was regarded by it as an ethnological, not as an historic, unit; descent was put in the place of tradition; the idea of the sovereignty of the people uncontrolled by the past gave birth to the idea of nationality independent of the political influence of history. But, as has been truly remarked, men were made conscious of the national element of the revolution by its conquests, not in its rise.1 2 Ever since, the racial feeling has been the most vigorous force in European patriotism, and has gradually become a true danger to humanity. Beginning as a protest against the dominion of one race over another, this feeling led to a condemnation of every state which included different races, and finally developed into the complete doctrine that state and nationality should so far as possible be coextensive. According to this theory the dominant nationality cannot admit the inferior nationalities dwelling within the boundaries of the state to an equality with itself, because, if it did, the state would cease to be national, and this would be contrary to the principle of its existence; or the weaker nationalities are compelled to change their language, institutions, and individuality, so as to be absorbed in the dominant race. And not only does the leading nationality assert its superiority in relation to all others within the body politic, but it also wants to assert itself at the expense of foreign nations and races. To the nationalist all this is true patriotism; love of country often stands for a feeling which has been well described as love of more country.3 But at the same time opposite ideals are at work. The fervour of nineteenth century nationalism has not been able to quench the See Nationality,' in Home and Foreign Review, i. 6 sqq. 2 Ibid. p. 13 sq. 3 Robertson, Patriotism and Empire, p. 138. cosmopolitan spirit. In spite of loud appeals made to racial instincts and the sense of national solidarity, the idea is daily gaining ground that the aims of a nation. must not conflict with the interests of humanity at large; that our love of country should be controlled by other countries' right to prosper and to develop their own individuality; and that the oppression of weaker nationalities inside the state and aggressiveness towards foreign nations, being mainly the outcome of vainglory and greed, are inconsistent with the aspirations of a good patriot, as well as of a good man. Our long discussion of moral ideas regarding such modes of conduct as directly concern other men's welfare has at last come to an end. We have seen that they may be ultimately traced to a variety of sources: to the influence of habit or education, to egoistic considerations of some kind or other which have given rise to moral feelings, to notions of social expediency, to disinterested likings or dislikes, and, above all, to sympathetic resentment or sympathetic approval springing from an altruistic disposition of mind. But how to account for this disposition? Our explanation of that group of moral ideas which we have been hitherto investigating is not complete until we have found an answer to this important question. I shall therefore in the next chapter examine the origin and development of the altruistic sentiment. CHAPTER XXXIV THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ALTRUISTIC SENTIMENT THERE is one form of the altruistic sentiment which man shares with all mammals and many other animals, namely, maternal affection. As regards its origin various theories have been set forth. According to Aristotle, parents love their children as being portions of themselves.1 A similar explanation of maternal affection has been given by some modern writers.2 Thus Professor Espinas regards this sentiment as modified self-love and love of property. The female, he says, at the moment when she gives birth to little ones resembling herself, has no difficulty in recognising them as the flesh of her flesh; the feeling she experiences towards them is made up of sympathy and pity, but we cannot exclude from it an idea of property which is the most solid support of sympathy. She feels and understands up to a certain point that these young ones which are herself at the same time belong to her; the love of herself, extended to those who have gone out from her, changes egoism into sympathy and the proprietary instinct into an affectionate impulse. This hypothesis, however, seems to me to be very inadequate. It does not explain why, for instance, a bird takes more care of her eggs than of other matter segregated from 1 Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, viii. 12. 2 sq. 2 Hartley, Observations on Man, i. 496 sq. Fichte, Das System der Sitten lehre, p. 433. Espinas, Des sociétés animales (2nd ed.), p. 444 sq., quoted by Ribot, Psychology of the Emotions, p. 280. as a her body, which may equally well be regarded as part of herself. Nor does it account for a foster-mother's affection for her adopted offspring.1 Of this Of this many instances have been noticed in the lower animals; and among some savage peoples adopted children are said to be treated by their foster-parents with the same affection as if they were their own flesh and blood.2 A very different explanation of maternal love has been given by Professor Bain. He derives parental affection from the "intense pleasure in the embrace of the young." He observes that "such a pleasure once created would associate itself with the prevailing features and aspects of the young, and give to all of these their very great interest. For the sake of the pleasure, the parent discovers the necessity of nourishing the subject of it, and comes to regard the ministering function as a part or condition of the delight." But if the satisfaction in animal contact were at the bottom of the maternal feeling, conjugal affection ought by far to surpass it in intensity; and yet, among the lower races at least, the case is exactly the reverse, conjugal affection being vastly inferior in degree to a mother's love of her child. It may indeed be fairly doubted whether there is any "intense pleasure" at all in embracing a new-born baby-unless it be one's own. It seems much more likely that parents like to touch their children because they love them, than that they love them because they like to touch them. Attraction, showing itself either by elementary movements of approach, or by contact, or by the embrace, is the outward expression of tenderness. Professor Bain himself observes that as anger reaches a satisfying term by knocking some one down, love is completed and satisfied with an embrace. But this by no means implies that the embrace is the cause of love; it 1 Cf. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, ii. 624. 2 Murdoch, Ethnol. Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 419 (Point Barrow Eskimo). Thomson, Savage Island, 3 Bain, Emotions and the Will, p. 140. 4 Ribot, op. cit. p. 234. |
