ABSTRACT
We have seen in the two preceding chapters that a new religion of nationalism was linked, particularly in the work of French and Polish writers, to the identification of the nation as a metaphysical social ideal. We come now to the transformation of'word' as the language of this new religion. Gradually, the themes, figures and tropes of the Christian Church became assimilated and transformed in the service of a new vision, a new revelation of Christianity with this ideal at its heart. Socalled 'progressive Romanticism' in this way took inspiration from a polarity of socialism and metaphysics (and/or religion): for example, the idea of a new age of Christianity was often conjoined with the emergence of the nation as the social ideal of humanity. Where the starting-point was an Enlightenment emphasis on the secular, the cosmopolitan, the universal, the nation was seen as a product of human artifice, though created according to universal laws. In that case the conclusions and implications for the sense of national identity and national mission are likely to be materialistic and mechanistic, but, nevertheless, frequently borrow from the language of religion or metaphysics. Auguste Comte, for example, suggested a movement beyond religion as previously understood toward a religion of humanity. Here, the secularized 'religion' of nationalism becomes an idealization of the State and of society; it teaches the unity of all faiths in service of the nation.
