ABSTRACT
A national or political ethical system makes for extreme conservatism, for national stability and endurance. Systems of national ethics are, by their intrinsic nature, incapable of extension to alien peoples without losing their effectiveness to guide the lives of men. Nationalism is a great force, the greatest-force in the modern world; and, like other great forces, it is capable of doing much good or much harm, according as it is directed wisely or unwisely. When humanitarians, cosmopolitans, and anarchists denounce nationalism they have in mind, no doubt, that kind of nationalism in which chauvinism plays a prominent part. All the nations of Europe have developed on this twofold ethical basis, have developed ethical codes in which are mixed the incompatible precepts of the universal and of the national ethics. The perplexities of individuals arising from the same source are no less great than the perplexities of nations.
