ABSTRACT
Nationalism as a feeling and an ideal has become a powerful social and political factor only in recent times. Both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, nationality was generally subordinated to other considerations, ecclesiastical, political, or social. The modern conception of nationality first grew strong in the Reformation, as state and national churches were constituted in opposition to Catholic cosmopolitanism—really a tautology. The influence of socialism is the greater to the extent to which socialism does not interpret its internationalism in a Utopian, fantastic sense, and is developing an increasingly positive appreciation of nationality. Internationalism can take a double attitude toward nationalism. Negatively, it can reject the idea of nationalism and become in practice a linguistic absolutism; or it can understand and accept nationality positively, leading to linguistic and national federalism.
