The
destruction or the weakening of nationalities for the ostensible benefit
of an international socialism would in truth gravely imperil the bond
upon which actual human association is based. The peoples who have
inherited any share in Christian civilization are effectively united
chiefly by national habits, traditions, and purposes; and perhaps the
most effective way of bringing about an irretrievable division of
purpose among them would be the adoption by the class of wage-earners
of the programme of international socialism. It is not too much to say
that no permanent good can, under existing conditions, come to the
individual and society except through the preservation and the
development of the existing system of nationalized states.
Radical and enthusiastic democrats have usually failed to attach
sufficient importance to the ties whereby civilized men are at the
present time actually united. Inasmuch as national traditions are
usually associated with all sorts of political, economic, and social
privileges and abuses, they have sought to identify the higher social
relation with the destruction of the national tradition and the
substitution of an ideal bond.
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