Patriotism and loyalty to hearth and home are passions so strong in
humanity that a creed like this, when men are under its influence, is
not easily seen to be absurd. The Saxon boy, whom I saw in his prison
camp, probably would not quarrel with it. And even in the wider world of
thought the illusions of nationalism are all-pervading. I once heard
Professor Henry Sidgwick remark that it is not easy for us to understand
how the troops of Portugal are stirred to heroic effort when their
commanders call on them to remember that they are Portuguese. He would
no doubt have been the first to admit, for he had an alert and sceptical
mind, that it is only our stupidity which finds anything comic in such
an appeal. But it is stupidity of this kind which unfits men to deal
with other races, and it is stupidity of this kind which has been
exalted by the Germans as a primal duty, and has, indeed, been advanced
by them as their principal claim to undertake the government of the
world.
This extreme nationalism, this unwillingness to feel any sympathy for
other peoples, or to show them any consideration, has stupefied and
blinded the Germans.
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