Patriotism, an internal principle of order and of unity, an organic bond
of the members of a nation, was placed by the finest thinkers of Greece
and Rome at the head of the natural virtues. Aristotle, the prince of
the philosophers of antiquity, held disinterested service of the
city--that is, the State--to be the very ideal of human duty.
And the religion of Christ makes of patriotism a positive law; there is
no perfect Christian who is not also a perfect patriot. For our religion
exalts the antique ideal, showing it to be realizable only in the
absolute. Whence, in truth, comes this universal, this irresistible
impulse which carries at once the will of the whole nation in one single
effort of cohesion and of resistance in face of the hostile menace
against her unity and her freedom?
Whence comes it that in an hour all interests were merged in the
interest of all, and that all lives were together offered in willing
immolation? Not that the State is worth more, essentially, than the
individual or the family, seeing that the good of the family and of the
individual is the cause and reason of the organization of the State. Not
that our country is a Moloch on whose altar lives may lawfully be
sacrificed. The rigidity of antique morals and the despotism of the
Caesars suggested the false principle--and modern militarism tends to
revive it--that the State is omnipotent, and that the discretionary
power of the State is the rule of right.
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