, and Esthonia. Some reason or other
will, it may be hoped, always be found to hinder the annexation of
lands which, like Zuerich and Bern, have reached a higher political
level. Outlying brethren in Transsilvania or at Saratof again come under
the rule "De minimis non curat lex." In all these cases the rule that
nationality and language should go together, yields to unavoidable
circumstances. But, on the other hand, where French or Danish or
Slavonic or Lithuanian is spoken within the bounds of the new Empire,
the principle that language is the badge of nationality, that without
community of language nationality is imperfect, shows itself in another
shape. One main object of modern policy is to bring these exceptional
districts under the general rule by spreading the German language in
them. Everywhere, in short, wherever a power is supposed to be founded
on nationality, the common feeling of mankind instinctively takes
language as the test of nationality. We assume language as the test of a
nation, without going into any minute questions as to the physical
purity of blood in that nation. A continuous territory, living under the
same government and speaking the same tongue, forms a nation for all
practical purposes. If some of its inhabitants do not belong to the
original stock by blood, they at least belong to it by adoption.

The question may now fairly be asked, What is the case in those parts of
the world where people who are confessedly of different races and
languages inhabit a continuous territory and live under the same
government? How do we define nationality in such cases as these? The
answer will be very different in different cases, according to the means
by which the different national elements in such a territory have been
brought together. They may form what I have already called an artificial
nation, united by an act of its own free will. Or it may be simply a
case where distinct nations, distinct in every thing which can be looked
on as forming a nation, except the possession of an independent
government, are brought together, by whatever causes, under a common
ruler. The former case is very distinctly an exception which proves the
rule, and the latter is, though in quite another way, an exception which
proves the rule also. Both cases may need somewhat more in the way of
definition. We will begin with the first, the case of a nation which has
been formed out of elements which differ in language, but wh