itators.... Recently Paul Souday has
attempted to show that all the notable men of Germany belong to the
Keltic race ('Le Temps,' August 7, 1915)."

Nicolai replies to these extravagances with the following definite
assertions:

1. Proof is lacking that a pure race is better than a mixed race.
(Examples are adduced from animal species and from human history.)

2. It is impossible to define the term race as applied to the
subdivisions of mankind, for valid criteria are lacking. Such
classifications as have been attempted, now upon a historical, now upon
a linguistic, and now upon an anthropological basis, are extremely
inconsistent one with another, and have been almost complete failures.

3. There are no pure races in Europe. Less than any other nation have
the Germans a right to claim racial purity.[56] Anyone who seeks a true
Teuton to-day had better go to Sweden, the Netherlands, or England.

4. If to the term race we attach a definite biological meaning, we can
hardly say that there is any such thing as a European race.

Patriotism based on race is impossible, and in most cases it is utterly
absurd. There is no such thing as ethnic homogeneity in any extant
nation. The cohesion of contemporary nations does not come down to them
as a heritage of which they can dispose at will. From day to day this
cohesion must be rewon. Unremittingly the members of each nation must
fortify their community of thought, feeling, and will. This is meet and
right. As Renan said, "The existence of a nation should be a daily
plebiscite." In a word, what unites people to form a nation is not the
force of history; it is the desire to be together, and the mutual need
felt by the members of the nation. Our thoughts and our feelings are not
guided by the vows that others have made for us, but by our own free
will.

Is it so to-day? What place does free will hold among the nations of
to-day? Patriotism has assumed an extraordinarily oppressive form.
During no other age in history has it been so tyrannical and so
exclusive. It devours everything. Our country, to-day, claims to rank
above religion, above art, science, thought, above civilisation. This
monstrous hypertrophy cannot be explained as an efflux from the natural
sources of patriotic instincts, as an efflux of love of the native soil,
of tribal sentiment, of the social need for forming vast communities.
Its colossal effects are the outcome of a pathological phenomenon; they
are th