the mind, a symbol, a personification,
or an abstraction. The possible area of the State will depend,
therefore, mainly on the facts which limit our creation and use of such
entities. Fifty years ago the statesmen who were reconstructing Europe
on the basis of nationality thought that they had found the relevant
facts in the causes which limit the physical and mental homogeneity of
nations. A State, they thought, if it is to be effectively governed,
must be a homogeneous 'nation,' because no citizen can imagine his State
or make it the object of his political affection unless he believes in
the existence of a national type to which the individual inhabitants of
the State are assimilated; and he cannot continue to believe in the
existence of such a type unless in fact his fellow-citizens are like
each other and like himself in certain important respects. Bismarck
deliberately limited the area of his intended German Empire by a
quantitative calculation as to the possibility of assimilating other
Germans to the Prussian type. He always opposed the inclusion of
Austria, and for a long time the inclusion of Bavaria, on the ground
that while the Prussian type was strong enough to assimilate the Saxons
and Hanoverians to itself, it would fail to assimilate Austrians and
Bavarians. He said, for instance, in 1866: 'We cannot use these
Ultramontanes, and we must not swallow more than we can digest.'[100]

[99] Part I. ch. ii. pp. 72, 73, and 77-81.

[100] _Bismarck_ (J.W. Headlam), p. 269.

Mazzini believed, with Bismarck, that no State could be well governed
unless it consisted of a homogeneous nation. But Bismarck's policy of
the artificial assimilation of the weaker by the stronger type seemed to
him the vilest form of tyranny; and he based his own plans for the
reconstruction of Europe upon the purpose of God, as revealed by the
existing correspondence of national uniformities with geographical
facts. 'God,' he said, 'divided humanity into distinct groups or nuclei
upon the face of the earth.... Evil governments have disfigured the
Divine design. Nevertheless you may still trace it, distinctly marked
out--at least as far as Europe is concerned--by the course of the great
rivers, the direction of the higher mountains, and other geographical
conditions.'[101]

[101] _Life, and Writings_ (Smith, Elder, 1891), vol. iv. (written
1858), p. 275.

Both Mazzini and Bismarck, therefore, opposed with all their strength
the humanit