e declaration that it would be a perversion, not
to say an inversion, of fact to rate their patriotic devotion to the
Union today lower than that of any other section of the country or any
other class or condition of men.

But there is more, and in a sense worse, to be found along the same
general line of evidence touching this sublimated sentiment of group
solidarity that is called nationalism. The nation, of course, is large;
the larger the better, it is believed. It is so large, indeed, that
considered as a group or community of men living together it has no
sensible degree of homogeneity in any of their material circumstances or
interests; nor is anything more than an inconsiderable fraction of the
aggregate population, territory, industry, or daily life known to any
one of these patriotic citizens except by remote and highly dubious
hearsay. The one secure point on which there is a (constructive)
uniformity is the matter of national allegiance; which grows stronger
and more confident with every increase in aggregate mass and volume. It
is also not doubtful, e.g., that if the people of the British Dominions
in North America should choose to throw in their national lot with the
Union, all sections and classes, except those whose pecuniary interest
in a protective tariff might be conceived to suffer, would presently
welcome them; nor is it doubtful that American nationality would cover
the new and larger aggregate as readily as the old. Much the same will
hold true with respect to the other countries colonised under British
auspices. And there is no conclusive reason for drawing the limit of
admissible national extension at that point.

So much, however, is fairly within the possibilities of the calculable
future; its realisation would turn in great measure on the
discontinuance of certain outworn or disserviceable institutional
arrangements; as, e.g., the remnants of a decayed monarchy, and the
legally protected vested interests of certain business enterprises and
of certain office-holding classes. What more and farther might
practicably be undertaken in this way, in the absence of marplot
office-holders, office-seekers, sovereigns, priests and monopolistic
business concerns sheltered under national animosities and restraints of
trade, would be something not easy to assign a limit to. All the minor
neutrals, that cluster about the North Sea, could unquestionably be
drawn into such a composite nationality, in the abs