re with that. Then we
Protestants began our battle for spiritual liberty against the tyranny
of Rome, and as one of the most potent agencies in the winning of our
battle we helped to develop the spirit of nationality. In place of the
Holy Roman Church we put state churches. In place of devotion to the
Vatican we were tempted to put devotion to the nation. Luther did more
than write spiritual treatises; he sent out ringing, patriotic appeals
to the German nobility against Rome. It is not an accident that
absolute nationalism came to its climacteric in Germany where
Protestantism began. For Protestantism, without ever intending it, as
an unexpected by-product of its fight for spiritual liberty, helped to
break up western Europe into nations, where nationalism absorbed the
loyalty of the people. And now that little tiger cub we helped to rear
has become a great beast and its roaring shakes the earth.

A superficial confidence in automatic progress, therefore, which
neglects an elemental fact like this at the root of our whole
international problem is futile; it leads nowhere; it is rose water
prescribed for leprosy. The trouble with nationalism is profound and
this is the gist of it: we may be unselfish personally, but we group
ourselves into social units called nations, where we, being
individually unselfish with reference to the group, are satisfied with
ourselves, but where all the time the group itself is not unselfish,
but, it may be, is aggressively and violently avaricious. Yet to most
people our sacrificial loyalty to the nation would pass for virtue,
even though the nation as a whole were exploiting its neighbours or
waging a useless, unjust war. The loyalty of Germans to Germany may be
rated as the loftiest goodness no matter what Germany as a whole is
doing, and the loyalty of Americans to America may be praised as the
very passport to heaven while America as a whole may be engaged in a
nationally unworthy enterprise. The fine spirit of men's devotion
within the limits of the group disguises the ultimate selfishness of
the whole procedure and cloaks a huge sin under a comparatively small
unselfishness.

We can see that same principle at work in our industrial situation. We
break up into two groups; we are trades unionists or associated
employers. We are unselfish so far as our group is concerned; we make
it a point of honour to support our economic class; it is part of our
code of duty to be loyal