es of their own. Is Alsace-Lorraine beyond the pale of
French patriotism? And if not, why utterly exclude French-speaking
Switzerland, the Channel Islands, Belgium, or Quebec? Or is a Frenchman
rather to love the colonies by way of compensation? Is an Algerian Moor
or a native of Tonquin his true fellow-citizen? Is Tahiti a part of his
"country"? The truth is, if we look at the heart of the matter, a
Protestant born in Paris is less a Frenchman than is a Catholic born in
Geneva.

If we pass from geography to institutions the same vagueness exists.
France to one man represents the Revolution, to another the Empire, to a
third the Church, and the vestiges of the _ancien regime_. Furthermore,
how far into the past is patriotism to look? Is Charlemagne one of the
glories of French history? Is it Julius Caesar or Vicingetorix that is to
warm the patriotic heart? Want of reflection and a blind subservience to
the colours of the map has led some historians to call Roman victories
defeats suffered by their country, even when that country is essentially
so Roman, for instance, as Spain. With as good reason might a Sicilian
or a Florentine chafe under the Latin conquest, or an American blush at
the invasion of his country by the Pilgrim Fathers. Indeed, even
geographically, the limits and the very heart of a man's country are
often ambiguous. Was Alexander's country Macedon or Greece? Was General
Lee's the United States or Virginia? The ancients defined their country
from within outward; its heart was the city and its limits those of that
city's dominion or affinities. Moderns generally define their country
rather stupidly by its administrative frontiers; and yet an Austrian
would have some difficulty in applying even this conventional criterion.

[Sidenote: Sentimental and political patriotism.]

The object of patriotism is in truth something ideal, a moral entity
definable only by the ties which a man's imagination and reason can at
any moment recognise. If he has insight and depth of feeling he will
perceive that what deserves his loyalty is the entire civilisation to
which he owes his spiritual life and into which that life will presently
flow back, with whatever new elements he may have added. Patriotism
accordingly has two aspects: it is partly sentiment by which it looks
back upon the sources of culture, and partly policy, or allegiance to
those ideals which, being suggested by what has already been attained,
animate the