A nation is a soul, a
spiritual principle. Only two things, actually, constitute
this soul, this spiritual principle. One is in the past, the
other is in the present. One is the possession in common of
a rich legacy of remembrances; the other is the actual
consent, the desire to live together, the will to continue
to value the heritage which all hold in common. Man, sirs,
does not improvise. The nation, even as the individual, is
the end product of a long period of work, sacrifice, and
devotion. The worship of ancestors is understandably
justifiable, since our ancestors have made us what we are. A
heroic past, of great men, of glory (I mean the genuine
kind), that is the social principle on which the national
idea rests. To have common glories in the past, a common
will in the present; to have accomplished great things
together, to wish to do so again, that is the essential
condition for being a nation. One loves in proportion to the
sacrifices which one has approved and for which one has
suffered. One loves the house which he has built and which
he has made over. The Spartan chant: "We are what you make
us; we are what you are" is simply the abbreviated hymn of
the Fatherland.
In the past, a heritage of glory and a reluctance to
break apart, to realize the same program in the future; to
have suffered, worked, hoped together; that is worth more
than common taxes and frontiers conforming to ideas of
strategy; that is what one really understands despite
differences of race and language. I have said "having
suffered together"; indeed, common suffering is greater than
happiness. In fact, national sorrows are more significant
than triumphs because they impose obligations and demand a
common effort.
A nation is a grand solidarity constituted by the
sentiment of sacrifices which one has made and those that
one is disposed to make again. It supposes a past, it renews
itself especially in the present by a tangible deed: the
approval, the desire, clearly expressed, to continue the
communal life. The existence of a nation (pardon this
metaphor!) is an everyday plebiscite; it is, like the very
existence of the individual, a perpetual affirmation of
life. Oh! I know it, this is less metaphysical than the
concept of divine right, less brutal than the so-called
historic right. In the order of ideas that I submit to you,
a nation has no more right than a king of a province to say:
"You appear to me, I take you." A province for us is its
inhabitants; if anyone in this matter has a right to be
considered, it is the inhabitant. A nation never has a real
interest in being annexed or holding on to a country despite
itself. The desire of nations to be together is the only
real criterion that must always be taken into account.
We have traced the politics of metaphysical and
theological abstractions. What remains after that? Man
remains, his desires, his needs. . . . Human desires change;
but what does not change on this earth? Nations are not
something eternal. They have begun, they will end. They will
be replaced, in all probability, by a European
confederation. But such is not the law of the century in
which we live. At the present time the existence of nations
happens to be good, even necessary. Their existence is a
guarantee of liberty, which would be lost if the world had
only one law and only one master.
Through their varied, frequently opposing, abilities,
nations serve the common cause of civilization; each holds
one note in the concert of humanity, which, in the long run,
is the highest ideal to which we can aspire. Isolated, they
have their weaknesses. I often say to myself that a person
who has these defects in quality that nations have, who
nourishes himself on vainglory, who is jealous, egotistic
and quarrelsome, who could support nothing without fighting;
he would be the most intolerable of men. But all these
unharmonious details disappear when we are united. Poor
humanity! How you have suffered! What ordeals await you yet!
Can the spirit of wisdom guide you to prevent the many
dangers that line your path?
I continue, sirs. Man is not enslaved, nor is his race
nor his language, nor his religion, nor the course of the
rivers, nor the direction of the mountain ranges. A great
aggregation of men, with a healthy spirit and warmth of
heart, creates a moral conscience which is called a nation.
When this moral conscience proves its strength by sacrifices
that demand abdication of the individual for the benefit of
the community, it is legitimate, and it has a right to exist |