183-4), of the writs of summons issued by Edward I, that:

'it may be not unreasonably held that the practice of the reign owes its legal importance to the fact that it was used by the later lawyers as a period of limitation, and not to any conscious finality in Edward's policy. It is convenient to adopt the year 1295 as the era from which the baron, whose ancestor has been once summoned and has once sat in parliament, can claim an hereditary right to be so summoned.'

Yet, here again, the peculiar principle that a Committee for Privileges is not bound by preceding decisions,' as are Courts of Law, affords a priceless safeguard. Of this the Earldom of Wiltes case (1869) has been the standing illustration; but it is now reinforced by the latest of recent cases, that of the barony of St John. The very existence of this barony, like that of the (original) barony of Hastings, depended on the validity, as proof of a sitting in Parliament, of an entry on the Parliament Roll of 1290. Guided by the Chancellor, Lord Cottenham, in 1841, the Committee admitted the proof as valid, with the result that the barony of Hastings now figures on the roll of peers; in 1914 the Committee rejected the validity of the proof, with the result that the claimant failed to establish the barony's existence. Strange and even inequitable as this principle may seem, it has at least the merit ef enabling the House to avail itself of the latest learning in a sphere illumined in our own time by the indefatigable researches of those who, not only in this country, but in France and America as well, have devoted themselves to the study of English medieval history with the aid of those incomparable records which are the envy of foreign lands.

J. H. ROUND.

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Art. 4.-PATRIOTISM.

1. Letters on Patriotism. By Lord Bolingbroke. London. 1749.

2. An Introduction to Social Psychology. By W. McDougall. London: Methuen, 1913.

3. Thoughts on the War. By A. Clutton-Brock. London: Methuen, 1914.

And other works.

THE sentiment of patriotism has seemed to many to mark an arrest of development in the psychical expansion of the individual, a half-way house between mere self-centredness and full human sympathy. Some moralists have condemned it as pure egoism, magnified and disguised. 'Patriotism,' says Ruskin, 'is an absurd prejudice founded on an extended selfishness.' Mr Grant Allen calls it 'a vulgar vice-the national or collective form of the monopolist instinct.' Mr Havelock Ellis allows it to be 'a virtue-among barbarians.' For Herbert Spencer it is 'reflex egoism-extended selfishness.' These critics have made the very common mistake of judging human emotions and sentiments by their roots instead of by their fruits. They have forgotten the Aristotelian canon that the 'nature' of anything is its completed development (ἡ φύσις τέλος ἐστίν). The human self, as we know it, is a transitional form. It had a humble origin, and is capable of indefinite enhancement. Ultimately, we are what we love and care for, and no limit has been set to what we may become without ceasing to be ourselves. The case is the same with our love of country. No limit has been set to what our country may come to mean for us, without ceasing to be our country. Marcus Aurelius exhorted himself 'The poet says, Dear city of Cecrops; shall not I say, Dear city of God?' But the city of God in which he wished to be was a city in which he would still live as a Roman and an Antonine.' The citizen of heaven knew that it was his duty to hunt Sarmatians' on earth, though he was not obliged to imbrue his hands with Cæsarism.'

Patriotism has two roots, the love of clan, and the love of home. In migratory tribes the former alone

counts; in settled communities diversities of origin are often forgotten. But the love of home, as we know it, is a gentler and more spiritual bond than clanship. The word home is associated with all that makes life beautiful and sacred, with tender memories of joy and sorrow, and especially with the first eager outlook of the young mind upon a wonderful world. A man does not as a rule feel much sentiment about his London house, still less about his office or factory. It is for the home of his childhood, or of his ancestors, that a man will fight most readily, because he is bound to it by a spiritual and poetic tie. Expanding from this centre, the sentiment of patriotism embraces one's country as a whole.

Both forms of patriotism-the local and the racial, are frequently alloyed with absurd, unworthy or barbarous motives. The local patriot thinks that Peebles, and not Paris, is the place for pleasure, or asks whether any good thing can come out of Nazareth. To the Chinaman all aliens are 'outer barbarians' or 'foreign devils.' Admiration for ourselves and our institutions is too often measured by our contempt and dislike for foreigners. Our own nation has a peculiarly bad record in this respect. In the reign of James I the Spanish ambassador was frequently insulted by the London crowd, as was the Russian ambassador in 1662; not, apparently, because we had a burning grievance against either of those nations, but because Spaniards and Russians are very unlike Englishmen. That at least is the opinion of the sagacious Pepys on the later of these incidents. Lord! to see the absurd nature of Englishmen, that cannot forbear laughing and jeering at anything that looks strange.' Defoe says that the English are 'the most churlish people alive' to foreigners, with the result that all men think an Englishman the devil.' In the 17th and 18th centuries Scotland seems to have ranked as a foreign country, and the presence of Scots in London was much resented. Cleveland thought it witty to write :

·

'Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom; Not forced him wander, but confined him home.'

And we all remember Dr Johnson's gibes.

British patriotic arrogance culminated in the 18th and in the first half of the 19th century; in Lord Palmerston it found a champion at the head of the government. Goldsmith describes the bearing of the Englishman of his day :

'Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,

I see the lords of human kind pass by.'

Michelet found in England 'human pride personified in a people,' at a time when the characteristic of Germany was 'a profound impersonality.' It may be doubted whether even the arrogant brutality of the modern Prussian is more offensive to foreigners than was the calm and haughty assumption of superiority by our countrymen at this time. Our grandfathers and greatgrandfathers were quite of Milton's opinion, that, when the Almighty wishes something unusually great and difficult to be done, He entrusts it to His Englishmen. This unamiable characteristic was probably much more the result of insular ignorance than of a deep-seated pride. A generation or two ago,' said Mr Asquith lately, 'patriotism was largely fed and fostered upon reciprocal ignorance and contempt.' The Englishman seriously believed that the French subsisted mainly upon frogs, while the Frenchman was equally convinced that the sale of wives at Smithfield was one of our national institutions. This fruitful source of international misunderstanding has become less dangerous since the facilities of foreign travel have been increased. But in the relations of Europe with alien and independent civilisations, such as that of China, we still see brutal arrogance and vulgar ignorance producing their natural results.

Another cause of perverted patriotism is the inborn pugnacity of the bête humaine. Our species is the most cruel and destructive of all that inhabit this planet. If the lower animals, as we call them, were able to formulate a religion, they might differ greatly as to the shape of the beneficent Creator, but they would nearly all agree that the devil must be very like a big white man. McDougall has lately raised the question whether civilised man is less pugnacious than the savage; and he answers it in the negative. The Europeans, he thinks, are

Mr

among the most combative of the human race. We are not allowed to knock each other on the head during peace; but our civilisation is based on cut-throat competition; our favourite games are mimic battles, which I suppose effect for us a 'purgation of the emotions' similar to that which Aristotle attributed to witnessing the performance of a tragedy; and, when the fit seizes us, we are ready to engage in wars which cannot fail to be disastrous to both combatants. Mr McDougall does not regret this disposition, irrational though it is. He thinks that it tends to the survival of the fittest, and that, if we substitute emulation for pugnacity, which on other grounds might seem an unmixed advantage, we shall have to call in the science of eugenics to save us from becoming as sheeplike as the Chinese. There is, however, another side to this question, as we shall see presently.

Another instinct which has supplied fuel to patriotism of the baser sort is that of acquisitiveness. This tendency, without which even the most rudimentary civilisation would be impossible, began when the female of the species, instead of carrying her baby on her back and following the male to his hunting-grounds, made some sort of a lair for herself and her family, where primitive implements and stores of food could be kept. There are still tribes in Brazil which have not reached this first step towards humanisation. But the instinct of hoarding, like all other instincts, tends to become hypertrophied and perverted; and with the institution of private property comes another institution-that of plunder and brigandage. In private life, no motive of action is at present so powerful and so persistent as acquisitiveness, which, unlike most other desires, knows no satiety. The average man is rich enough when he has a little more than he has got, and not till then. The acquisition and possession of land satisfies this desire in a high degree, since land is a visible and indestructible form of property. Consequently, as soon as the instincts of the individual are transferred to the group, territorial aggrandisement becomes a main preoccupation of the state. This desire was the chief cause of wars, while kings and nobles regarded the territories over which they ruled as their private estates. Wherever despotic or feudal conditions survive, such ideas are likely still to be found, and to