Ethnological and philological
researches--I do not forget the distinction between the two, but for the
present I must group them together--have opened the way for new national
sympathies, new national antipathies, such as would have been
unintelligible a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago a man's
political likes and dislikes seldom went beyond the range which was
suggested by the place of his birth or immediate descent. Such birth or
descent made him a member of this or that political community, a subject
of this or that prince, a citizen--perhaps a subject--of this or that
commonwealth. The political community of which he was a member had its
traditional alliances and traditional enmities, and by those alliances
and enmities the likes and dislikes of the members of that community
were guided. But those traditional alliances and enmities were seldom
determined by theories about language or race. The people of this or
that place might be discontented under a foreign government; but, as a
rule, they were discontented only if subjection to that foreign
government brought with it personal oppression, or at least political
degradation.
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