The former case is very distinctly an exception which proves the
rule, and the latter is, though in quite another way, an exception which
proves the rule also. Both cases may need somewhat more in the way of
definition. We will begin with the first, the case of a nation which has
been formed out of elements which differ in language, but which still
have been brought together so as to form an artificial nation. In the
growth of the chief nations of Western Europe, the principle which was
consciously or unconsciously followed has been that the nation should be
marked out by language, and the use of any tongue other than the
dominant tongue of the nation should be at least exceptional. But there
is one nation in Europe, one which has a full right to be called a
nation in a political sense, which has been formed on the directly
opposite principle. The Swiss Confederation has been formed by the union
of certain detached fragments of the German, Italian, and Burgundian
nations. It may indeed be said that the process has been in some sort a
process of adoption, that the Italian and Burgundian elements have been
incorporated into an already existing German body; that, as those
elements were once subjects or dependents or protected allies, the case
is one of clients or freedmen who have been admitted to the full
privileges of the _gens_.
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