It can hardly be called a nation by
adoption. For, if we choose to say that the three elements have all
agreed to adopt one another as brethren, yet it has been adoption
without assimilation. Yet surely the Swiss Confederation is a nation. It
is not a a mere power, in which various nations are brought together,
whether willingly or unwillingly, under a common ruler, but without any
further tie of union. For all political purposes, the Swiss
Confederation is a nation, a nation capable of as strong and true
national feeling as any other nation. Yet it is a nation purely
artificial, one in no way defined by blood or speech. It thus proves the
rule in two ways. We at once feel that this artificially formed nation,
which has no common language, but each of whose elements speaks a
language common to itself with some other nation, is something different
from those nations which are defined by a universal or at least a
predominant language. We mark it as an exception, as something different
from other cases. And when we see how nearly this artificial nation
comes, in every point but that of language, to the likeness of those
nations which are defined by language, we see that it is a nation
defined by language which sets the standard, and after the model of
which the artificial nation forms itself.
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