Definition fulfil its destiny more abundantly. The growth and development of Peoples is a powerful factor in the history of the world, and certainly an essential element in its divine plan. The conception of a 'people' (Nation) may be thus defined. It is a union of masses of men of different occupations and social strata in a hereditary society of common spirit, feeling and race, bound together, especially by language and customs, in a common civilisation which gives them a sense of unity and distinction from all foreigners, quite apart from the bond of the State. Hurrah, Whew Definition is dis tinguished the sense The limits of a People are capable of movement and change. It may grow and spread continuously, by extending its language and manners, its civilisation, among foreign masses and so assimilating them. It may decrease, collapse, and disappear if a foreign civilisation comes victoriously against it, and absorbs and transforms its members. In this way a great people with a higher civilisation gradually destroys the ruder civilisations of small tribes and replaces them by its own. By a Nation (Volk) we generally understand a society of all the members of a State as united and organised in the A Nation State. The Nation comes into being with the creation of the State. It is the consciousness, more or less developed, of political connection and unity which lifts the Nation above People by the People. A Nation which leaves its own country may be of political imagined as continuing to be a Nation, but only provisionunity. ally so, until it succeeds in forming a new State in a new country. Again, the Nation may precede the State, as the Jewish nation under Moses preceded the Jewish State: but here, again, it is only because the impulse to State-life is strongly developed in it, and its unity of organisation paves the way for the foundation of a State. No State, So far the idea of a nation always bears a necessary noNation. relation to the State, and we may say, 'no State, no Nation.' This genesis of the State we shall consider specially in Book IV. But we do not usually give the name of Nation to a merely passive governed body of people without political rights. And therefore we cannot quite say, 'no Nation, no Chap. II.] THE CONCEPTIONS 'PEOPLE' AND 'NATION.' 87 State.' Despotism knows nothing of Nations; only of subjects. If a whole Nation or the main part of it belongs to one people, it is naturally pervaded by the common spirit, character, language and customs of that people. If, on the other hand, it is composed of parts of different peoples, it has less community of feelings and institutions than a People. is a collective per On the other hand, the chief point which distinguishes a A Nation Nation from a People is that in it community of rights is developed in a more marked degree and is raised to the sonality point of participation in the conduct of the State, and its capacity of expressing a common will and maintaining it by acts has acquired the proper organs in the constitution of the State in a word, it is a collective personality, legal and political. We are justified, then, in speaking of a national spirit with a spirit and (Volksgeist) and a national will (Volkswille), which is something will of its more than the mere sum of the spirit and will of the in- own; dividuals composing the Nation. That spirit and will, both by its organs and content, is not individual and isolated and self-contradictory: it has all the unity of a common spirit and a public will. Nations, moreover, are organic beings, and as such are sub- subject to thechanges ject to the natural laws of organic life. In the history of of organic their development the same stages may be distinguished life. as in the life of individuals. The natural powers and conditions of a Nation, its ideas and needs, are not the same in its old age as in its childhood. For Nations, as for individuals, the middle period of its life is, as a rule, the time of highest development for its spirit and power, Only these periods which are distinguished by decades in individual lives are to be measured in the life of nations by centuries. But nations no less than men appear to be mortal. Notes.-1. Savigny did good service by insisting on the organic character of the nation and the influence of a nation's age on the development of law in Germany. 2. The family tie by itself does not produce a people or a nation, and Schleiermacher's remark, 'If a number of families are united together and excluded from others by connubium, national unity is the result,' is doubly contradicted by history. Both patricians and plebeians at Rome were united by connubium, but at first they had no connubium with one another, yet together they formed the Roman nation. The Teutonic nations consisted of an union of estates, each of which was united by the tie of connubium. And in modern times we find intermarriage between different peoples, without giving rise to a new people. 3. Mancini (Della Nazionalità come fondamento del Diritto delle Genti; Turin, 1873, p. 37) defines a 'nationality' as 'una società naturale di uomini da unità di territorio, di origine di costume e di lingua conformati a comunanza di vita e di coscienza sociale.' But while he rightly regards nationality as the natural condition for the formation of a State, he does not properly distinguish Nation and people-regarding a people as a legal personality, which it cannot be till it is organised as a State. CHAPTER III. THE RIGHTS OF NATIONALITIES. which a People may HE fact that we have begun to demand recognition for Rights the rights of nationalities (nationale Rechte) implies an advance in civilisation. Nationalities demand respect and assert: protection as members of humanity and as the product of historical evolution. The first and most natural right which lies at the basis of all others is the right to exist. But what form of human life could have a better natural right to existence than the common spirit of a people? It is at once the substratum of individual life and an essential condition of the development of humanity. But it will take time before this merely moral imperative is embodied in the corresponding legal formula. The main significance of the principle of nationality lies so far in the region of policy, not in that of public law. But the following may be mentioned as principles which may rightly be asserted by members of the same nationality. guage. Language is the most peculiar possession of a people, is (1) To its the strongest bond which unites its members, and the chief own Lanmeans by which it reveals its character. For this reason the State cannot deny a nationality (Nation) its language 1, nor prohibit its literature. It is, on the contrary, the duty of the State to give free play to a language, and to promote its use, so far as the general interests of civilisation are not injured thereby. The suppression of the native languages of 1 Austrian Fundamental law: On the general rights of citizens: Dec. 21, 1867, Art. 19: 'All tribes in the nation (Volksstämme) have equal (?) rights, and each has an inviolable right to maintain its nationality and language,' (2) To its own Customs. (3) To its own Laws, within the provincials by the Romans was a fearful abuse of the power of government, and the prohibition of the Wendisch language in the territory of the Teutonic Order, under penalty of death, was a barbarous violation of rights. But it does not follow from this principle that one language may not be preferred for State purposes, to the exclusion of all others. Where the life of the State is concerned, the interest of the nation, as a whole, may require unity of language. This justifies the exclusion of Welsh and Gaelic from the English Parliament, of Basque and Breton from the French Assembly, and Polish, Danish, and French from the German Reichstag. But Switzerland has more respect for the different nationalities of which it is composed, unites German with French as its official language, and, on occasion, even recognises Italian. The State, too, is justified in providing that the developed language shall be taught in the schools, so that the children of a still unformed people may share in the heritage of a noble literature. On the other hand, a civilised people feel it a bitter wrong if their language is crushed out of School and Church, in favour of a foreign one. Further, a people has a right to observe its own customs so far as these do not conflict with the higher moral law of men, or offend against the rights of the State. The English are justified as rulers in not allowing Indian widows to commit Suttee at their husband's funeral. But the State has no right to prohibit innocent national games. In the sphere of Legal Institutions proper a People as such has less claim to recognition and protection from the State, limits de- because the unity and harmony of the State, and the civilisaby the good tion embodied in it, naturally have a higher claim. termined of the State. It is essential to the developed State to include the whole population in its laws, and transform or abolish the rights of individual peoples. We cannot find fault with the Romans for trying to introduce Roman law throughout their empire. But reckless interference is culpable. The English Government made one of the most serious mistakes in this direction when, in 1773, it wished to force the forms of English law |