Book Description

True patriotism is the kinship of the most unselfish of human affections. Morality is no accident of human nature, but its essential characteristic. Though the principle, which is the abiding spirit of the law, remains perpetual and unaltered, the letter of the law and the mode of realizing it in actual practice, must be modified by circumstance. Patriotism is a link in the golden chain of our affections and virtues, and turns away with indignant scorn from the false philosophy or mistaken religion, which would persuade him that cosmopolitism is nobler than nationality, and that the human race a sublimer object of love than a people. Patriotism is the kinship of the most unselfish of human affections, the powers and interests of men spread without confusion through a common sphere, like the vibrations propagated in the air by a single voice, distinct yet coherent, and all uniting to express one thought and the same feeling. What were the Greeks while they remained free and independent? When Greece resembled a collection of mirrors set in a single frame, each having its own focus of patriotism, yet all capable of converging to one point and of consuming a common foe? They were the fountains of light and civilization, of truth and of beauty, to all mankind, the thinking head the beating heart of the whole world! They lost their independence, and with their independence their patriotism, and became the cosmopolites of antiquity. And what came out of these men, who were eminently free without patriotism, be-cause without national independence? While they were intense patriots, they were the benefactors of all mankind, legislators for the very nation that afterwards subdued and enslaved them. Even in cases of actual injury and just alarm the patriot sets bounds to the reprisal of national vengeance, and contents himself with such securities as are compatible with the welfare, though not with the ambitious projects of the nation, whose aggressions had given the provocation: for as patriotism inspires no superhuman faculties, neither can it dictate any conduct which would require such. He is too conscious of his own ignorance of the future, to dare extend his calculations into remote periods; nor, because he is a statesman, arrogates to himself the cares of Providence and the government of the world. Without local attachment, without national honour, we shall resemble a swarm of insects that settle on the fruits of the earth to corrupt and consume them, rather than men who love and cleave to the land of their forefathers. Deceit and hypocrisy is national politics are elevated to noble patriotic aspirations. Until final emancipation reabsorbs the Ego, it must be conscious of the purest sympathies called out by the aesthetic effects of high art, its tenderest cords responding to the call of the holier and nobler human attachments until all human and purely individual personal feelings — blood-ties and friendship, patriotism and race predilection — all will give away, to become blended into one universal feeling, the only true and holy, the only truly Unselfish and Eternal one — Love, an Immense Love for Humanity. Patriots may burst their hearts in vain if circumstances are against them. But no human power, not even the fury and force of the loftiest patriotism, has been able to bend an iron destiny aside from its fixed course, and nations have gone out like torches dropped into water in the engulfing blackness of ruin. Speculative lucubrations of an Aristotelean philosopher. He is the mouthpiece of that majority in modern society which has worked itself out an elaborate policy full of sophistry and paradox, behind which every member clumsily hides his personal views. His “respectable deference to public opinion,” is short-hand for hypocrisy. He confuses phenomena for which the agency of “disembodied spirits” is claimed, with natural phenomena for which every tithe of supernaturalism is rejected. The great, the glorious hour has come at last! Ambition, grasping greediness or envy — miscalled Patriotism — exist no longer. Cruel selfishness has made room for universal altruism, and cold indifference to the wants of the millions no longer finds favour in the sight of the favoured few. Selfishness kills every noble impulse. It is the prolific mother of all vices, Lie being born out of the necessity for dissembling, and Hypocrisy out of the desire to mask Lie. Deceit and Hypocrisy work for dear self’s sake everywhere. Nations, by tacit agreement, have decided that selfish motives in politics shall be called “noble national aspiration, patriotism,” and the citizen views it in his family circle as “domestic virtue.” Nevertheless, selfishness, whether it breeds desire for aggrandizement of territory, or competition in commerce to the detriment of one’s neighbour, can never be regarded as a virtue. Equally, a diplomat’s qualification, “dexterity or skill in securing advantages” for one’s own country, at the expense of other countries, can hardly be achieved by speaking truth but, verily, by a wily and deceitful tongue. The Turks have been convicted of systematic lying and atrocities in nearly every country. But the condition of Israelites in Russia has immensely improved since the accession of Alexander II to the throne of his father. The chief Rabbi of Moscow published an earnest address to his co-religionists throughout the empire to remind them that they were Russians by birth, and called upon them to display their patriotism in subscriptions for the wounded, prayers in the synagogues for the success of the Russian arms, and all other practical ways. The aim of Christian missions is to pervert people from their ancestral religions, rather than convert them to Christianity, in order to destroy in them every spark of national feeling. For when the spirit of patriotism is dead in a nation, it very easily becomes a mere puppet in the hands of the rulers. A true theosophist must be a cosmopolitan in his heart. He must embrace the whole of humanity in his philanthropic feelings. It is higher and far nobler to be one of those who love their fellow men, without distinction of race, creed, caste or colour, than to be merely a good patriot, or still less, a partisan.