Nationalism and the Internationalideal

Extract

“Nation” and “nationalism” are not easily defined; mainly, perhaps, because these words, as popularly used, do not have precise meanings. A nation may mean: (1) A people living under a common government,—as when we speak of British or French “nationals"; or (2) A people with a common racial inheritance—the Jews; or (3) A people, inhabiting a certain tract of the earth's surface, with generally common sentiments and habits of thinking, though possibly of mixed race, and part of a wider political society—the English, as distinguished from the Scottish, or Irish, nation.