bit of fleecing going on in this fashion--both of the public and the
wage-workers. Even in its more healthy forms, when delayed in too long,
patriotism easily becomes morbid and delays also the birth of the larger
spirit which is waiting behind it. The Continental Socialists complain
that their cause has hitherto made little progress in Alsace-Lorraine
and Poland for the simple reason that political circumstances have
over-accentuated the patriotic devotion in both these regions.

Thus we have to push on with discrimination. Always we have to remember
that the wide, free sense of equality and kinship which lies at the root
of Internationalism is the real goal, and that the other thing is but a
step on the way, albeit a necessary step. Always we have to press on
towards that great and final liberation--the realization of our common
humanity, the recognition of the same great soul of man slumbering under
all forms in the heart of all races--the one guarantee and assurance of
the advent of World-peace.

That we are verging rapidly towards some altered perspective I quite
believe; and the day is coming when in the social and political spheres
International activity will make excessive patriotism seem somewhat
ridiculous--as, in fact, it has already done in the spheres of Science
and Industry and Art. Still, I also do not see any reason why the two
tendencies should not work side by side. The health of local organs and
members in the human body is by no means incompatible with the health of
the whole organism, and we may understand the great map of Humanity all
the better for its being differently coloured in different parts.