What then is nationality? The question is more difficult to answer than
appears at first sight. A nationality is not quite the same thing as a
nation. For example, there is a German nation, ruled by the Kaiser
Wilhelm II., but this does not include twelve million people of German
nationality who are the subjects of the Emperor of Austria; or again,
there is the Swiss nation, which is made up of no less than three distinct
nationalities. Still less are the terms state and nationality synonymous;
for, if they were, then the natives of India might claim to be of the same
nationality as ourselves, or, _vice versa_, the United States would be
regarded as part of the British Empire because a large proportion of their
inhabitants happen to be of British descent. The word "race" brings us
somewhat nearer to the point, but even this will not satisfy us when we
remember that the Slavonic race, for example, consists of a large number of
nationalities, such as the Russians, the Poles, the Czechs, the Serbs, the
Montenegrins, etc., or that the English (as distinguished from the other
three nations of the United Kingdom) belong to the same Teutonic race as
the Germans. Nevertheless, a belief, whether well grounded or not, in
a common racial origin is one of the root principles of the idea of
nationality.

"What is a nation?" the great Magyar nationalist, Kossuth, asked a Serb
representative at the Hungarian Diet of 1848. The reply was: "A race
which possesses its own language, customs, and culture, and enough
self-consciousness to preserve them." "A nation must also have its own
government," objected Kossuth. "We do not go so far," explained his
interlocutor; "one nation can live under several different governments, and
again several nations can form a single state."[1] Both the Magyar and the
Serb wore right, though the latter was speaking of "nationality" and the
former of "nation." The conversation is in fact instructive in more
ways than one. It would be difficult to find a better definition of