perfectly realised as regards Italia Irredenta, the exception is after
all a trifling one. Thus the development of the national idea in Italy is
almost a model of what such a development should be, and we have dwelt
somewhat at length upon it for that very reason. The work of Mazzini and
Cavour provides us with a standard of comparison which should be found very
useful in dealing with the national idea in other countries.


§6. _The National Idea in Germany: a Case of Arrested
Development_.[1]--Nothing, for example, could be more instructive, both as
a study in nationalism and as an aid to the understanding of the present
situation in Europe, than a comparison between the making of modern Italy
and the making of modern Germany. At first sight the German Empire, with
its marvellous progress, its vast resources, and its world-wide ambitions,
would appear to be an even more successful example of national development
than the kingdom of Italy. Its demand for "a place in the sun," its
hustling diplomacy, its military spirit, its obvious intention to expand
territorially, if not in Europe itself then in Asia or Africa, are all
taken as symptoms of this success. No doubt there is a certain amount of
truth in this view. The truculence of German foreign policy is to be partly
attributed to that form of swollen self-consciousness and self-complacency
to which all nations are subject more or less, and which is most likely,
one would suppose, to be found in countries where a nationality had
recently succeeded in making itself into a nation. The natural instinct to
regard one's own nation as the peculiar people of God and to look down on
other nations as "lesser breeds without the law" is a phenomenon which must
be constantly reckoned with in any comprehensive treatment of nationalism.
Every nation has its own variety of it; in England it is Jingoism, in
France Chauvinism, in Italy Irredentism, in Russia Pan-Slavism, and so on.
These are instances of over-development of the national idea, due either