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- A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this
- soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in
- common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present- day consent, the desire to live
- together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided
- form. Man, Gentlemen, does not improvise. The nation, like the individual, is the culmination of
- a long past of endeavours, sacrifice, and devotion. Of all cults, that of the ancestors is the most
- legitimate, for the ancestors have made us what we are. A heroic past, great men, glory (by
- which I understand genuine glory), this is the social capital upon which one bases a national idea.
- To have common glories in the past and to have a common will in the present; to have performed
- great deeds together, to wish to perform still more-these are the essential conditions for being a
- people. One loves in proportion to the sacrifices to which one has consented, and in proportion to
- the ills that one has suffered. One loves the house that one has built and that one has handed
- down. The Spartan song-"We are what you were; we will be what you are" -- is, in its simplicity,
- the abridged hymn of every patrie.
- More valuable by far than common customs posts and frontiers conforming to strategic ideas is
- the fact of sharing, in the past, a glorious heritage and regrets, and of having, in the future, [a
- shared] programme to put into effect, or the fact of having suffered, enjoyed, and hoped together.
- These are the kinds of things that can be understood in spite of differences of race and language.
- I spoke just now of "having suffered together" and, indeed, suffering in common unifies more
- than joy does. Where national memories are concerned, griefs are of more value than triumphs,
- for they impose duties, and require a common effort.
- A nation is therefore a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one
- has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future. It presupposes a
- past; it is summarized, however, in the present by a tangible fact, namely, consent, the clearly
- expressed desire to continue a common life. A nation's existence is, if you will pardon the
- metaphor, a daily plebiscite, just as an individual's existence is a perpetual affirmation of life.
- That, I know full well, is less metaphysical than divine right and less brutal than so called
- historical right. According to the ideas that I am outlining to you, a nation has no more right than
- a king does to say to a province: "You belong to me, I am seizing you." A province, as far as I
- am concerned, is its inhabitants; if anyone has the right to be consulted in such an affair, it is the
- inhabitant. A nation never has any real interest in annexing or holding on to a country against its
- will. The wish of nations is, all in all, the sole legitimate criterion, the one to which one must
- always return.
- We have driven metaphysical and theological abstractions out of politics. What then remains?
- Man, with his desires and his needs. The secession, you will say to me, and, in the long term, the
- disintegration of nations will be the outcome of a system which places these old organisms at the
- mercy of wills which are often none too enlightened. It is clear that, in such matters, no principle
- must be pushed too far. Truths of this order are only applicable as a whole in a very general
- fashion. Human wills change, but what is there here below that does not change? The nations are
- not something eternal. They had their beginnings and they will end. A European confederation
- will very probably replace them. But such is not the law of the century in which we are living. At
- the present time, the existence of nations is a good thing, a necessity even. Their existence is the
- guarantee of liberty, which would be lost if the world had only one law and only one master.
- Through their various and often opposed powers, nations participate in the common work of
- civilization; each sounds a note in the great concert of humanity, which, after all, is the highest
- ideal reality that we are capable of attaining. Isolated, each has its weak point. I often tell myself
- that an individual who had those faults which in nations are taken for good qualities, who fed off
- vainglory, who was to that degree jealous, egotistical, and quarrelsome, and who would draw his
- sword on the smallest pretext, would be the most intolerable of men. Yet all these discordant
- details disappear in the overall context. Poor humanity, how you have suffered! How many trials
- still await you! May the spirit of wisdom guide you, in order to preserve you from the countless
- dangers with which your path is strewn!
- Let me sum up, Gentlemen. Man is a slave neither of his race nor his language, nor of his
- religion, nor of the course of rivers nor of the direction taken by mountain chains. A large
- aggregate of men, healthy in mind and warm of heart, creates the kind of moral conscience
- which we call a nation. So long as this moral consciousness gives proof of its strength by the
- sacrifices which demand the abdication of the individual to the advantage of the community, it is
- legitimate and has the right to exist. If doubts arise regarding its frontiers, consult the populations
- in the areas under dispute. They undoubtedly have the right to a say in the matter. This
- recommendation will bring a smile to the lips of the transcendants of politics, these infallible
- beings who spend their lives deceiving themselves and who, from the height of their superior
- principles, take pity upon our mundane concerns. "Consult the populations, for heaven's sake!
- How naive! A fine example of those wretched French ideas which claim to replace diplomacy
- and war by childishly simple methods." Wait a while, Gentlemen; let the reign of the
- transcendants pass; bear the scorn of the powerful with patience. It may be that, after many
- fruitless gropings, people will revert to our more modest empirical solutions. The best way of
- being right in the future is, in certain periods, to know how to resign oneself to being out of
- fashion.
- - Ernest Renan, "What is a Nation?" (1882)
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