PANGERMANISM AND THE SMALL NATIONS
nations, we find that in the majority of cases the state is made up of a mixture of nationalities, and that as yet no nation has formed a state of its own. We have in Europe twenty-eight states (or fifty-three if we count the component states of Germany and reckon Hungary as a separate state) and about sixty-two nations; the states are, for the most part, polyglot.[1]
Up till now states have been formed regardless of national frontiers. It was not until modern times, not until the end of the 18th century, that the national idea became a powerful political motive. At that time, however, it acquired a constructive influence. In the name of nationality the nations demanded their consolidation. The Germans, Italians, Slavs, Roumanians, Greeks and the rest, all demanded national unity and independence; and, indeed, in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries the frontiers of the states were modified in accordance with the national principle. Several subject nations have attained to various degrees of national independence, new states have come into existence, old frontiers have changed, and in some of the polyglot states various degrees and kinds of national autonomy have been introduced.
Although the national principle is not as yet recognised as paramount, and its influence is not yet decisive, it nevertheless has taken its place among the great political factors. According to Herder the nations of the New Age become the natural organs of the human race, while states are relegated to a subordinate position, as mere artificial organisations. The applicability of the terms "natural" and "artificial" in this new order of things may be questioned, but it cannot be doubted that since the 18th century nationality has been ranged side by side with the Church and the State as one of the decisive political forces.
There is no need for a more minute classification of states from the nationalist point of view. It will be enough to indicate the remarkable difference between the East and West of Europe in the relationship between state and nationality. In the West we have a greater number of states, the majority of which, as regards the extent of
- ↑ This number is only approximately correct—it is significant of the neglect with which this branch of sociology has hitherto been treated that there are as yet no exact statistics nor differential maps of nations and states.
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