The patriotism of pride is not loath to meet its adversary upon the field of honor. When nations have a lively sense of power and prestige, a situation is created which furnishes admirable fuel for trouble. For insecure pride will induce fear, and fearful pride will allow no nation to do other than to resent insults, real or supposed, promptly and bitterly. Material interests need not clash in order that a war be provoked. If the patriot says to himself that the country’s honor has been assailed, the fight is on, no matter what the insult may consist in; it may have to do with only a matter of mere punctilio. An insult has been offered, and injured pride does not enjoy itself until it reaps revenge. Of course the crime is that the insult is a public one. “The act that, more certainly than any other, provokes vengeful emotion is the public insult, which, if not immediately resented, lowers one in the eyes of one’s fellows. Such an insult calls out one’s positive self-feeling, with its impulse to assert oneself and to make good one’s value and power in the public eye.”[26] But it does not happen that any one country is allowed to assert itself without opposition. Others will follow the example, attempt to assert themselves, and make good their prestige. What then happens is that there is a race for power, and patriotism becomes a spirit of rivalry or emulation.[27] The fact is that what most of us desire is not only well-being but prestige, not only the _Good_, but the _Better_ or the _Best_. Athletic contests are invested with such great interest not only because they may be good games, but because they are _contests_, contests perhaps between traditional rivals, or are for the championship of this, that, or the other. It is likewise with countries. National welfare is viewed at the present time very largely as a competitive success. And affairs have come to such a condition that no one country dares to let up in its vigilance in the universal competition. Individually it is helpless. If it relaxes, its competitor will monopolize all the advantages, its own prestige will be lowered, and it will be inviting aggression in which it will be preyed upon. There doesn’t seem to be much help for the situation except in the concerted action of nations. But in the meanwhile the struggle goes on, and patriots throw themselves into the spirit of it with abandon. It should be said that it is not inevitable that the impulse of rivalry should issue exclusively in destructive conflict. One does not need to destroy his competitor in order that he himself should be benefited, and in fact enlightened competition does desire the preservation and welfare of the competitors. One way in which the emulative impulse differs from the combative impulse, for instance, is just this, that it does seek to preserve a defeated competitor. The possibility is, then, that patriotism may be sublimated into a higher and more innocent form of rivalry than what we have at present.