The herd is not tolerant of the nonconformist. The nonconformist has in a way become a stranger. He has put himself out of touch with the group. The group knows him and his ways, but he has not permitted himself to be thoroughly assimilated by it. And the very thing that the herd desires and insists upon is homogeneity. In the words of one writer, “The crowd not only needs to make adherents and thus maintain its existence and increase in volume and power; it needs no less to assimilate, to digest, the individuals which it swallows up.”[6] The individual, then, cannot be too insistent upon the expression of his own personality. His life, even his inner life, must conform to that of the group. His emotions will not be a matter merely of his own concern. “Herd-union does not intensify all emotions. It intensifies those which are felt in common, but it actually deadens and shuts down those which are only felt by the individual.”[7] And independent thought is even more taboo. “Thought ... is markedly individual and personal.... Thought is critical, and the Herd wants unanimity, not criticism. Consequently Herd-union deadens thought.”[8] Hence the nonconformist gets himself disliked, and the outcome of the situation has usually been to submerge the individual, and assimilate him to the group. The moral of the tale is that patriotism acts in that way. “Patriotism, which is the crowd-emotion of a Nation, makes at times supreme claims on every citizen and enforces them by public opinion so powerful that few can or desire to evade them.”[9] These observations throw light upon the question whether patriotism is a _political_ or _national_ emotion. Is patriotism attachment to the government or state, or is it love of one’s national group? There can be no doubt that it is the latter rather than the former. It is an outgrowth of tribal feeling. Bertrand Russell is only overstating a truth when he says that “Tribal feeling, which always underlay loyalty to the sovereign, has remained as strong as it ever was, and is now the chief support for the power of the State.”[10] There is an egoistic element in the attachment of patriotism. It is an adhesion to one’s own, and one’s own is but an extension of himself. Patriotism is a personal matter. That is, it is based upon a personal relationship. One cleaves to his group not on account of its intrinsic worth simply but because of what it is worth _to him_. The majority of men are most loyal to what is nearest themselves. Each one of them seems to himself to be the center of his sphere, and things vary in importance in direct ratio to their nearness to the center. This fact gives the key to a very common kind of patriotism. It is simply the loyalty that men feel to the extension of their own ego.