The circuit we have made from the extreme north to the centre of Europe includes the most complete, successful, and indisputable instance of a compact and homogeneous nationality in that of Germany. Twenty-five years ago this was hardly regarded as an ethnographical or historical designation, and it was certainly not political, since the tendencies and interests of the different States of Germany were quite dissimilar, even when, as in many of the most important questions, they were not altogether opposed to each other. Now that the nationality has arisen, has grown and reached maturity, and in two memorable campaigns has swept all obstacles from its path, it would be as useless to try to arrest its development and divert it from its path as to try and make the Rhine flow back to its source. The German nation must absorb a few more States in order to constitute itself into a political unity, but since the most important would shake to its foundations the Austro-Hungarian empire, this last annexation will be deferred as long as possible. The fraction of Germans which remains to be absorbed into the empire would only augment the number of its constituents by some millions, and its territory by some provinces; meanwhile in its present condition it fulfils the mission of a colony detached from the parent nation, impressed with the same characteristics, and adhering to the same interests, and thus constituting a weighty instrument for carrying out the national views throughout the Austro-Hungarian empire, which, amidst the conflict of the different nationalities of which it consists, is clearly and irresistibly impelled towards that which is the nearest, the most energetic, and the most powerful. This state of things is too favorable to Germany to allow her to hasten to exchange her independent colonies in Austria into faithful subjects of the German Emperor. There remain other tendencies to assimilation on the side of Russia and of Switzerland. The first are so problematical that they may be regarded as a pretext rather than a claim. The second have not, up to this time, acquired any appearance of probability, since Switzerland has had the privilege of constituting an artificial and political nationality out of such as are truly geographical and ethnographical, and has gallantly resisted any encroachment, so that on this side also any assimilation must be regarded as immature. We must not, however, forget the homogeneity of race, if Germany should be for any cause impelled to approach or to cross the Alps. In such a case the effects of this homogeneity must make themselves felt.