=75. Three groups of societies.=--Cicero and Fénélon remark that there are three sorts of societies among men: the first comprises the whole of _humanity_; the last, which is the most circumscribed, is what is called the _family_. But between the family and the human race in general, there is an intermediate society, larger than the one and more circumscribed than the other, and this is what is called the _country_. =76. Patriotism.=--The sentiment which binds us to the country, and which, articulated, becomes a _duty_, is what is called _patriotism_. We have already given elsewhere,[59] an analysis of patriotism. Let us repeat what we have said: Patriotism is one of our most complex sentiments: it is in fact composed of many distinct elements: it is, in the first place, the _love of the soil_ where we were born; and this soil is at first the narrow territory where our youth passed, and which we embraced entire with the eyes and recollections: it is the native village, the native city. But if this is the first sense of country, it falls far short of embracing the whole country. The love for the native church steeple is not patriotism: it is even its opposite often. The soil must extend, widen, and from the natal house, must gradually embrace, by successive additions, the village, the town, the county, the province, the whole country. But what is to determine the extent of this territory? Who is to decide that it shall go so far and no farther? There enter into it many elements: first, the inhabitants, the fellow-citizens, fellow-countrymen; a soil deserted would not be a country; to the love of the territory there must be added the love of those who inhabit it with us, or of our _fellow-countrymen_; to the nomadic people the country is only their tribe. Conversely, the citizens without the soil are not the country either, for exile in common is not the less exile. Finally, the union of soil and fellow-citizens may still not be the country, at least not all the country; a conquered nation may preserve its soil and its inhabitants, and have lost the country: as Poland, for instance. What, then, are the ties to determine the existence of a country? There are a large number of them, such as _the unity of language_, _the unity of laws_, _the unity of the flag_, _historic tradition_, and, finally, above all, the _unity of government_ and of an accepted government. A country exists only where there is an independent political state. This political unity does not suffice when the other ties are wanting; when it is a constraint, when peoples united under the same government have different manners, customs, traditions; conversely, unity of language and community of habits, will neither be sufficient when the political unity or a certain form of political unity is wanting. But what, before everything else,