In conclusion, we may briefly consider the problems that have been raised in the nineteenth century by the increased emphasis on the idea of nationality. Influences of an idealistic nature first raised the cultivation and establishment of a particular national character to the position of a matter of the greatest importance. This character appeared to be an extremely valuable form of individualisation of the spiritual life, a form in which that life attains to concreteness and greater definiteness and penetration. The co-existence of these individual nationalities gave promise of an incomparably richer formation of the life of humanity as a whole: the inner development of their peculiar natures, and their lofty rivalry, also promised to bring a wealth of arousing and elevating motives. The nineteenth century has, indeed, won an incalculable amount through this movement; to take up an abstract cosmopolitanism again would be decidedly retrograde. But the more the idea of nationality has been brought from its high place in the realm of thought to the domain of human circumstance, the more has it been debased and the more dangers has it produced. If previously the cultivation of an ideal type of life was most prominent, and if the nations could thus permit one another to follow their own courses peacefully, this has become less and less the case in face of the desire and effort for power and expansion in the visible world; and owing to the narrowness of physical space occupied by the nations, the different strivings have clashed together more and more severely. If this tendency continues without the counteraction of an inner task common to humanity as a whole, and of unifying and elevating ideas, it is hardly possible to avoid mutual hostility, a degeneration into obstinacy and injustice. The idea of nationality may therefore become a danger to the ethical character of life. This is the case if, by milder or by severer means, one nation tries to force its own character and speech upon another. The mode of thought based on the old _cujus regio ejus natio_ is in no way better than that based on the old _cujus regio ejus religio_, which we are now accustomed to regard with contempt as a piece of barbarism. The desire for external power at the same time tends to lessen the attention to the inner development and unification of nationality, without which ultimately little progress can be made in the development of power. It is through a common national character, with its unification of the feelings and efforts of the individuals, that a people is first elevated into a genuine nation; it is a character such as this that gives to a people a power of influencing humanity as a whole; it is a character such as this that gives to the individuals the consciousness of being "members one of another," and with this a stability and a joy in life and activity. Such a national character necessitates certain natural conditions, that are like the veins in