In the face of such unanimity of national feeling, it is absurd to discuss superficial conditions only, or to assume that they are of any real importance. For, apart from neutral America, and the few hundreds of really educated and intelligent men and women in each country who constitute the brains and conserve the manners of their nation, it is impossible to find any just basis for criticism and judgment. The average national is concerned with presenting an _ex parte_ statement (in which, perhaps, he believes implicitly) rather than with discovering the actual truth, whosoever may be vindicated or discredited. The average national may therefore be disregarded, and the supreme appeal be made, not to the common folly of the nations, but to the common sense of those who have risen beyond national limitations and national littlenesses. In the first place, that much-quoted and entirely despicable confession of faith, “My country, right or wrong, first, last and all the time,” may well be relegated,—first, last and for whatever time may remain before a kindly Providence blots out this incredible little world of seething passions and ceaseless pain and cruelty,—to the limbo of antique curiosities. Nothing can be sillier, and more contemptible, than such pseudo-patriotism, based on utter selfishness, utter ignorance, and abysmal stupidity. The country which commits a crime, or makes a grave mistake, is in the position of an individual who commits a crime or makes a grave mistake; and no fanfare of trumpets or hypnotism of marching automata, helmeted and plumed, should confuse the issue and vitiate judgment. Mere nationalism, unregulated by intelligence, is simply one of the most irritating and blatant forms of egoism. Nationality itself depends upon so many complex conditions that the ordinary semi-intelligent man can scarcely unravel the niceties of history and discover to whom his heartfelt allegiance is really due. He therefore accepts the untutored sentiment of his immediate environment. He is essentially provincial, not patriotic. Alsace and Lorraine, with their various vicissitudes, may profitably be studied by the curious, in this connection.