The history of Switzerland shows that at bottom neither language nor physical or racial barriers suffice to constitute nationality. Human desire to achieve and maintain national independence, or to establish liberal institutions, depends on will or purpose far more than on physical facts. Diversity of language never impaired Switzerland’s existence as a sovereign nation. Racial heterogeneity in its population likewise failed to weaken national feeling. Over such natural drawbacks the indomitable determination of free-born Helvetians to maintain their country’s sovereignty has prevailed. Frenchmen and Germans have always been warring elements in Switzerland, but animosity bred by racial differences invariably disappeared in matters where national existence was at stake. A bond of patriotism based on common religious and democratic ideals proved strong enough to overcome divergencies due to natural causes. [Illustration: FIG. 19--View of Dissentis in the section of Switzerland where Romansh is spoken. This view is taken looking toward the Oberalp Road. The famous Benedictine Abbey stands out conspicuously on the right.] [Illustration: FIG. 20--The town of Zermatt, which lies within the area of French language in Switzerland. The Matterhorn appears in the background.] The Swiss Confederation originally consisted of the three German-speaking cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden,[45] clustering round Lake Lucerne, in the very heart of the mountain state. The desire to rid their land of Hapsburg tyranny had drawn together the inhabitants of this region as early as in 1291. In the ensuing twenty-five years, these mountaineers succeeded in making their democratic ideas dominant in their home districts. This led to the gradual adherence of adjoining territories. By the middle of the fourteenth century an “Everlasting League” had been securely established in this orographic center of the European continent. At the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, twenty cantons of the present confederation were finally rounded out. Of these, fifteen are now predominantly German. French Switzerland receives a large number of German immigrants. In 1900 the number of Germans, both from German cantons and from the German Empire, was estimated at 164,379. In 1910 this foreign element had grown to a community of 186,135. The tendency of these newcomers is to become assimilated. Intermarriage and social intercourse favor French influence. As a rule the second generation of these Germans cannot speak the paternal vernacular and become lost in the mass of its French-speaking neighbors. The assimilating power of the French Swiss is also observable at Delémont and Moutier, in the Bernese Jura, where the piercing of the Weissenstein has brought a heavy flow of German immigrants.