First of all, owing to the fact that they are experienced to-day by large masses of men, these passions have become _far more purely passionate_. When the national feeling was practically confined to Kings or their Ministers, it consisted chiefly in attachment to some _interest_ (desire for territorial expansion, search for commercial advantages and profitable alliances), whereas to-day when this national feeling is continually experienced by common minds, it consists chiefly in the exercise of _pride_. Everyone will agree that nationalist passion in the modern citizen is far less founded on a comprehensive knowledge of the national interests (he has an imperfect perception of these interests, he lacks the information necessary and does not try to acquire it, for he is indifferent to questions of foreign policy) than on the pride he feels in his nation, on his will to feel himself one with the nation, to react to the honours and insults he thinks are bestowed on it. No doubt he wants his nation to acquire territories, to be prosperous and to have powerful allies; but he wants all this far less on account of the material results which will accrue to the nation (how much is he conscious of these results?) than on account of the glory, the prestige which the nation will acquire. By becoming popular, national feeling has become national pride, national susceptibility.[10] To measure how much more purely passionate it has become, how much more perfectly irrational (and therefore stronger) one has only to think of Jingoism, the form of patriotism specially invented by democracies. If, in accordance with current opinion, you think that pride is a weaker passion than self-interest, you may be convinced to the contrary by observing how commonly men let themselves be killed on account of a wound to their pride, and how infrequently for some infraction of their interests.