and strong affinities; if they are not divided by any artificially maintained separation between the mixed races from which they are sprung; if they share a common basis of fundamental moral ideas, such as are most easily implanted by common religious beliefs; if they can glory in a common inheritance of tradition; and their nationality will be all the stronger if to these sources of unity they add a common language and literature and a common body of law. If these ties, or the majority of them, are lacking, the assertion of nationality cannot be made good. For, even if it be for the moment shared by the whole people, as soon as they begin to try to enjoy the freedom and unity which they claim in the name of nationality, they will fall asunder, and their freedom will be their ruin.” In the last sentence the author clearly shows that the conclusion at which he seemed to have arrived, namely that “a nation is a nation because its members passionately and unanimously believe it to be so,” is untenable. At the present time there are populations claiming the rights of nationality just upon this fallacious ground; a fact which illustrates the importance of achieving some satisfactory definition of nationhood. Indeed at the present moment, when Europe is being remoulded by the Paris Conference, the need for clear notions and some working definition of nationhood has acquired a most urgent importance. For, as our author remarks, “we say, loosely, that every nation has a _right_ to freedom and unity,” and the principle of “self-determination of nations” has become almost universally accepted as a kind of moral axiom of political justice; and this axiom is being applied to determine the political boundaries of the world now and for all time. Yet how can we hope to make a proper use of this principle, if we cannot define a nation, if a modern historian, who has devoted himself to the study of nationality, finds himself compelled in the year 1917 to give up the attempt to define the meaning of the term nation? For that is the issue of Prof. Ramsay Muir’s interesting discussion. “We have not attained,” he confesses, “in this discussion any very clear definition of nationality, or any very satisfactory test of the validity of the claims put forward for national freedom. We are not to base the doctrine of nationality upon abstract rights. We must recognise that there is no single infallible test of what constitutes a nation, unless it be the peoples’ own conviction of their nationhood, and even this may be mistaken or based upon inadequate grounds[44].” And the dire consequences of this failure are made clear on the following page—“There seems no escape from the conclusion that nationhood must mainly determine itself by conflict. That conclusion appears to be the moral of the history of the national idea in Europe.” Which is as much as to say that, when any population declares itself to be a nation and claims the