This larger group, although of comparatively ephemeral existence and therefore devoid of long traditions coming down from the past, is in perfect and obvious harmony, in purpose and spirit and material organisation, with the battalions and other units of which it is composed; and, accordingly, the sentiment for the larger group does not enter into rivalry with that for the battalion, the battery, or other smaller unit; rather it comprises this within its own organisation and derives energy and stability from it. These psychological principles of group consciousness are, I think, well borne out inductively, by any comparative survey; that is to say, we find that, where family sentiment and the sentiment for the local group are strong, there also the wider group sentiments are strong, and good citizenship, patriotism, and ready devotion to public services of all kinds are the rule. The strongest most stable States have always been those in which family sentiment has been strong, especially those in which it has been strengthened and supported by the custom of ancestor worship, as in Rome, Japan and China. Scotchmen again (Highlanders especially) are noted for clannishness, and Scotch cousins have become a bye-word; a fact which implies the great strength of the family sentiment. The clan sentiment, which is clearly only an extension of the family sentiment, is also notoriously strong. The sentiment for Scotland as a whole is no less strong in the hearts of all her sons. But, and this is the important point, these strong group sentiments are perfectly compatible with and probably conducive to a sentiment for the still wider group, Great Britain or the British Empire; and the public services rendered to these larger groups by men of Scottish birth are equally notorious. In these considerations we may see, I think, a principal ground of the importance of the institution of the family for the welfare of the state. The importance has often been insisted upon; but too much stress is usually laid upon the material aspects, and not enough upon the mental effects, of family life. It has been a grave mistake on the part of many collectivists, from Plato onwards, that they have sought to destroy the family and to bring up all children as the children of the state only, in some kind of barrack system. It is not too much to say that, if they could succeed in this (and in this country great strides in this direction are being rapidly made), they would destroy the mental foundations of all possibility of collective life of the higher type.