We can now see in part how the idea of national honor arises out of the pride of nations. Certain fundamental feelings issue in the form of claims of superiority or supremacy, which may be either vague and unclear or very definite and self-conscious. This claim to superiority is precisely what we mean by national vanity. With this consciousness there goes a knowledge that these claims are in general not recognized by other nations, or that the prestige which the recognition of this superiority presupposes is at least insecure. Since, of course, these claims to supremacy cannot all be valid, there must be a great amount of inferiority parading in the world as superiority, many fictitious and presumably half-hearted assumptions that must not only be defended against outsiders, but must also be _internally fortified_. The pride and the conceit must be justified by the creation of a fictitious past, and of an impossible future. The motive of these falsifications on the part of race consciousness is clear. A nation is defending its claim to superiority by first establishing the claim in its own mind. These claims being really unfounded must be placed beyond criticism. They must be given a religious form. But also external forms and relations of an artificial nature must be established. Nations always hide behind barriers of formality. They make displays to one another. In this way the feeling and the appearance of superiority are kept up. Everything external to the group and not participating in its illusion of supremacy must be _kept_ external to it. The belief which the nation itself assumes in regard to its virtue must be demanded from all outsiders with whom the nation has relations of any kind. At least the forms of the recognition of the claim must be insisted upon. This is the principle of national honor. It is a defense of certain ideal or fictitious values in which nations insist that others should recognize these claims and values. National honor is an artifice for defending a claim to superiority and concealing an actual inferiority, and it relates to values which, in general, do not exist. Its work is concerned with the maintenance of prestige.