trates also that the linguistic bond is not the only source of national aspirations. While national unity of the Italian-speaking people is their avowed aim, those Italians who have cast their lot with Switzerland are willingly left to themselves. In other areas the ardor with which unity is sought depends upon the historic past. The Italians under Austrian rule appeal most strongly to the Italian imagination, and Austria is reaping her reward for long-continued oppression. This has taken such strong hold of the Italian mind, that the French encroachments in the west, and Mazzini's condemnation of the Third French Republic for not restoring the lost territory, seem to have been forgotten.
For the full development of his faculties, the individual needs the widest possible field in which to live and act according to his modes of thought and inner feeling. Since, in most cases, the opportunity is given among a group that possesses unity of speech, we feel full sympathy with the intense desire to throw down the artificial barriers of small political units. This process has characterized the development of modern nations, and is now active in part of southeastern Europe.
When, however, these limits are overstepped, and a fictitious racial or alleged national unit is set up that has no existence in actual conditions, the free unfolding of powers, for which we are striving, is liable to become an excuse for ambitious lust for power. When France dreamt of a union of all Latin people in a Pan-Latin union under her leadership, the legitimate limits of natural development were lost sight of for the sake of national ambition. If Russia promotes a Pan-Slavistic propaganda among the diverse peoples, solely on the ground that the Slavs are linguistically related, and assumes a fictitious common
