The Psychology of Nations

This book contains two closely related studies of the consciousness ofnations. It has been written during the closing months of the war andin the days that have followed, and is completed while the PeaceConference is still in session, holding in the balance, as many believe,the fate of many hopes, and perhaps the whole future of the world.We see focussed there in Paris all the motives that have ever enteredinto human history and all the ideals that have influenced humanaffairs. The question must have arisen in all minds in, some form asto what the place of these motives and ideals and dramatic momentsis in the progress of the world. Is the world governed after all by thelaws of nature in all its progress? Do ideals and motives govern theworld, but only as these ideals and motives are themselves producedaccording to biological or psychological principles? Or, again, doesprogress depend upon historical moments, upon conscious purposeswhich may divert the course of nature and in a real sense create thefuture? It is with the whole problem of history that we are confrontedin these practical hours. At heart our problem is that of the place ofman in nature as a conscious factor of progress. This is a problem,finally, of the philosophy of history, but it is rather in a more concreteway and upon a different level that it is to be considered here, andsomewhat incidentally to other more specific questions. But this isthe problem that is always before us, and the one to which this studyaims to make some contribution, however small.