From 'Historical Essays of Edward A. Freeman,' First Series. London,
Macmillan & Co., 1871
Having ruled that races and nations, though largely formed by the
working of an artificial law, are still real and living things, groups
in which the idea of kindred is the idea around which everything has
grown,--how are we to define our races and our nations? How are we to
mark them off one from the other? Bearing in mind the cautions and
qualifications which have been already given, bearing in mind large
classes of exceptions which will presently be spoken of, I say
unhesitatingly that for practical purposes there is one test, and one
only; and that that test is language.
It is hardly needful to show that races and nations cannot be defined
by the merely political arrangements which group men under various
governments. For some purposes of ordinary language, for some purposes
of ordinary politics, we are tempted, sometimes driven, to take this
standard. And in some parts of the world, in our own Western Europe
for instance, nations and governments do in a rough way fairly answer
to one another. And in any case, political divisions are not without
their influence on the formation of national divisions, while national
divisions ought to have the greatest influence on political
divisions. That is to say, _prima facie_ a nation and a government
should coincide. I say only _prima facie_, for this is assuredly no
inflexible rule; there are often good reasons why it should be
otherwise; only, whenever it is otherwise, there should be some good
reason forthcoming. It might even be true that in no case did a
government and a nation exactly coincide, and yet it would none the
less be the rule that a government and a nation should coincide. That
is to say, so far as a nation and a government coincide, we accept it
as the natural state of things, and ask no question as to the cause;
so far as they do not coincide, we mark the case as exceptional by
asking what is the cause. And by saying that a government and a nation
should coincide, we mean that as far as possible the boundaries of
governments should be so laid out as to agree with the boundaries of
nations. That is, we assume the nation as something already existing,
something primary, to which the secondary arrangements of government
should as far as possible conform. How then do we define the nation
which is, if there is no special reason to the contrary, to fix the
limits of a government? Primarily, I say, as a rule,--but a rule
subject to exceptions,--as a _prima facie_ standard, subject to
special reasons to the contrary,--we define the nation by language. We
may at least apply the test negatively. It would be unsafe to rule
that all speakers of the same language must have a common nationality;
but we may safely say that where there is not community of language,
there is no common nationality in the highest sense. It is true that
without community of language there may be an artificial nationality,
a nationality which may be good for all political purposes, and which
may engender a common national feeling. Still, this is not quite the
same thing as that fuller national unity which is felt where there is
community of language.
In fact, mankind instinctively takes language as the badge of
nationality. We so far take it as the badge, that we instinctively
assume community of language as a nation as the rule, and we set down
anything that departs from that rule as an exception. The first idea
suggested by the word Frenchman, or German, or any other national
name, is that he is a man who speaks French or German as his mother
tongue. We take for granted, in the absence of anything to make us
think otherwise, that a Frenchman is a speaker of French and that a
speaker of French is a Frenchman. Where in any case it is otherwise,
we mark that case as an exception, and we ask the special cause.
Again, the rule is none the less the rule nor the exceptions the
exceptions, because the exceptions may easily outnumber the instances
which conform to the rule. The rule is still the rule, because we take
the instances which conform to it as a matter of course, while in
every case which does not conform to it we ask for the explanation.
All the larger countries of Europe provide us with exceptions; but we
treat them all as exceptions. We do not ask why a native of France
speaks French. But when a native of France speaks as his mother tongue
some other tongue than French, when French, or something which
popularly passes for French, is spoken as his mother tongue by some
one who is not a native of France, we at once ask the reason. And the
reason will be found in each case in some special historical cause,
which withdraws that case from the operation of the general law. A
very good reason can be given why French, or something which popularly
passes for French, is spoken in parts of Belgium and Switzerland whose
inhabitants are certainly not Frenchmen. But the reason has to be
given, and it may fairly be asked.
In the like sort, if we turn to our own country, whenever within the
bounds of Great Britain we find any tongue spoken other than English,
we at once ask the reason and we learn the special historic cause. In
a part of France and a part of Great Britain we find tongues spoken
which differ alike from English and from French, but which are
strongly akin to one another. We find that these are the survivals of
a group of tongues once common to Gaul and Britain, but which the
settlement of other nations, the introduction and the growth of other
tongues, have brought down to the level of survivals. So again we find
islands which both speech and geographical position seem to mark as
French, but which are dependencies, and loyal dependencies, of the
English crown. We soon learn the cause of the phenomenon which seems
so strange. Those islands are the remains of a State and a people
which adopted the French tongue, but which, while it remained one, did
not become a part of the French State. That people brought England by
force of arms under the rule of their own sovereigns. The greater part
of that people were afterwards conquered by France, and gradually
became French in feeling as well as in language. But a remnant clave
to their connection with the land which their forefathers had
conquered, and that remnant, while keeping the French tongue, never
became French in feeling. This last case, that of the Norman Islands,
is a specially instructive one. Normandy and England were politically
connected, while language and geography pointed rather to a union
between Normandy and France. In the case of Continental Normandy,
where the geographical tie was strongest, language and geography
together would carry the day, and the Continental Norman became a
Frenchman. In the islands, where the geographical tie was less strong,
political traditions and manifest interest carried the day against
language and a weaker geographical tie. The insular Norman did not
become a Frenchman. But neither did he become an Englishman. He alone
remained Norman, keeping his own tongue and his own laws, but attached
to the English crown by a tie at once of tradition and of advantage.
Between States of the relative size of England and the Norman Islands,
the relation naturally becomes a relation of dependence on the part of
the smaller members of the union. But it is well to remember that our
forefathers never conquered the forefathers of the men of the Norman
Islands, but that their forefathers did once conquer ours.
These instances and countless others bear out the position, that while
community of language is the most obvious sign of common
nationality,--while it is the main element, or something more than an
element, in the formation of nationality,--the rule is open to
exceptions of all kinds; and that the influence of language is at all
times liable to be overruled by other influences. But all the
exceptions confirm the rule, because we specially remark those cases
which contradict the rule, and we do not specially remark those cases
which do conform to it.