But while it may be that no other nation has been so naive as to make a concerted profession of faith to the effect that their own particular way of life is altogether commendable and is the only fashion of civilisation that is fit to survive; yet it will scarcely be an extravagance to assert that in their own secret mind these others, too, are blest with much the same consciousness of unique worth.

Conscious virtue of this kind is a good and sufficient ground for patriotic inflation, so far as it goes.

It commonly does not go beyond a defensive attitude, however.

Now and again, as in the latterday German animation on this head, these phenomena of national use and wont may come to command such a degree of popular admiration as will incite to an aggressive or proselyting campaign.
In all this there is nothing of a self-seeking or covetous kind.

The common man who so lends himself to the aggressive enhancement of the national Culture and its prestige has nothing of a material kind to gain from the increase of renown that so comes to his sovereign, his language, his countrymen's art or science, his dietary, or his God.
There are no sordid motives in all this.