64 NATIONALITY AND WAR 



shows this want of correspondence in a diagrammatic 

 fashion, as there has been no attempt made to 

 represent the various densities of the different racial 

 elements. Great Britain is Mediterranean and Nordic 

 with an absorbed Alpine element, absent from Ire- 

 land. France has the three races in a well-marked 

 and well-separated form. Italy has the Mediterra- 

 nean and Alpine races, distinct at the extremities, 

 blended in the middle, and Greece presents a com- 

 pleter blend of the same elements. Austro-Hungary 

 and the Balkan Peninsula are almost entirely Alpine 

 and indistinguishable in this respect from Russia 

 where the frontiers march. Russia is typically Alpine, 

 but towards the north and west the Alpine population 

 is imposed on an underlying Nordic strain, most 

 distinct in Finland. Germany is preponderatingly 

 Alpine in the south, centre and east, preponderatingly 

 Nordic only along the north-west, and the Russo- 

 German frontier cuts across the racial differentiation 

 at right angles. 



I do not dispute that modern nations are real 

 entities. What they are I discuss in the next chapter, 

 but at least it is clear that they differ from the units 

 of zoology and botany in that the individuals com- 

 posing them are not united by blood-relationship. 

 Even if the struggle for existence were the sole law 

 that had shaped and trimmed the tree of life, it does 

 not necessarily apply to the political communities 

 of men, for these cohere not because of common 

 descent but because of bonds that are peculiar to the 

 human race. 



