Charlemagne at Paderborn by Ary Scheffer

“Might makes right”, as the common saying tells us. However convincing this statement may appear at first glance, it falls apart upon further scrutiny: for if physical force alone determines truth, then men should no longer strive for justice whenever tyranny takes hold of a state. Yet there is a true relationship between might and right which that statement attempts to grasp at, and therein lies its popularity and its power. Against this false reduction, the great French philosopher Blaise Pascal gave a much more enlightened definition of the relationship between these two forces:¹

Right without might is helpless, might without right is tyrannical.

Right without might is challenged, because there are always evil men about. Might without right is denounced. We must therefore combine right and might, and to that end make right into might or might into right.

(Pensées, fragment 298)

The two forces are distinct. Might is not right, and neither is right the same thing as might. Though, as Pascal admits, one can be used to build up the other, this must be done in a complimentary spirit, which is exactly the opposite popular interpretation of the previously mentioned saying. But in order to clearly understand why they must be combined, we must further examine exactly in what things might and right consist.

Might is not only the political power of a nation, but it must also be its racial stock. For without the racial stock, there cannot even be a polity to begin with. One can craft a “nation” for fun in his room; a man can write up a constitution and draw a map for his imagined state, but without a people to bring it into reality, it will remain imaginary. While a nation can be forged by a single founder—as has happened various times in history—this founder works as the leader of this natural community, not an individual acting on his own. Aside from having a common bond on the grounds of shared heritage and community, nations also have a soul to them.² Of this interplay between spiritual and physical on the national level the wise Joseph de Maistre tells us:³

Nations have a general soul and a true moral unity that makes them what they are. This unity is especially manifested through language.

The Creator has marked out over the globe the limits of nations, and St. Paul has spoken philosophically to the Athenians when he said to them: And [He] hath made of one blood all nations for men to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation (Acts, XVII, 26). These bounds are visible, and we always see each people tending to fill completely one of the enclosed spaces within these bounds. Sometimes invincible circumstances hurl two nations into one another and force them to mingle: then their constituent principles interpenetrate, and the result is a hybrid nation which may be more or less powerful and famous than if it were of pure stock.

(Maistre 174)

Thus nations, like men, are organic beings; they are born and pass away in the course of history. Sometimes too a nation rises again after decades or even ages of slumber and takes on a seemingly new life, but one that is really a continuation of that older life. Such a transformation is like that of an old sinner who repents and takes a revival of the happier life he enjoyed in his childhood. Concerning the “pure” and “hybrid” categories the Count writes of, it is worth noting that even homogeneous states may be hybrid nations on some level—for instance the Italian nation. For though there is indeed a shared racial unity among Italians, this unity was created by the admixture of Italic tribes, Romans, Greeks, as well as Germanic peoples such as the Lombards and Normans. But as all these peoples were and are European, it is simpler to categorize the Italians as a pure nation, for the obvious examples of hybrid nations are those in which peoples of various racial groups have inhabited together for a lengthy period of time and have assimilated to a common culture, thereby creating a common civilization. Representative of this overt hybrid nation type would be the Latin American states, such as Brazil and Mexico.

The distinction that Maistre draws here, furthermore, indicates a deeper truth: the ability for a person to assimilate into a foreign state is in large part determined by the number of similarities and differences between his original nation and the nation such a person now wishes to call home. If the similarities drown out the differences in all the categories of extreme importance—namely religion, race, and culture—then the smaller differences can easily be overcome.

For instance, it was and still is a relatively simple thing for a Frenchman to immigrate to the United States, because both France and America are Western European in their racial and cultural foundation; though most French immigrants have been Catholics, the ability for them to assimilate into the Protestant-based American society was still possible because Protestant cultures ultimately have some foundation in Catholic culture. There is indeed a substantial linguistic difference between English and French, but this can be readily overcome through study and practice with native speakers of American English.

The same, however, cannot be said of an Indian Hindu who wishes to immigrate to the USA: he may indeed speak a dialect of English intelligible enough to Americans, but he is not European in terms of race or culture. Moreover, his culture is not simply “different” from American culture because of the vastly different hereditary and geographic conditions of the Indian subcontinent; the values of his culture are antithetical to the Christian values of our culture, which, although sadly corrupted, still clash with the outright contempt that pagan Hinduism has for characteristics taken for granted in our society such as honesty and care for the poor. Therefore, the idea this Hindu can ever “assimilate” into American society, regardless if he possesses a fictio juris card telling him he is a “citizen” of our nation, is an utter impossibility. He is not only biologically and culturally incompatible—he is also spiritually incompatible; he is at odds with the very soul of our nation.

Kinship is necessary in order to make one a true citizen, a truth despicably rejected in our times by the internationalist wire-pullers who have hijacked our institutions and governments across the West. Witness the remarkable clarity of the ancient Plato on this point:⁴

The unity of descent, speech, and institutions certainly promotes friendly feeling, since it involves the community in religious ceremonies and the like, but is not readily tolerant of novel laws or a constitution different from that of the homeland, while a group which has, perhaps, been driven into faction by the badness of the laws, yet still clings, from force of habit, to the very practices which had already led to its undoing, proves recalcitrant to the founder and his legislation, and refuses obedience. On the other side, a stock due to a confluence of various elements may perhaps be more willing to submit to novel laws, but it is a difficult business, and takes a long time for it to ‘breathe and blow in unison,’ as the proverbial phrase has it of a pair of horses.

(Laws 4.709c-d)

In order, therefore, to preserve social and legal traditions among a people, the people itself must be preserved. On the other hand, the large-scale introduction of foreigners into a previously homogeneous society makes that society more amendable to “novel laws”—a fact quite evidently present in all Western nations to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

This sound understanding was not lost after the conversion of Constantine; quite the opposite in fact, for it was strengthened by the truths of Divine Revelation. As the Angelic Doctor, the philosopher par excellence of Holy Mother Church elaborates, the ancient Law of the Israelites in the Old Law prefigured the proper relationship between nations and foreigners in the New Law:⁵

Man’s relations with foreigners are twofold: peaceful, and hostile: and in directing both kinds of relation the Law contained suitable precepts. For the Jews were offered three opportunities of peaceful relations with foreigners. First, when foreigners passed through their land as travelers. Secondly, when they came to dwell in their land as newcomers. And in both these respects the Law made kind provision in its precepts: for it is written (Ex. 22:21): “Thou shalt not molest a stranger [advenam]”; and again (Ex. 22:9): “Thou shalt not molest a stranger [peregrino].” Thirdly, when any foreigners wished to be admitted entirely to their fellowship and mode of worship. With regard to these a certain order was observed. For they were not at once admitted to citizenship: just as it was law with some nations that no one was deemed a citizen except after two or three generations, as the Philosopher says (Polit. iii, 1). The reason for this was that if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people. Hence it was that the Law prescribed in respect of certain nations that had close relations with the Jews (viz., the Egyptians among whom they were born and educated, and the Idumeans, the children of Esau, Jacob’s brother), that they should be admitted to the fellowship of the people after the third generation; whereas others (with whom their relations had been hostile, such as the Ammonites and Moabites) were never to be admitted to citizenship; while the Amalekites, who were yet more hostile to them, and had no fellowship of kindred with them, were to be held as foes in perpetuity: for it is written (Ex. 17:16): “The war of the Lord shall be against Amalec from generation to generation.”

(Summa Theologiae II-I, Q. 105, Art. 3.)

States, as natural institutions, are not universal and are relative to a given people who inhabit a certain territory. Resulting from this, no one has an inherent “right” to become a citizen of a country to which he is a foreigner; a greater burden falls upon himself to conduct himself properly in this new land than upon its native inhabitants to support him. For as St. Thomas notes, it was wisely observed in the ancient civilizations of Israel and Greece that citizenship was only bestowed upon the second or third generation of new arrivals, for the first generation immigrant’s more immediate experience of the differences between their homeland and the novelty of their chosen country of residence was made for conflicts of loyalty. These internal conflicts became external, as they led to such persons sacrificing the common good of their adoptive nation in favor of their own tribal self-interest. Moreover, it is intriguing to note that, for the Israelites in the above-quoted example, citizenship or admittance into their nation was granted to some groups of people but not others—thus Idumeans could be admitted after the third generation on account of their close lineage with the Israelite people, but members of hostile nations such as the Moabites were outright refused admittance. This affirms the aforementioned point which is becoming more obvious in our day: assimilation into a nation is a relative matter, based on similarities and kinship of the foreigner to the national stock of the desired country.

That the national stock should prefer their own kindred to foreigners is explained further by St. Thomas in another place, for he writes the following in connection of this point to the Fourth Commandment:⁶

The commandments of the decalogue contain a special precept about the honor due to our parents (Exodus 20:12). Therefore we ought to love more specially those who are united to us by ties of blood.

…[W]e ought out of charity to love those who are more closely united to us more, both because our love for them is more intense, and because there are more reasons for loving them. Now intensity of love arises from the union of lover and beloved: and therefore we should measure the love of different persons according to the different kinds of union, so that a man is more loved in matters touching that particular union in respect of which he is loved. And, again, in comparing love to love we should compare one union with another. Accordingly we must say that friendship among blood relations is based upon their connection by natural origin, the friendship of fellow-citizens on their civic fellowship, and the friendship of those who are fighting side by side on the comradeship of battle. Wherefore in matters pertaining to nature we should love our kindred most, in matters concerning relations between citizens, we should prefer our fellow-citizens, and on the battlefield our fellow-soldiers. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. ix, 2) that “it is our duty to render to each class of people such respect as is natural and appropriate. This is in fact the principle upon which we seem to act, for we invite our relations to a wedding…It would seem to be a special duty to afford our parents the means of living…and to honor them.”

(Summa Theologiae II-II, Q.26, Art.8.)

In comparing the relationship between the members of a nation to those of one’s immediate family, the Angelic Doctor confirms the truth that the nation—whether in reference to the race or to the political entity governing it—is an organic construct that grows out of the family structure. Charity or love for one’s own people is therefore as right and natural as charity to one’s own parents, siblings, and other relations. In fact, to neglect one’s own people in favor of another in this light would be akin to neglecting one’s own family to help a stranger; not that aid should always be refused to strangers, but this aid must be within limits for “…if any man have not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Timothy 5:8).

1. Pascal, Blaise. Pensées. Translated by A.J. Krailsheimer. Penguin Press. 1995. pp. 26-27.

2. Not in the same way, of course, as individual men have souls. Every Austrian will be judged upon their death and at the Last Judgment, but Austria herself will not be.

3. 
   Study on Sovereignty. Translated by Edward Maxwell III. Major Works, Volume I. Imperium Press.

4. 
   Laws. Translated by A E. Taylor. Plato: The Collected Dialogues edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton University Press. p. 1300.

5. St. Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae II-I, Q. 105, Art. 3.

   https://drbo.org/summa/question/22403.htm.

6. St. Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae II-II, Q.26, Art.8.

   https://drbo.org/summa/question/25908.htm.