Page:The Slavs among the nations by T G Masaryk.djvu/9

 pendent history, and its peculiar civilisation; but these differences do not hide the existence among them of a general consciousness—the feeling that they all belong to a single Slav organism.

This Slav consciousness is not developed in an equal measure among all the Slav nations. It is not the same at all periods or among all classes of society, but it is common to all. Among us Czechs, and I speak from personal experience, it has already been very powerful for a long time. Those who do not belong to our race can easily understand the nature of this sentiment by comparison and analogy.

“Latinism” gives some idea of it, though a very feeble one. The difference of language is much more accentuated among the Latin than among the Slav nations, and the racial community of the various Latin groups is as much a cause of jealousy as of unity.

“Germanism”—the affinity that exists between Germanic nations, if the term is used in its widest sense as including as German not only the Germans but also the English and the Scandinavians—represents a less indeterminate and