Summary/Abstract |
French philosopher and historian of religion Ernest Renan in his speech at the Sorbonne in 1882 defined a nation as follows: "A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things which, properly speaking, are really one and the same constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is the past, the other is the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present consent, the desire to live together, the desire to continue to invest in the heritage that we have jointly received."
|