Cap. I. — Demonstração de como o Império Alemão é uma nação formada defensivamente, e todos os seus característicos correspondem a essa definição fundamental.

Cap. II. — Demonstrado isso trata-se, porém, de saber uma coisa. Esses característicos do Império Alemão podem ser devidos ao facto de ela ser uma nação formada defensivamente, ou podem ser devidos a qualquer característico fundamental da nação alemã, do carácter alemão. Se se demonstrar que todas as nações são formadas defensivamente, esses característicos passarão a pertencer ao carácter alemão; se se demonstrar que nem todas as nações, ou nenhuma outra, assim é formada, resultará que esses característicos nascem da formação defensiva do Império Alemão. E o que neste capítulo vamos analisar.

Análise da ideia de nação:

1. A nation is a society occupying a certain territory and conceiving itself, and acting therefore, as different from other societies. It has to occupy a certain territory, else it would not be a nation, but something in the nature of a religious sect; and, as a matter of fact, a religious sect is a scattered nation — hence the fact that, whenever a religion is not national, as in the patent case of the Catholic Church, it is a constant break and enmity in the national life. It has to be different from other societies, else there would be no reason to exist apart from them, human tendencies being naturally gregarious, except where such things as national differences tend in the contrary direction. Finally, it has to conceive itself thus, for, if it did not, it would not exist independently.

2. The facts that form a nation are therefore all such factors as tend to (1) drive certain races into a certain territory, (2) make those races attain a thing called, for convenience, a national consciousness, whatever that may mean in itself, though in its effects it signifies (...) (3) make those races conceive themselves as different from other nations surrounding them or anywhere else in the globe. (Perhaps the order of the first two factors should be inverted; and the national consciousness should be the first fact; (...)

Racial mixture is the basis of the foundation of all nations, as culture contacts of their development.