This unfinished mankind was gradually divided into nations and states. Every state is thus an ethnic group that has been able to appropriate by force the area of land that constitutes its country or state. These states are large or small, strong or weak, in proportion to the size of their ethnic group and the power it possesses. And in recent times the Negro tribes or ethnic groups of Africa have also become organised as states. Since all these states or nations consist of unfinished human beings, each state will find itself in a more or less unfinished relationship, which in reality means a more or less unloving relationship, to the surrounding states. Every state constitutes a unit made up of its inhabitants, animated by the consciousness and conduct of these inhabitants. This unit thus represents the unfinished attitude of its inhabitants to its surrounding fellow states, which each also constitute a unit made up of the unfinished nature and conduct of its inhabitants. Just as people are more or less at loggerheads with one another because of their unfinished or inherited animal nature, so too are the states more or less at loggerheads with one another because of the unfinished or animal side of their inhabitants. One can thus compare states to living beings or individuals that have the same unfinished, and thereby more or less egoistic, nature as their people.