THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 715 



bering what there is of good in our conduct ; forgetting how well 

 these inferior races have usually behaved to us, and remembering only 

 their misbehavior, which we refrain from tracing to its cause in our 

 own transgressions ; we overvalue our own natures as compared with 

 theirs. And then, looking at the two as respectively Christian and 

 heathen, we overrate the good done by Christian institutions (which 

 has doubtless been great), and we underrate the advance that has been 

 made without them. We do this habitually in other cases. As, for 

 instance, when we ignore evidence furnished by the history of Buddh- 

 ism ; respecting the founder of which Canon Liddon lately told his 

 hearers that "it might be impossible for honest Christians to think 

 over the career of this heathen prince without some keen feelings of 

 humiliation and shame." ' And ignoring all such evidence, we get 

 one-sided impressions. Thus our sociological conceptions are distorted 

 do not correspond with the facts ; that is, are unscientific. 



To illustrate some among the many effects wrought by the bias of 

 patriotism in other nations, and to show how mischievous are the be- 

 liefs it fosters, I may here cite evidence furnished by France and by 

 Germany. 



Contemplate that undue self-estimation which the French have 

 shown us. Observe what has resulted from that exalted idea of 

 French power which the writings of M. Thiers did so much to main- 

 tain and increase. When we remember how, by causing undervalua- 

 tion of other nations, it led to a disregard of their ideas and an igno- 

 rance of their doings when we remember how, in the late war, the 

 French, confident of victory, had maps of German territory but not 

 of their own, and suffered catastrophes from this and other kinds of 

 unpreparedness ; we see what fatal evils this reflex self-esteem may 

 produce when in excess. So, too, on studying the way in which it has 

 influenced French thought in other directions. Looking at Crimean 

 battle-pieces, in which French soldiers are shown to have achieved 

 every thing looking at a picture like Ingres's " Crowning of Homer," 

 and noting French poets conspicuous in the foreground, while the figure 

 of Shakespeare in one corner is half in and half out of the picture read- 

 ing the names of great men of all nations inscribed on the string-course 

 running round the Palais de V Industrie, and finding many unfamiliar 

 French names, while (strange oversight, as we must suppose) the name 

 of Newton is conspicuous by its absence ; we see exemplified a national 

 sentiment which, generating the belief that things not French deserve 

 little attention, acts injuriously on French thought and French prog- 

 ress. From Victor Hugo's magniloquent description of France as the 

 savior of nations, down to the declamations of those who urged 

 that were Paris destroyed the light of civilization would be extin- 

 guished, we see, throughout, the conviction that France, is the great 

 teacher, and by implication needs not to be a learner. The diffusion 



1 Times, January 22, 1873. 



