7 i 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of French ideas is an essential thing for other nations ; while the ab- 

 sorption of ideas from other nations is not an essential thing for 

 France : the truth being, rather, that French ideas, more than most 

 other ideas, stand in need of foreign influence to qualify the undue 

 definiteness and dogmatic character they habitually display. That 

 such a tone of feeling, and the mode of thinking appropriate to it, 

 should vitiate sociological speculation, is a matter of course. If there 

 needs px-oof, we have a conspicuous one in the writings of M. Comte ; 

 where excessive self-estimation under its direct form, and under that 

 reflex form constituting patriotism, has led to astounding sociological 

 misconceptions. If we contemplate that scheme of Positivist reorgan- 

 ization and federation in which France was, of course, to be the leader 

 if we note the fact that M. Comte expected the transformation he 

 so rigorously formulated to take place during the life of his own gen- 

 eration ; and if, then, we remember what has since happened, and con- 

 sider what are the probabilities of the future, we shall not fail to see 

 how great are the perversions of sociological belief this bias may pro- 

 duce. 



How national self-esteem, exalted by success in war, warps socio- 

 logical opinion, is again shown of late in Germany. As a German pro- 

 fessor writes to me, " there is, alas, no want of signs " that the " happy 

 contrast to French self-sufficiency " which Germany heretofore dis- 

 played, is disappearing " since the glory of the late victories." The 

 German liberals, he says, " overflow with talk of Germanism, German 

 unity, the German nation, the German Empire, the German army and 

 the German navy, the German Church, and German science. . . . They 

 ridicule Frenchmen, and what animates them is, after all, the French 

 spirit translated into German." And, then, to illustrate the injurious 

 reaction on German thought, and on the estimates of foreign nations 

 and their doings, he describes his discussion with an esteemed German 

 professor of philosophy, against whom he was contending that the psy- 

 chical and ethical sciences would gain in progress and influence by in- 

 ternational communion, like that among the physico-mathematical 

 sciences. He, " to my astonishment, declared that, even if such a union 

 were possible, he did not think it desirable, as it would interfere too 

 much with the peculiarity of German thought. . . . Second to Ger- 

 many," he said, " it was Italy, which, in the immediate future, was 

 most likely to promote philosophy. ... It appeared that what made 

 him prefer the Italians .... was nothing else than his having ob- 

 served that in Italy they were acquainted with every philosophical 

 treatise published in Germany, however unimportant." And, thus, 

 adds my correspondent, " the finest German characteristics are disap- 

 pearing in an exaggerated Teutonomania." One other truth his com- 

 ments on German feeling make manifest. There is indirectly an an- 

 tagonism between the sentiment of nationality and the sentiment of 

 individuality ; the result of which is that exaltation of the one involves 



