150 THE NATURE OF NATURE 



Englishman is a representative of England. How 

 representative he is he will experience as he finds 

 himself among strange peoples outside his own 

 country. He will find then that he has certain 

 traits and traditions and characteristics which 

 clearly distinguish him from the people among 

 whom he is travelling. And unofficial though he 

 may be, he will yet feel England expecting him 

 to behave as an Englishman. And though he may 

 not be so vividly aware of it when he is at home, 

 he is still a representative of England when he is 

 in -England itself. In everyday life he is being 

 expected and constrained by England to act in 

 certain ways. 



Nor is it all a one-sided affair England 

 expecting so much of him and he having no say 

 or control over what England does. On the 

 contrary, the relationship is mutual. He goes to 

 the making and shaping of England just as much 

 as she goes to the making and shaping of him. He 

 expects certain behaviour of her as she expects such 

 of him. And if he has gained the confidence of 

 his fellow-countrymen and has energy and deter- 

 mination, he may do much to affect her destiny. 



England is therefore, so it seems, a person just 

 as much as a single Englishman is a person. 

 Englishmen, in fact, only attain their full person- 

 ality in an England which has personality. 



Now Nature, I suggest, in spite of what has 

 been said against the view, is a Person in exactly 

 the same w r ay as England is a person. Nature is 

 a collective being made up of component beings 



