COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



action and counter-action was in a high degree 

 conducive to the development of individual lib- 

 erty of thought and behaviour. 



The various hints here given thus combine 

 to show how, both in historic and in prehistoric 

 times, the European Aryans would seem to have 

 profited by circumstances tending to encourage 

 individuality without weakening concentration. 

 Hence the peculiarly plastic consistency — the 

 flexibility combined with toughness — of West- 

 Aryan civilization. Hence the European races 

 all possess the capacity of innovating without 

 revolution. The English and the old Romans 

 have exhibited this capacity in the highest de- 

 gree ; the Spaniards and the French, in recent 

 times, owing to previous reversion toward a des- 

 potic regime, have shown themselves partially 

 deprived of it. But while it is thus manifested 

 in quite various degrees, all alike possess it in a 

 high degree as compared with those races which 

 have been arrested in the Oriental stage of civi- 

 lization. 



The successful achievement of innovation 

 without revolution depends mainly upon an 

 artifice which derives its validity from one of 

 the most deep-seated tendencies of the human 

 mind, and which has unquestionably been one 

 of the chief agencies in forwarding social pro- 

 gress. I refer to the artifice of " legal fiction,** 

 as shown in the pretence that the novelty of 



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