21 
THE MANY - MINDEDNESS OF 
ENGLAND. 
By PROFESSOR M. E. SADLER, M.A., LL.D. 
January 29th, 1907. 
The subject I have the temerity to submit is “ ourselves ” 
as forming that indefinitely definite thing the English nation. 
It is an attitude of mind much more than any fixed social 
order or assigned position in space which seems to form the 
most characteristic and recognisable mark of the English 
nation. What are the characteristics which go together to 
distinguish the modern English temperate mind from that of 
the other great nations of the world ? A member of Parlia- 
ment once asked the librarian of the British Museum for a 
copy of the British Constitution. The fact is that the British 
Constitution, that vague, unwritten, elastic thing, is an 
armoury of concealed precedents, full of safety valves and 
hardly known contrivances to meet unforeseen emergencies. 
That is why British civics are the despair of the teacher. 
It is easy to teach civics in France, but extraordinarily 
difficult to teach them about that indefinite thing the English 
Constitution. Emerson, who knew England better than 
almost any other genius of his time, once said “ This is a land 
of mixture and surprise ; everything English is a fusion of 
distant and antagonistic elements.” “I can well believe 
(he adds) what I have so often heard, that there are two nations 
in England ; that there are two complexions and states of 
mind which are ever in counterpoise and interacting mutually.” 
In a very vivid ,way we perceive differences amongst our- 
selves — differences in judgment, in outlook and in aim, and in 
preference for this and that kind of organisation of national 
life. We are conscious all the time of the underlying unity, 
an unformulated agreement which may baffle analysis, but 
which, nevertheless, serves as the foundation for the continuity 
of national traditions. Novalis used to say every Englishman 
is an island and has a separateness which might, if there were 
no other counteracting qualities, break up our national life 
