THE INFLUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS
French subjects of lightness and inconstancy. To-day, every one talks of the "national characteristics" of the German, the Spaniard, the Englishman, and the Russian. I am not asking whether the judgments are true or not. My sole point is that they exist, and are adopted in ordinary speech. Thus, if on the one hand human societies are called equal, and on the other we find some of them frivolous, others serious; some avaricious, others thriftless; some passionately fond of fighting, others careful of their lives and energies;—it stands to reason that these differing nations must have destinies which are also absolutely different, and, in a word, unequal. The stronger will play the parts of kings and rulers in the tragedy of the world. The weaker will be content with a more humble position.
I do not think that the usual idea of a national character for each people has yet been reconciled with the belief, which is just as widely held, that all peoples are equal. Yet the contradiction is striking and flagrant, and all the more serious because the most ardent democrats are the first to claim superiority for the AngloSaxons of North America over all the nations of the same continent. It is true that they ascribe the high position of their favourites merely to their political constitution. But, so far as I know, they do not deny that the countrymen of Penn and Washington, are, as a nation, peculiarly prone to set up liberal institutions in all their places of settlement, and, what is more, to keep them going. Is not this very tenacity a wonderful characteristic of this branch of the human race, and the more precious because most of the societies which have existed, or still exist, in the world seem to be without it?
I do not flatter myself that I shall be able to enjoy this inconsistency without opposition. The friends of equality will no doubt talk very loudly, at this point, about " the power of customs and institutions." They will tell me once more how powerfully the health and growth of a nation are influenced by "the essential quality of a government, taken by itself," or "the fact of despotism or liberty." But it is just at this point that I too shall oppose their arguments.
