life in your private vivarium, so that your particular society of zoophytes, molluscs and echinoderms may feel themselves, as the Germans say, at ease in their skins; so the most complete equipment of theory will not enable a statesman or a political and social reformer to adjust his measures wisely, in the absence of a special acquaintance with the section of society for which he legislates, with the peculiar characteristics of the nation, the province, the class whose well-being he has to consult.  In other words, a wise social policy must be based not simply on abstract social science but on the natural history of social bodies.

Her conception of the corporate life of the nice has been clearly expressed by George Eliot in the concluding essay in Theophrastus Such.  In that essay she writes of the powerful influence wrought upon national life by “the divine gift of memory which inspires the moments with a past, a present and a future, and gives the sense of corporate existence that raises man above the otherwise more respectable and innocent brute.”  The nations which lead the world on to a larger civilization are not merely those with most genius, originality, gift of invention or talent for scientific observation, but those which have the finest traditions.  As a member of such a nation, the individual can be noble and great.  We should almost be persuaded, reading George Eliot’s eloquent rhetoric on this subject, that personal genius is of little moment in comparison with a rich inheritance of national memories.  It is indeed true that Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton and Shakspere have used the traditions of their people for the materials of their immortal works, but what would those traditions have been without the genius of the men who deal with the traditions in a fashion quite their own, giving them new meaning and vitality!  The poet, however, needs materials for his song, and memories to inspire it.  The influence of these George Eliot well understands in calling them “the deep suckers of healthy sentiment.”

The historian guides us rightly in urging us to dwell on the virtues of our ancestors with emulation, and to cherish our sense of a common descent as a bond of obligation.  The eminence, the nobleness of a people, depends on its capability of being stirred by memories, and for striving for what we call spiritual ends—­ends which consist not in an immediate material possession, but in the satisfaction of a great feeling that animates the collective body as with one soul.  A people having the seed of worthiness in it must feel an answering thrill when it is adjured by the deaths of its heroes who died to preserve its national existence; when it is reminded of its small beginnings and gradual growth through past labors and struggles, such as are still demanded of it in order that the freedom and well-being thus inherited may be transmitted unimpaired to children and children’s children; when an appeal against the permission