in their discrimination as to appreciate the
distinctions between the Northern and Southern Chinese, which are as
clear to the Chinese themselves as the difference between English and
Scottish is to us. Western civilization does retain a generic unity of
character, though national differences have had an increasing influence
in the sphere of thought. Meanwhile the unity of interconnexion has on
the whole grown closer with the spread of education, the multiplication
of learned magazines and the facilities of travel. One of the most
interesting chapters in the development of modern thought can be
written, as Dr. Merz has shown by example as well as by precept, on the
theme of the mutual influence of the great national centres of thought,
and in particular of France, England, and Germany. These nations might
seem as though designed, whether by nature or by the unconscious hand of
political history, to be half-willing, half-reluctant complements to
each other. English common sense, French lucidity, German idealism;
English liberty, French equality, German organization; English breadth,
French exactitude, German detail,--how much poorer the world would be if
any one of these had been allowed to develop on its own lines without
the criticism of the other two. What a special providence gave the
easy-going Englishman a northern neighbour to lecture him on German
metaphysics in his own tongue and compel him to the definiteness which
he instinctively detests. Without Scotland as a link, the connexion
between English and German thought would hardly have been effective and
continuous, and it was a Scotsman who aroused the greatest of German
metaphysicians--himself of Scottish descent--from his dogmatic slumbers.

This international division of labour is more significant in the regions
of metaphysics and political thought than of physical science. To
science, every modern nation has contributed both great names and useful
journeyman work. Through the medium of the learned reviews and of
periodical congresses science has become more and more international. It
is still possible now and again for a great discovery like that of
Mendel or an important hypothesis like that of the kinetic theory of
gases to be ignored for a whole generation. But this does not seem to
depend especially on difficulties of language or of international
communication. There is a queer element of arbitrary fashion in the
scientific world which every now and then