ct which came to be more--in many cases but a little
more--influential than other districts, and so set its yoke on books
and on society. I could enlarge much on this, for I believe this
unconscious imitation to be the principal force in the making of
national characters; but I have already said more about it than I need.
Everybody who weighs even half these arguments will admit that it is a
great force in the matter, a principal agency to be acknowledged and
watched; and for my present purpose I want no more. I have only to show
the efficacy of the tight early polity (so to speak) and the strict
early law on the creation of corporate characters. These settled the
predominant type, set up a sort of model, made a sort of idol; this was
worshipped, copied, and observed, from all manner of mingled feelings,
but most of all because it was the 'thing to do,' the then accepted
form of human action. When once the predominant type was determined,
the copying propensity of man did the rest. The tradition ascribing
Spartan legislation to Lycurgus was literally untrue, but its spirit
was quite true. In the origin of states strong and eager individuals
got hold of small knots of men, and made for them a fashion which they
were attached to and kept.

It is only after duly apprehending the silent manner in which national
characters thus form themselves, that we can rightly appreciate the
dislike which old Governments had to trade. There must have been
something peculiar about it, for the best philosophers, Plato and
Aristotle, shared it. They regarded commerce as the source of
corruption as naturally as a modern economist considers it the spring
of industry, and all the old Governments acted in this respect upon the
philosophers' maxims. 'Well,' said Dr. Arnold, speaking ironically and
in the spirit of modern times--'Well, indeed, might the policy of the
old priest-nobles of Egypt and India endeavour to divert their people
from becoming familiar with the sea, and represent the occupation of a
seaman as incompatible with the purity of the highest castes. The sea
deserved to be hated by the old aristocracies, inasmuch as it has been
the mightiest instrument in the civilisation of mankind.' But the old
oligarchies had their own work, as we now know. They were imposing a
fashioning yoke; they were making the human nature which after times
employ. They were at their labours, we have entered into these labours.
And to the unconscious imita