interest of each individual; but are not all ideals absurd, when judged in the light of the interest of the individual? What does it matter to the soldier who dies in battle that his country emerges victorious from the conflict in which it is engaged, seeing that he will not be able to enjoy the fruits of the victory? From the point of view of personal interest, it is better to live in a country disgraced and diminished by a defeat than to die in a country aggrandised by a victory. So the privations to which I had seen exposed in the intimacy of her home, that kind hostess of ours, who had offered us luncheon in her modest flat, no longer seemed an absurd contradiction of life. Her privations were transfigured into a small personal sacrifice necessary for the fulfilment of a great national work, transcending the interest and the wishes of every individual American. * * * * * Thus at last I had grasped American progress and its apparent incongruities. It was an ideal of life, born and rapidly matured in a new continent during the past half century, at a time when the conquest of the vast territory by means of machinery was becoming more widespread and more intense. It was the ideal of life which, overshadowing all the others, had called forth from the depths of American society the marvellous energy which has staggered the world. When I had once found the key to this enigma, many phenomena of American life seemed to me clearer. I could easily explain to myself why the public attached less weight to politics on that side than in Europe, and regarded the defects and shortcomings in its political institutions with an indifference which to Europeans seems strange; in particular, why it preferred having them in a condition full of defects and inconveniences rather than any reform which increased the power of the State and limited the initiative of the individual. I could explain also how it had succeeded in keeping alive that spirit of liberty, not in politics only, but in religion, administration, customs, and culture which often strikes Europeans as either excessive or bizarre. The great national work—the conquest of the continent—is accomplished much more by personal initiative than with the help and under the direction of the State; the important point, therefore, is that personal energy should be subjected in this great work to the smallest possible number of limits and restrictions.