It is an obstacle to accurate thinking when differences are made to appear greater than they are by the use of misleading language.[1] France and England are, no doubt, very different, as two entirely independent nations are sure to be, especially when there is a marked diversity of race, but the distance between them is perpetually varying. I hope to show in this volume how they approach to and recede from each other. The present tendency is strongly towards likeness, as, for example, in the adoption by the English of the closure and county councils, which are both French institutions; and it might safely be predicted that the French and English peoples will be more like each other in the future than they are now. Democracy in politics and the recognition of complete liberty of conscience, both positive and negative, in religion, will be common to both countries. Even in matters of custom there is a perceptible approach, not to identity, but to a nearer degree of similarity. The chauvinist spirit in both countries recognises this unwillingly. A nobler patriotism may see in it some ground of hope for a better international understanding. As it is unpleasant for an author to see his opinions misrepresented, I may be permitted to say that in politics I am a pure “Opportunist,” believing that the best Government is that which is best suited to the _present_ condition of a nation, though another might be ideally superior. When a country is left to itself a natural law produces the sort of Government which answers for the time. I look upon all Governments whatever as merely temporary and provisional expedients, usually of an unsatisfactory character, their very imperfection being a sort of quality, as it reconciles men to the inevitable change. To make a comparison far more sublime than our poorly-contrived political systems deserve, they are moving like the sun with all his _cortège_ of planets towards a goal that is utterly unknown. Or it is possible that there may be no goal whatever before us, but only unending motion. The experimental temper of our own age is preparing, almost unconsciously, for an unseen and unimaginable future. It is our vain desire to penetrate the secret of that future that makes all our experiments so interesting to us. France has been the great experimental laboratory during the last hundred years, but England is now almost equally venturesome, and is likely, before long, to become the more interesting nation of the two.