There is one great idea that is more fatal than any other to the coercive power wielded by the established beliefs and customs of any given society. It has nothing to do with the logic of the matter. One would imagine that logic, let loose among the whole stock of prejudices ruling in any given country at any given time, would work the same havoc as a bull in a china-shop; but such is not the case; pure logic does not affect the majority of mankind at all I No! if you would really awaken and astound the generality of men, you must succeed in making it plain to them that what they consider absolute is only relative--that is to say, must show them that the standards which they believe to be universally recognised, are only accepted as standards by so and so many similarly constituted minds; whereas other nations and other races have an entirely different conception of the befitting and the beautiful. In this manner the general public of a country learn for the first time that the art and poetry which they despise are regarded by whole races as the highest, while their own, which to them seem the finest in the world, are held in slight esteem by other nations; learn, moreover, that it is vain to take refuge in the thought that all other nations are mistaken in their judgment, seeing that each one of these other nations believes that all the rest are mistaken. If I were asked to define in one word the service rendered by Mme. de Staël to French society, to its culture and literature, and through these to Europe in general, I should express myself thus: By means of her writings, more particularly her great works on Italy and Germany, she enabled the French, English, and German peoples to take a _comparative_ view of their own social and literary ideas and theories.