There is another pair which Mr. Mann has not mentioned, though it has been brought close home to many of us. The German “Persius” has confessed that “the lie has always been one of Germany’s chief weapons, both by land and sea.” The lie, however, is not the “Roman” way; the “Roman” way is silence, and anybody engaged in the dissemination of ideas knows which of the two forms of opposition is the more difficult to meet. After all, the liar takes risks; moreover, he does the idea he opposes the honour of noticing it if only to lie about it. But silence risks nothing; it kills without leaving a trace. Leaving the subject where, for the moment, it is, we can inquire whether the suggested antagonism is not altogether false. _Is_ Rome so eternal as all that, or Germany either? We have been familiarised with a view that represents the map of Europe as a map primarily of mind; but I can discover in such a map no confirmation of the statement that it is Rome and Germany that are in permanent conflict. On the contrary, what we call “formal mind”—in other words, the rationalistic consciousness—appears to me to distinguish “Rome” quite as much as “Germany.” It may be true that on the whole the “Roman” qualities are better integrated and that the “Roman” type is more completely a “man of the world.” But, in comparison with a type of the universal man, the man of the whole world, I doubt whether it can be said that the “Roman” is much more inclusive than the German. Both exclude a good deal, and thus the opposition between them is not of principle, but of accident, the accident being that the anthology of qualities which we call “Rome” differs from the anthology called German. It would follow from this that so far from being in necessarily eternal conflict “Rome” and “Germany” are susceptible of a synthesis in which the qualities of each will complement the qualities of the other. “Germany,” in other words, needs to Romanise, while “Rome” needs to “Germanise.” Their approach to each other would mark the end of the conflict.