In _Degeneration_ Max Nordau evidently strives to take a cosmopolitan standpoint. Only in three or four places does he speak of Germany as his own country, while he displays a remarkable erudition in foreign literature, but only a superficial knowledge of foreign circumstances. Unconsciously however he constantly betrays his German nationality. To say that he is a typical German involves by no means any slur upon his views, has nothing to do with the fact that the Germans are at this moment—for reasons entirely independent of German worth—rather unpopular in this country. It is his book that clearly announces him as a German, just as the books of Drummond and Benjamin Kidd announce them to be English. In other words, his methods, his views, his predispositions, his standards, his ideals, are thoroughly German. Few countries have so strong a power of inspiring love for their institutions and their characteristics as Germany. Not only is the German spell over those who are born and bred in the country, but foreigners who reside there any length of time generally become thoroughly Germanized. Even English people, whose characteristic it is to create a little England around them wherever they go, are remarkably susceptible to German influence when living in the country. Despite the propensity of many Germans, complained of by Max Nordau in his book, to imitate French art and literature, the German people have strongly pronounced characteristics, opinions, feelings, and views. We, here in England, have ample opportunity of observing the tenacity of the German bias. We sometimes meet with Germans who have conquered their native propensities and thoroughly assimilated themselves with the English nation. But, on the other hand, many Germans, when settled among us, continue to look on everything through German spectacles, and utterly fail to grasp, or even superficially to understand, the English spirit. This refers, of course, only to those who are actually born in Germany. The second generation is invariably more English than the English. We often meet with Teutons who have come young to England, gained a position here, married English wives, brought up a large family of English children, and who yet remain as German as any _Spiesbürger_ in Berlin. They do not appear so to the casual observer. Their business relations, their acquaintances, their wives, and their children, being all English, expect them to be English. They therefore assume an English outward garb, but as soon as circumstances allow them to drop their English character the German characteristics of these “tame Englishmen” come out as strong as ever. These facts are elicited in no critical spirit, but simply as proofs of the tenacity of the German bias. The practical result of this bias is an open or secret contempt for English views, a distrust in English institutions, a want of sympathy with the English race, and doubts about the future of the British Empire.