With this partial irresponsibility, this tendency not to take one’s private self too seriously, goes a lack of moral extremes of all kinds. Their goodness is not so good, their vice not so vicious as ours. Both are more derived from immediate intercourse. “What would be vice among us remains in France social irregularity induced by sentiment.[150]” These traits have an obvious connection with that more eager and facile communicativeness that strikes us so in the French: they have as a rule less introspection, live more immediately and congenially in a social stream from which, accordingly, they are less disposed to differentiate themselves. France is, no doubt, as truly democratic in its way as the United States; indeed, in no other country, perhaps, is the prevalent sentiment of the people in a given group so _cratic_, so immediately authoritative. Such formalism as prevails there is of a sort with which the people themselves are in intelligent sympathy, not one imposed from above like that of Russia, or even that of Germany. But it is a democracy of a type quite other than ours, less differentiated individually and more so, perhaps, by groups, more consolidated and institutional. The source of this divergence lies partly in the course of history and partly, no doubt, in race psychology. Rooted dissensions, like that between the Republic and the Church, and the need of keeping the people in readiness for sudden war, are among the influences which make formal unity more necessary and tolerable in France than in England. The French kind of solidarity has both advantages and disadvantages as compared with the Anglo-Saxon. It certainly facilitates the formation of well-knit social groups; such, for instance, as the artistic “schools” whose vigor has done so much toward giving France its lead in æsthetic production. On the other hand, where the Anglo-Saxon type of structure succeeds in combining greater vigor of individuality with an equally effective unity of sentiment, it would seem to be, in so far, superior to a type whose solidarity is secured at more expense of variation. It is the self-dependence, the so-called individualism, of the Teutonic peoples which has given them so decided a lead in the industrial and political struggles of recent times. Perhaps the most searching test of solidarity is that loyalty of the individual to the whole which ensures that, however isolated, as a soldier, a pioneer, a mechanic, a student, he will cherish that whole in his heart and do his duty to it in contempt of terror or bribes. And it is precisely in this that the Anglo-Saxon peoples are strong. The Englishman, though alone in the wilds of Africa, is seldom other than an Englishman, setting his conscience by English standards and making them good in action. This moral whole, possessing the individual and making every one a hero after his own private fashion, is the solidarity we want.