If in any such way I think that I see a unification of the social movement, that does not mean that I see a machine-like uniformity of this movement in the different lands. I am not blind to the innumerable diversities which are developed by the various nations, and which are revealed every moment. I have attempted to show to you how absolutely necessary these national peculiarities are, and to a certain degree always will be--because of historic tradition and difference of national character. So when I speak of a unity, I only mean, as I have already often said, a tendency to this which struggles to assert itself in spite of national disposition. The social agitation will always retain a double tendency, a centripetal and a centrifugal. The former, arising from the uniformity of capitalistic development and from the similarity of original causes, tends towards conformity; the latter, the product of national differences and of manifold causes, tends to divergence. I have to-day attempted to show to you how the centripetal tendency reveals itself. The object of my next lecture will be to present to you a systematic review of the manifold points of difference which have already often been referred to in the course of these lectures. Thus will be completed the picture of the essentials of the modern social movement, which I am attempting to sketch for you. CHAPTER VII TENDENCIES OF THE PRESENT "Usually a man refuses to dismiss the fool that he carries within, and to admit any great mistake, or to acknowledge any truth that brings him to despair." GOETHE, _Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship_. Who, caring at all about what is going on in these days, has not noticed the many contradictions which are now apparent in the great social movement? Even the inexperienced observer, or he who stands too near to real life to have free and wide outlook, will easily see behind these contradictions a tendency towards a unity of effort. Now that we have obtained a right understanding of this we shall, I hope, do justice to these differences, these contradictions--we shall be able to comprehend them in their essence and necessity. The sources out of which they spring are as numerous as the contradictions themselves. How often a personal motive can, under certain circumstances, appear as an essential difference! Morbid self-conceit, desire for power, quarrelsomeness, caprice, malevolence, lack of honour--innumerable traits of character give occasion for friction and contention.