In philosophy good examples of this are the obvious derivation of Bacon’s and Descartes’ problems from the Italian philosophers of the Renaissance, and the mutual influence of English empiricism and French rationalism; in politics the influence of England on France during the whole of the eighteenth century and of both countries on Italy during the nineteenth century. Looking at any history of philosophy or politics serves to illustrate the point. For one follows the living process through which theoretical notions are born one out of the other, and one realises the part played by the characteristics of each nation in the constructive play of historical forces. There could be no stronger evidence both of the intellectual interdependence of countries, and the absolute necessity of their political independence. The relation of theoretical and practical life ought no longer to be one of exclusive opposition. Pragmatism has done something towards the simplification of it and the oncoming idealism is achieving it in a way that may be said radical. In the history of the last three centuries, however, we see philosophy considering thought and action as the two terms of an irreducible dualism; yet such dualism must not be considered a product of the perverseness of modern thought. Ovid has left us a verse which settles the point even for people unfamiliar with pagan philosophy. It is only the deliberate application of a given system which may follow after its conception, but the spontaneous conformation of political reality to the actual life of the mind is generally simultaneous with the conception of the theories of which it is the practical expression. A good illustration of the point can be had from Germany. Lévy Bruhl has sketched the parallel development of German philosophy and national consciousness in a work which is not as famous as it deserves. After Hegel’s death, when his system has given birth to its two political offsprings, the statolatry of Imperialism and the myth of Marx’s Communism, the maximum force of expansion is on the verge of being reached by Germany and the country is not far from becoming the prey of national fanaticism, which is as blinding as the religious fanaticism that appears in the history of all churches when, having exhausted the force of expansion that is dependent on the immediacy of their faith, they want to go on expanding artificially through arbitrary force.