The paradox of thought is that while unity is its ideal, freedom is its necessary condition, and endless divergence the inevitable consequence. There could not be much thinking about matters of faith without heresy, nor about matters of politics without disaffection, rebellions and new political grouping. Heresy and schism broke up the mediaeval unity and reinforced the political tendencies making towards the modern state system. The rise of modern literature displaced the classics from their unique position as literary models. After the seventeenth century the habit of writing in the vernacular tended more and more to oust Latinity, and culture in each country began to assume more of a distinctively national character. Specific national characteristics began to appear in science and philosophy as well as in literature and education, and a large part of the history of modern thought depends on the partial independence on the one hand and the frequent interactions on the other of these centres. * * * * * SECTION III.--UNITY OF INTERCONNEXION This brings us to the third sense in which unity can be predicated of a cultural group. The unity that depends on the interconnexion of distinct parts implies some differences of character. Western civilization has lost something of the unity of character which it owed to its common origin, though it still retains enough of it to figure as a single whole in contrast to the rest of the world. We may be sure that the differences between German, French, and English seem much less marked to the intelligent Chinese than they are to Germans, Frenchmen, and English themselves. We ourselves habitually think of China and Japan together as denizens of the Far East, and it is only personal acquaintance which makes us begin to mark the differences between them. Few Europeans, I imagine, get as far in their discrimination as to appreciate the distinctions between the Northern and Southern Chinese, which are as clear to the Chinese themselves as the difference between English and Scottish is to us. Western civilization does retain a generic unity of character, though national differences have had an increasing influence in the sphere of thought. Meanwhile the unity of interconnexion has on the whole grown closer with the spread of education, the multiplication of learned magazines and the facilities of travel. One of the most interesting chapters in the development of modern thought can be written, as Dr. Merz has shown by example as well as by precept, on the theme of the mutual influence of the great national centres of thought, and in particular of France, England, and Germany. These nations might seem as though designed, whether by nature or by the unconscious hand of political history, to be half-willing, half-reluctant complements to each other. English common sense, French lucidity, German idealism; English liberty, French equality, German organization; English breadth,