are impossible to it. It is saved from pettiness, from ignorance, and
from bigotry. It will not fall a victim to those undisciplined and
disproportioned enthusiasms which we call fads, and which are a
peculiar feature of English and North American civilisation. Such
reforms as are carried out in this country are usually effected not by
the reason of the many, but by the fanaticism of the few. A just
balance may on the whole be preserved, but there is not much balance
in the judgments of individuals.

Matthew Arnold, whose exhortations to his countrymen now seem almost
prophetic, drew a strong contrast between the intellectual frivolity,
or rather insensibility, of his countrymen and the earnestness of the
Germans. He saw that England was saved a hundred years ago by the high
spirit and proud resolution of a real aristocracy, which nevertheless
was, like all aristocracies, "destitute of ideas." Our great families,
he shows, could no longer save us, even if they had retained their
influence, because power is now conferred by disciplined knowledge and
applied science. It is the same warning which George Meredith
reiterated with increasing earnestness in his late poems. What England
needs, he says, is "brain."

Warn her, Bard, that Power is pressing
Hotly for his dues this hour,
Tell her that no drunken blessing
Stops the onward march of Power,
Has she ears to take forewarnings,
She will cleanse her of her stains,
Feed and speed for braver mornings
Valorously the growth of brains.
Power, the hard man knit for action