guise when seen in their native environment and judged by their
inevitable conditions. It is not always true that "_coelum non
animum mutant qui trans mare currunt_" that is, if we allow ourselves
to translate "_animum_" in its Ciceronian sense of "opinion."[9] To
hold this view does not make any excessive demand on our optimism.
There seems absolutely no reason why in this particular case the line
of cleavage between one's likes and one's dislikes should coincide
with that of foreign and native birth. The very word "foreign" rings
false in this connection. It is often easier to recognise a brother in
a New Yorker than in a Yorkshireman, while, alas! it is only
theoretically and in a mood of long-drawn-out aspiration that we can
love our alien-tongued European neighbour as ourselves.

The man who wishes to form a sound judgment of another is bound to
attain as great a measure as possible of accurate self-knowledge, not
merely to understand the reaction of the foreign character when
brought into relation with his own, but also to make allowance for
fundamental differences of taste and temperament. The golden rule of
judging others by ourselves can easily become a dull and leaden
despotism if we insist that what _we_ should think and feel on a given
occasion ought also to be the thoughts and actions of the Frenchman,
the German, or the American. There are, perhaps, no more pregnant
sentences in Mr. Bryce's valuable book than those in which he warns
his British readers against the assumption that the same phenomena in
two different countries must imply the same sort of causes. Thus, an
equal amount of corruption among British politicians, or an equal
amount of vulgarity in the British press, would argue a much greater
degree of rottenness in the general social system than the same
phenomena in the United States. So, too, some of the characteristic
British vices are, so to say, of a spontaneous, involuntary,