Soon I shall try to show that the more acknowledged causes, such as
change of climate, alteration of political institutions, progress of
science, act principally through this cause; that they change the
object of imitation and the object of avoidance, and so work their
effect. But first I must speak of the origin of nations--of nation-
making as one may call it--the proper subject of this paper.

The process of nation-making is one of which we have obvious
examples in the most recent times, and which is going on now. The
most simple example is the foundation of the first State of America,
say New England, which has such a marked and such a deep national
character. A great number of persons agreeing in fundamental
disposition, agreeing in religion, agreeing in politics, form a
separate settlement; they exaggerate their own disposition, teach
their own creed, set up their favourite government; they discourage
all other dispositions, persecute other beliefs, forbid other forms
or habits of government. Of course a nation so made will have a
separate stamp and mark. The original settlers began of one type;
they sedulously imitated it; and (though other causes have
intervened and disturbed it) the necessary operation of the
principles of inheritance has transmitted many original traits still
unaltered, and has left an entire New England character--in no
respect unaffected by its first character.

This case is well known, but it is not so that the same process, in
a weaker shape, is going on in America now. Congeniality of
sentiment is a reason of selection, and a bond of cohesion in the
'West' at present. Competent observers say that townships grow up
there by each place taking its own religion, its own manners, and
its own ways. Those who have these morals and that religion go to