a diversion of our energies from the real purpose in things, and of the
two it is infinitely less bother to submit. In private conversation, I
find, this is the line nine out of ten of the King's servants will
take. They will tell you the public understands; the thing is a mere
excuse for festivity and colour; their loyalty is of a piece with their
Fifth of November anti-popery. They will tell you the peers understand,
the bishops understand, the coronating archbishop has his tongue in his
cheek. They all understand--men of the world together. The King
understands, a most admirable gentleman, who submits to these
traditional things, but who admits his preference is for the simple,
pure delight of the incognito, for being "plain Mr. Jones."

It may be so. Though the psychologist will tell you that a man who
behaves consistently as though he believed in a thing, will end in
believing it. Assuredly whatever these others do, the New Republican
must understand. In his inmost soul there must be no loyalty or
submission to any king or colour, save only if it conduces to the
service of the future of the race. In the New Republic all kings are
provisional, if, indeed--and this I shall discuss in a later paper--
they can be regarded as serviceable at all.

And just as kingship is a secondary and debatable thing to the New
Republican, to every man, that is, whom the spirit of the new knowledge
has taken for its work, so also are the loyalties of nationality, and
all our local and party adhesions.

Much that passes for patriotism is no more than a generalized jealousy
rather gorgeously clad. Amidst the collapse of the old Individualistic
Humanitarianism, the Rights of Man, Human Equality, and the rest of
those broad generalizations that served to keep together so many men of