Great models for good and evil sometimes appear among men, who
follow them either to improvement or degradation.
I am, I know, very long and tedious in setting out this; but I want
to bring home to others what every new observation of society brings
more and more freshly to myself--that this unconscious imitation and
encouragement of appreciated character, and this equally unconscious
shrinking from and persecution of disliked character, is the main
force which moulds and fashions men in society as we now see it.
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.
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