In doing
so there is a risk of tedious repetition, but on a subject both
obscure and important, any defect is better than an appearance of
vagueness.
In a former essay I attempted to show that slighter causes than is
commonly thought may change a nation from the stationary to the
progressive state of civilisation, and from the stationary to the
degrading. Commonly the effect of the agent is looked on in the
wrong way. It is considered as operating on every individual in the
nation, and it is assumed, or half assumed, that it is only the
effect which the agent directly produces on everyone that need be
considered. But besides this diffused effect of the first impact of
the cause, there is a second effect, always considerable, and
commonly more potent--a new model in character is created for the
nation; those characters which resemble it are encouraged and
multiplied; those contrasted with it are persecuted and made fewer.
In a generation or two, the look of the nation, becomes quite
different; the characteristic men who stand out are different, the
men imitated are different; the result of the imitation is
different. A lazy nation may be changed into an industrious, a rich
into a poor, a religious into a profane, as if by magic, if any
single cause, though slight, or any combination of causes, however
subtle, is strong enough to change the favourite and detested types
of character.
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