f society has determined. In this way the principle of
differentiation and the principle of unity are identical."

The elaborate study of the German bourgeoisie, which forms the next
division of the volume, must be passed over, but we may pause a moment to
note Riehl's definition of the social _Philister_ (Philistine), an
epithet for which we have no equivalent, not at all, however, for want of
the object it represents. Most people who read a little German know that
the epithet _Philister_ originated in the _Burschen-leben_, or
Student-life of Germany, and that the antithesis of _Bursch_ and
_Philister_ was equivalent to the antithesis of "gown" and "town;" but
since the word has passed into ordinary language it has assumed several
shades of significance which have not yet been merged into a single,
absolute meaning; and one of the questions which an English visitor in
Germany will probably take an opportunity of asking is, "What is the
strict meaning of the word _Philister_?" Riehl's answer is, that the
_Philister_ "is one who is indifferent to all social interests, all
public life, as distinguished from selfish and private interests; he has
no sympathy with political and social events except as they affect his
own comfort and prosperity, as they offer him material for amusement or
opportunity for gratifying his vanity. He has no social or political
creed, but is always of the opinion which is most convenient for the
moment. He is always in the majority, and is the main element of
unreason and stupidity in the judgment of a "discerning public." It
seems presumptuous in us to dispute Riehl's interpretation of a German
word, but we must think that, in literature, the epithet _Philister_ has
usually a wider meaning than this--includes his definition and something
more. We imagine the _Philister_ is the personification of the spirit
which judges everything from a lower point of view than the subject
demands; which judges the affairs of the parish from the egotistic or
purely personal point of view; which judges the affairs of the nation
from the parochial point of view, and does not hesitate to measure the
merits of the universe from the human point of view. At least this must
surely be the spirit to which Goethe alludes in a passage cited by Riehl
himself, where he says that the Germans need not be ashamed of erecting a
monument to him as well as to Blucher; for if Blucher had freed them from
the French, he (Goethe