will ever go to modern Japan (nobody worth bothering about, I
mean), because modern Japan has made the huge mistake of going to the
other people: becoming a common empire. The mountain has condescended to
Mahomet; and henceforth Mahomet will whistle for it when he wants it.

That is my political theory: that we should make England worth copying
instead of telling everybody to copy her.

But it is not the only possible theory. There is another view of our
relations to such places as Egypt and India which is entirely tenable.
It may be said, "We Europeans are the heirs of the Roman Empire; when
all is said we have the largest freedom, the most exact science, the
most solid romance. We have a deep though undefined obligation to
give as we have received from God; because the tribes of men are truly
thirsting for these things as for water. All men really want clear
laws: we can give clear laws. All men really want hygiene: we can
give hygiene. We are not merely imposing Western ideas. We are simply
fulfilling human ideas--for the first time."

On this line, I think, it is possible to justify the forts of Africa and
the railroads of Asia; but on this line we must go much further. If it
is our duty to give our best, there can be no doubt about what is our
best. The greatest thing our Europe has made is the Citizen: the idea
of the average man, free and full of honour, voluntarily invoking on his
own sin the just vengeance of his city. All else we have done is mere
machinery for that: railways exist only to carry the Citizen; forts only
to defend him; electricity only to light him, medicine only to heal him.
Popularism, the idea of the people alive and patiently feeding history,
that we cannot give; for it exists everywhere, East and West. But
democracy, the idea of the people fighting and governing--that is the
only thing we have to give.

Those are the two roads. But between them weakly wavers the
Sentimentalist--that is, the Imperialist of the Roosevelt school. He
wants to have it both ways, to have the splendours of success without
the perils. Europe may enslave Asia, because it is flattering: but
Europe must not free Asia, because that is responsible. It tickles
his Imperial taste that Hindoos should have European hats: it is too
dangerous if they have European heads. He cannot leave Asia Asiatic: yet
he dare not contemplate Asia as European. Therefore he proposes to have
in Egypt railway signals, but not flags; despatc