f England; as it did come out in
his son and namesake, the generous and unforgotten, who fell flinging
bombs from the sky far beyond the German line. Every one knows that
normally, in the last resort, the English gentleman is patriotic. Every
one knows that the English Nonconformist is national even when he denies
that he is patriotic. Nothing is more notable indeed than the fact that
nobody is more stamped with the mark of his own nation than the man who
says that there ought to be no nations. Somebody called Cobden the
International Man; but no man could be more English than Cobden.
Everybody recognises Tolstoy as the iconoclast of all patriotism; but
nobody could be more Russian than Tolstoy. In the old countries where
there are these national types, the types may be allowed to hold any
theories. Even if they hold certain theories, they are unlikely to do
certain things. So the conscientious objector, in the English sense,
may be and is one of the peculiar by-products of England. But the
conscientious objector will probably have a conscientious objection to
throwing bombs.

Now I am very far from intending to imply that these American tests are
good tests, or that there is no danger of tyranny becoming the
temptation of America. I shall have something to say later on about that
temptation or tendency. Nor do I say that they apply consistently this
conception of a nation with the soul of a church, protected by religious
and not racial selection. If they did apply that principle consistently,
they would have to exclude pessimists and rich cynics who deny the
democratic ideal; an excellent thing but a rather improbable one. What I
say is that when we realise that this principle exists at all, we see
the whole position in a totally different perspective. We say that the
Americans are doing something heroic, or doing something insane, or
doing it in an unworkable or unworthy fashion, instead of simply
wondering what the devil they are doing.

When we realise the democratic design of such a cosmopolitan
commonwealth, and compare it with our insular reliance or instincts, we
see at once why such a thing has to be not only democratic but dogmatic.
We see why in some points it tends to be inquisitive or intolerant. Any
one can see the practical point by merely transferring into private life
a problem like that of the two academic anarchists, who might by a
coincidence be called the two Herberts. Suppose a man said, 'Buffle,