nal,
subjective impressions produced by the world, rather than upon
outward action or social progress. Egoism does not necessarily
imply the invidious stigma of selfishness. Goethe, the greatest of all
egoists, was notoriously free from such a vice. "Who," cried
Wieland, when they first met at Weimar, "who can resist the
_unselfishness_ of this man?"

Egoism does not necessarily imply "egotism," though it must be
confessed that in Montaigne's case, though not in Goethe's, there
may have been a touch of that less generous attribute.

Egoism is an intellectual gesture, a spiritual attitude, a
temperamental atmosphere. It is a thing which implies a certain
definite philosophical mood in regard to the riddle of existence;
though, of course, between individual egoists there may be wide
gulfs of personal divergence.

Between Montaigne and Goethe, for instance, there is an immense
difference. Goethe's egoism was creative; Montaigne's receptive.
Goethe's was many-sided; driven forward by a tremendous
_demonic_ urge toward the satisfaction of a curiosity which was
cosmic and universal. Montaigne's was in a certain sense narrow,
limited, cautious, earth-bound. It had nothing of the large poetic
sweep, nothing of the vast mystical horizons and huge imaginative
vistas of the great German. But on the other hand, it was closer to
the soil, homelier, more humorous, in a certain measure more
natural, normal and human.

This "cult of egoism" is obviously not entirely modern. Traces of it,
aspects of it, fragments and morsels of it, have existed from all time.
It was the latent presence of this quality in his great Romans, much
more than their mere "outward triumphs," which led him to brood so
incessantly upon their memories.

But Montaigne himself was the first of all writers to give palpable
intellectual shape to this diffused spiritual temper.

In recent times, some of the most fascinating of our literary guides
have been philosophical egotists. Whitman, Matthew Arnold,
Emerson, Pater, Stendhal, Maurice Barres (in his earlier work), de
Gourmont, D'Annunzio, Oscar Wilde--are all, in their widely
different ways, masters of the same cult.

The out-looking activities and the out-looking social interests of
Voltaire or Renan, or Anatole France, give to these great writers
quite a different psychological tone. The three I have just mentioned
are all too inveterately spirits of mockery even to take seriously
_their own_ "sensation