One of its defects as a nation to-day is its lack
of representative institutions to which Frenchmen have been long
accustomed and which command some instinctive loyalty. Stimulated by
French and English example, the other European states finally understood
that some form or degree of popular representation was essential to
national cohesion; and little by little they have been grafting
representative institutions upon their traditional political structures.
Thus the need of political and social cohesion was converted into a
principle of constructive national reform. A nation is more or less of a
nation according as its members are more or less capable of effective
association; and the great object of a genuinely national domestic
policy is that of making such association candid, loyal, and fruitful.
Loyal and fruitful association is far from demanding mere uniformity of
purpose and conviction on the part of those associated. On the contrary
it gains enormously from a wide variety of individual differences,--but
with the essential condition that such differences do not become
factious in spirit and hostile to the utmost freedom of intercourse.
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