And in America, perhaps, we see
the disadvantages of having social equality before there has been any
such high standard of social life and manners formed.
We are not disposed in England, most of us, to attach all this
importance to social intercourse and manners. Yet Burke says: "There
ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind
would be disposed to relish." And the power of social life and manners
is truly, as we have seen, one of the great elements in our
humanization. Unless we have cultivated it, we are incomplete. The
impulse for cultivating it is not, indeed, a moral impulse. It is by no
means identical with the moral impulse to help our neighbor and to do
him good. Yet in many ways it works to a like end. It brings men
together, makes them feel the need of one another, be considerate of one
another, understand one another. But, above all things, it is a promoter
of equality. It is by the humanity of their manners that men are made
equal. "A man thinks to show himself my equal," says Goethe, "by being
_grob_,--that is to say, coarse and rude; he does not show himself my
equal, he shows himself _grob_.
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