He has the habit, not
common elsewhere, of analyzing conduct and of stripping off from the
contemplation of it those voluntary illusions which drop a curtain
between it and truth.
The result of this habit of ruthless criticism is to concentrate the
Frenchman's attention, even to excess, on the motives of conduct, and
to bring him more and more inevitably to regard self-love,
self-preservation, personal vanity in its various forms, as the source
of all our apparent virtues. Even when we appear to be most
disinterested, even when we are most clearly actuated by unselfish
devotion, by _honour_, we are really the prey, as Lintier saw it, of
the wish to save our lives and to preserve the good opinion of others.
Underneath the transports of patriotism, underneath the sincerity of
religious fervour, the Frenchman digs down and finds _amour-propre_ at
the root of everything.
This attitude or habit of mind is particularly shocking to all those
who live in a state of illusion, and there is probably no aspect of
French character which is more difficult for the average Englishman to
appreciate than this tendency towards sceptical dissection of the
motives of conduct.
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