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4th of July. The best thing about the United States is a confused, but profound, sense of the importance of each man. It is like a kind of primitive humanism, a kind of elemental liberalism.
For a certain type of American there easily sprouts up a demand for independence, an impossibility of accepting anything his conscience does not ordain.
The danger of that naive individualism lies in the confidence it bestows upon itself. It thus prepares the ground for the germination of ridiculous doctrines and sects, which are not tempered by any criticism, nor disturbed by any irony.
The inevitable reverse of that quality is provincialism.
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