Nations as well as individuals are fashioned by their ideals. When the ideal of Sparta was grace and symmetry of body, then she produced the most splendid physique that has ever graced the earth. When her ideal fell to that of mere brute force, then her civilization was "red with the fierce fires' of animal passion." When the ideal of Athens was philosophy, there was produced her Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
When the ideal of France was glory, then "glory sat with the eagles on her victorious banners." But when her ideal was agnosticism, then anarchy took the place of government; patriots were exiled and murdered; scholars were proscribed and banished; licentiousness held high carnival in her first homes, and lovely womanhood was degraded and despised.