ABSTRACT
The antagonism between Europe and America, which is still far from ending, is an important fact in the history of modern civilization. European civilization was more creative and more profound than anything that could originate in America. In the complex relationship between the European tradition and Americanism, the European has found it hard to surrender his right to patronize the American. Americanism is multiform, and it is also, at its very roots, nonconformist. The energy of Americanism sometimes lacks that power of repose which alone makes for profundity of mind and heart. And, in the absence of repose, Americanism too easily tends to exalt success over wisdom, and thus to mistake prosperity for insight. An Americanism which allows the gap between appearance and reality to grow ever wider, even while it pretends that it is, in fact, being bridged, runs the risk of the same fate as the Hellenistic world.
