ABSTRACT
The suppression of weaknesses, such as that of vanity, for instance—which other countries judge much less harshly—is as complete as the ability to meet the blows of fortune by coming to terms with reality. Such an attitude admittedly implies an exceptional sense of duty, it implies constant self-examination, sincerity and, at the very least, a quite unusual measure of self-awareness. From where does this type derive with its curiously bourgeois air, this type whose character is based upon a rationalism bent on self-reform and one deeply bound up with religion? One might well be tempted to assume a connection with Puritanism. Now it is undeniable that the peculiar character of Puritanism, and in particular the searching and tireless pre-occupation with the self, must have had the most far-reaching effects on the character as a whole. The practice of continued self-examination which the ideal of sobriety enjoined made any obvious compromise with moral standards impossible.
