WAR AS A FACTOR IN CIVILIZATION. 825 



The intellectual growth of the Hindu people was certainly most 

 pronounced in that early period when they were marching south- 

 ward through hostile realms, and afterward fiercely fighting 

 with the Indian aborigines for a home. It seems to have culmi- 

 nated shortly after this period, and before they sank into their 

 subsequent state of profound peace. Since then they have pro- 

 duced literature, but have not advanced in civilization. In China, 

 also, there is historical evidence of an ancient state of affairs 

 widely different from that now existing. The earlier annals of 

 the Chinese nation present us with a series of separate, independ- 

 ent provinces, among which China proper occupied but a con- 

 tracted section in the northwest of the present empire. Gradu- 

 ally, through continued aggression, this province extended its 

 borders, brought the others under a sort of feudal allegiance, and 

 finally into complete subjection. During this period civilization 

 was progressing. But since the final establishment of the empire 

 within its present boundaries, and its inauguration of the policy 

 of peace, progress seems to have halted, and mental stagnation to 

 have replaced the ancient intellectual vitality. 



If we now come to consider instances of warlike nations, it 

 will be found that a complete parallel can not be made. War- 

 like nations do not subsist through uncounted generations like 

 those at peace. They conquer and they are conquered ; they de- 

 stroy and they are destroyed ; they die and leave their heirs. To 

 consider them properly we must follow them through the long- 

 line of their descent, and see how the successive offspring have 

 wrought with the talents of their far-off ancestry. This can not 

 be easily done. Each heir has inherited from several warlike 

 predecessors. There are no entailed estates of human progress, 

 no fixed hereditary successions. The world has gathered up the 

 scattered possessions of its broken peoples and built new empires 

 upon their ruins. 



Various examples of marked progress in warlike nations might 

 be adduced from ancient history, particularly in the cases of 

 Greece and Rome. In more modern times we have examples in 

 the history of the Arabians after their proselyting outburst, of 

 Spain after the expulsion of the Saracens, of Europe during the 

 Crusades, and in the infiltration of liberal ideas into the European 

 mind during the Napoleonic wars. But for a more complete illus- 

 tration, equaling in length the period of the Chinese Empire, the 

 history of western Europe during its whole civilized period must 

 be taken, since, as the former presents us with an instance of 

 almost unbroken peace, the latter yields an example of almost 

 unceasing war. For several thousand years this region has been 

 a theater of conflict : first, between Rome and its barbarian neigh- 

 bors ; second, between the Europeans and their Asiatic invaders ; 



TOL. XLVII. 67 



