826 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



third, between the several tribes and nations that succeeded Rome. 

 There has been no rest in Europe, no isolation. War has gone 

 on almost unceasingly, between lord and lord, tribe and tribe, 

 nation and nation ; and civilization has kept pace with it, devel- 

 oping with a rapidity in marked contrast with the stagnation of 

 China during the same period. 



The difference is a striking one. That war was its cause, it is 

 true, may be open to question. Race distinctions may have had 

 much to do with it ; but these are certainly insufficient to explain 

 the greatness of the difference, particularly when we remember 

 that during the warlike and advancing period of China the Ar- 

 yans of Europe were, so far as we are aware, in a state of tribal 

 isolation and stagnation, with no hostilities other than intertribal 

 quarrels. How long they had remained in this condition no one 

 can tell. They broke out of it only when their period of migra- 

 tion and of warlike relations with foreign peoples began, and 

 from that time forward they have steadily advanced from bar- 

 barism to high civilization. 



If we ask what is the philosophy of this, the answer may not 

 be difficult to reach. Unlike the fixed conservatism of peace, war 

 introduces new conditions, new foundations for human thought, 

 on which the edifice of future civilization may be erected ; and, 

 breaking up the isolation of peace, it spreads these conditions 

 throughout the world, making distant nations participants in 

 their influences. The progress of mankind means simply the 

 development of the human mind. Ideas are the seeds of civiliza- 

 tion, and under whatever form it appears the idea must be born 

 first, the embodiment must come afterward. In seeking for the 

 causes of advancement, then, we must seek for the sources of new 

 ideas ; but, as experience lies at the root of ideas, new ideas can 

 only arise from new experiences. Whence, then, do we derive our 

 experiences ? No isolated individual can learn much of himself. 

 His own powers of observation and thought are limited. Our 

 minds can only rapidly develop when we avail ourselves of the 

 experience of others. In this way only can they become store- 

 houses of new thoughts. There is a common stock of such 

 thought abroad in the world, from which we derive the great 

 mass of the ideas which we call our own. And, obviously, that 

 mind will be most developed which comes into contact with and 

 assimilates the greatest number of these thoughts. 



The same holds good with nations. An isolated nation is in 

 the same position as an isolated individual. Its experiences are 

 limited, its ideas few and narrow in range. Its thoughts move 

 in one fixed channel, and the other powers of its mind are apt to 

 become virtually aborted. An isolated nation, then, is not likely 

 rapidly to gain new ideas. Yet peace, in all barbarian and semi- 



