WAR AS A FACTOR IN CIVILIZATION. 829 



its reserve, it is freely open to ideas which it would have sternly 

 refused in its cold, unsolvent, peaceful stage. 



For this reason we find races which have dwelt long in self- 

 satisfied barbarism suddenly leaping into civilization when they 

 assume the role of conquerors. The savage hordes of Timur 

 developed, in a few generations, into the comparatively civilized 

 Mogul people of India. From the Saxon pirates who conquered 

 England an Alfred the Great soon arose. The Norman invaders 

 of France quickly threw aside their barbarism and emerged into 

 chivalry. 



This rapid change in mental conditions is not displayed by 

 conquered nations. They remain sullen and obstinate. Though 

 conquered physically, they continue mentally on the defensive. 

 Yet the mental resistance of a subject people to their conquerors 

 is only temporary. There is nothing more difficult than to raise 

 fixed barriers in the mind against the influx of thought. The con- 

 querors force on their subjects new social customs and new polit- 

 ical institutions. No one can hinder himself from thinking and 

 comparing, and the mind involuntarily opens to take in the ad- 

 vantageous ideas which may be thus presented to it. It is usually 

 religious infusion that is longest resisted. Yet this, too, makes 

 its way rapidly if there is a strong effort to enforce it. Witness 

 the quick outflow of Mohammedanism through the conquered na- 

 tions of Asia and Africa. 



The results of invasion in this direction depend largely on the 

 comparative civilization of the conquerors and the conquered. If 

 a barbarous people overflows a civilized, the mental level of the 

 conquerors is sure to be raised, but that of the conquered is very 

 likely to be lowered. Yet the result is not a mean between the 

 two grades of advancement ; for ideas are hard to kill out. Un- 

 like material possessions, they are capable of unlimited duplication. 

 An idea is the one human possession that can be at once kept and 

 given. Thus the ideas of the conquered infuse themselves irre- 

 sistibly into the minds of their barbarian conquerors, becoming 

 the mutual property of both peoples. If the conquering race be 

 the most advanced, the process is somewhat different. They are 

 likely to avail themselves of all the good they can obtain from 

 the subjected people, and usually endeavor to force- upon them 

 their own form of mental discipline and social organization. Re- 

 sistance to this influence is ineffective if the subjection be long 

 continued. Roman thought and Roman civilization followed 

 Roman conquest over half the ancient world. And when Rome 

 was finally overflowed by barbarians, the persistent Roman 

 thought exercised its lifting force on these conquering tribes, 

 gradually reproducing the downtrodden civilization. 



Another consideration naturally flows from the above review 



