WAR AS A F AC TOE IJY CIVILIZATION. 831 



Nomads became agriculturists through conquest ; but the habits 

 and ideas gained in a nomadic life mingled with those of the con- 

 quered agriculturists, and yielded a new and superior result 

 superior because based on a wider range of experiences and bring- 

 ing a greater number of elements into the problem of social de- 

 velopment. Mountaineers brought down their ideas to combine 

 them with those born of the plain. Deserts and river valleys 

 poured their common thought results into new and more com- 

 prehensive minds. The great ebullition went on. East mingled 

 with west, north with south, mountain with plain, seashore with 

 interior ; men's thoughts fused and boiled incessantly ; new com- 

 pounds constantly appeared ; the range of ideas grew wider and 

 higher ; and mental development steadily advanced though over 

 the ruins of empires and through the ashes of man's most valued 

 possessions. 



It was a destructive process. Life vanished, wealth perished, 

 nations disappeared. But mind remained, and mind infused by 

 every invasion with new ideas. The raw material of progress 

 continued undestroyed. Material production is only inorganic 

 substance poured into the mold of an idea. Its loss is no perma- 

 nent deprivation while the idea remains. Its destruction is a 

 positive gain if it has aided in yielding a crop of fresh and supe- 

 rior ideas. 



The considerations above taken seem to prove that war has 

 been an efficient civilizing agent, despite its cruelty and destruc- 

 tiveness. Nor has its good influence been physical and intellec- 

 tual only ; it has been moral as well. In truth, intellectual de- 

 velopment can not go far without instigating moral advancement. 

 But war has a more immediate ethical influence through its influ- 

 ence in combining tribes into nations, nations into empires. It 

 widens human sympathies, brings greater bodies of people under 

 the softening influence of fellow-citizenship, extends more widely 

 the sentiment of human brotherhood, and overcomes that feeling 

 of hostility with which tribesmen are apt to regard all mankind 

 beyond their narrow borders. 



"War would therefore appear to have benefited man in the 

 past alike physically, mentally, and morally. It can not be claimed 

 to be a necessary agent for these purposes in the enlightened na- 

 tions of the present. It has been replaced by more efficient civiliz- 

 ing agencies, whose character we now need to consider. In mod- 

 ern times nations have learned how to avail themselves of each 

 other's advantages without going to war for them. Commerce, 

 travel, and emigration have gone far to overcome national isola- 

 tion, and a peaceful commingling of peoples has taken the place 

 of warlike invasion. 



Commerce lay at the foundation of Grecian enlightenment. 



