CHINESE IMMIGRATION: 727 



In this mighty tragedy the time had come for the final act ; the 

 stage was set, and all awaited the entrance of the actors. When 

 Alaric and his savage Goths descended upon Rome, they were met 

 witli as little resistance as are the play- warriors upon the smaller stage. 

 The Romans of old were not there to oppose the barharians ; many 

 had been destroyed by wars, " but these," as Draper says, " were an 

 insignificant proportion to that fatal diminution, that mortal adultera- 

 tion, occasioned by their mingling in the vast mass of humanity with 

 which they came in contact. . . . Whoever inquires the cause of the 

 fall of the Roman Empire will find his answer in ascertaining what 

 had become of the Romans." * 



The early union of the neighboring tribes into the Roman state was 

 a union of similar elements, which became strengthened by numbers, 

 without being weakened by conflicting natures. Their subsequent 

 conquest of the Greek colonies gave them an element which encour- 

 aged the development of art and learning, and was still of the same 

 race as themselves, with a civilization of a like genius. Thus the 

 Roman state grew in strength as it increased in size. Her victorious 

 arms then humbled city after city, and nation after nation, till the 

 savage tribes of Europe and the civilized nations of Asia and Africa 

 acknowledged the rule of the mistress of the world. Year after year 

 the flower of the Roman youth were marched to her distant colonies 

 and died upon foreign fields ; and in return the Gauls and Thracians> 

 Syrians and Egyptians, were brought to Italy and Rome. The art, 

 learning, and civilization of Rome, which had thrived upon their 

 native soil, and had each year grown more deeply rooted, were like 

 plants pulled up and strewed broadcast over the earth, to take root 

 where they could, or to be crowded out by the more vigorous but 

 rank native growth. Those that were left became weakened by 

 the rude foreign growths that were brought and placed beside them. 

 Only an occasional seed was preserved, to finally bear fruit in future 

 ages. The individual representatives of the civilization of Rome were 

 absorbed in the much greater mass with which they had surrounded 

 themselves, as the fresh waters of the river are lost in the greater 

 volume of the ocean. 



The Spanish invasion of Mexico affords a similar illustration of 

 the distinctive results following the union of different civilizations. 

 The Mexicans were a homogeneous people, having similar wants, in- 

 stincts, and capabilities. Undisturbed by foreign influence, they were 

 slowly developing to a higher stage of civilization a condition of 

 greater good for a larger number. In the sixteenth century there 

 was every indication of an increasing population and an advancing 

 intellectual state. The mixed population to-day of the valley of Ana- 

 huac is but a fraction of the numbers who opposed the arms of 

 Cortes. The Spaniards and the Aztecs were too unlike to be brought 

 * " Intellectual Development of Europe," vol. i, p. 255. 



