292 POLITICS 



to nation, that life consists in an unceasing struggle for power that 

 ends only with the grave? Or anything different from the principle 

 to which the theories of evolution lend support, that a nation, 

 like any other organism, must either grow or die, and that its growth 

 involves the absorption of other organisms? 



To very many thoughtful supporters of the new imperialism a 

 way of escape from the implications of these questions appears in 

 the conception that the modern movement is essentially altruistic, 

 that it is founded upon duty to others rather than satisfaction of 

 our own desires. This is not a new idea in the history of politics. 

 Athens pointed to the beneficent effects of her supremacy upon the 

 subject states. The philosophical clients of the plundering Roman 

 proconsuls could always declaim with great effect upon the rescue 

 of suffering peoples from misrule and upon the uplifting influence of 

 the pax Romana. Likewise, the supporters of our modern im- 

 perialism find comfort in the good that has been done. The British 

 in India, it is pointed out, have abolished suttee; the French in 

 Africa have made Timbuctoo accessible to the methods of modern 

 commerce and to the allurements of Parisian art; the Germans have 

 made the forms of their bureaucracy familiar in darkest Kiao-Chow; 

 and the United States has begun at least to inspire in its Philippine 

 subjects a longing for the English language and a respect for the 

 clothing of the temperate zone. 



Whether or not -the bestowal of these and other even more im- 

 portant blessings of Aryan civilization upon races that yearn pas- 

 sionately to be uncivilized, is the true and an adequate justification 

 of the modern imperialism, it is not the province of this paper to 

 determine. Its function is fulfilled in merely setting forth the 

 succession of ideals and leading principles that has characterized 

 the past century. The constitutionalism of the first period took a 

 form which was in some measure novel in the history of politics; 

 the nationalism of the second period presented also certain features 

 that had no precedent; but the imperialism that closed the century's 

 record can hardly be said to have manifested thus far any charac- 

 teristics that distinguish it from the movements in which throughout 

 all history the powerful governments of the earth have extended 

 their sway over the weak and incapable. 



