216 A Century of Science 



The two competitors thus more actively engaged 

 were France and England, and from an early 

 period it was felt between the two to be a combat 

 in which no quarter was to be given or accepted. 

 These two strongly contrasted forms of political 

 society had each its distinct ideal, and that ideal 

 was to be made to prevail, to the utter exclusion 

 and destruction of the other. Probably the French 

 perceived this somewhat earlier than the English ; 

 they felt it to be necessary to stamp out the Eng 

 lish before the latter had more than realized the 

 necessity of defending themselves against the 

 French. For the type of political society repre 

 sented by Louis XIV. was preeminently militant, 

 as the English type was preeminently industrial. 

 The aggressiveness of the former was more dis 

 tinctly conscious of its own narrower aims, and was 

 more deliberately set at work to attain them, while 

 the English, on the other hand, rather drifted into a 

 tremendous world fight without distinct conscious 

 ness of their purpose. Yet after the final issue had 

 been joined, the refrain Carthago delenda est was 

 heard from the English side, and it came fraught 

 with impending doom from the lips of Pitt as in 

 days of old from the lips of Cato. 



The French idea, had it prevailed in the strife, 

 would not have been capable of building up a pa- 



