xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 277 



this process no doubt takes place through war. The 

 stronger race conquers, and the defeated race eagerly 

 imitates the conquerors. This would be fatal to pro- 

 gress if an inferior race were capable of mastering 

 higher races on the field of battle. But, as Bagehot 

 has forcibly pointed out, up to a certain distance the 

 opposite is true ; through many ages, we may be sure 

 that the best man or best race will win at the 

 game of war. Yet how different are the consequences 

 from those of a merely animal victory ! Instead of 

 stubbornly clinging to their old ways, the conquered 

 usually develop an enthusiasm for their conquerors. 

 Like the natives of America, they regard the higher 

 race as half Divine beings. A whole civilisation or 

 semi -civilisation falls into wreck, and a higher or 

 stronger one takes its place. It is truly pitiful to read 

 of some of the forms this takes, e.g. in Rhodesian 

 Africa, where the black women despise and desert the 

 men of their own tribe, and know nothing better than 

 to yield themselves to the white men. 



Later on in evolution a race may be conquered 

 which is possessed of high attainments in culture. But 

 by this time the higher culture is able to rise superior 

 to the rude test of efficiency on the field of battle, and 

 the great task of unifying humanity still goes on, though 

 under somewhat different conditions. Greek culture 

 poured eastward like a flood in the track of Alexander's 

 conquests, but it filtered westwards too in spite of the 

 arms of Metellus or Mummius. Grcecia capta the 

 thing has become a proverb. Not less notable and not 

 less hackneyed is the case of the barbarian conquerors 

 of the Roman empire, who went to -school to the civilisa- 

 tion which they had overrun. Even the break-up of 

 the empire into many national kingdoms, and the dis- 



