Civilization and Decay 369 



Russia has done for art, or in what respect her 

 soldiers are superior to other soldiers ; and certainly 

 the life of the lower classes in Russia is on the 

 average far less happy than the life of the working- 

 man and farmer in any English-speaking country. 

 Evidently, as Spain and Russia show, national de- 

 cay, or non-development, may have little to do with 

 economic progress. 



Mr. Adams has shown well that the progress 

 of civilization and centralizaton has depended 

 largely upon the growing mastery of the attack over 

 the defence; but when he says that the martial type 

 necessarily decays as civilization progresses, he goes 

 beyond what he can prove. The economic man in 

 England, Holland, and the United States has for 

 several centuries proved a much better fighter than 

 the martial emotionalist of the Spanish countries. 

 It is Spain which is now decaying; not the nations 

 with capitalists. The causes which make Russia 

 formidable are connected with the extent of her 

 territory and her population, for she has certainly 

 failed so far to produce fighting men at all superior 

 to the fighting men of the economic civilizations. In 

 a pent-up territory she would rise less rapidly, and 

 fall more rapidly, than they would ; and her freedom 

 from centralization and capitalization would not 

 help her. Spain, which is wholly untouched by 

 modern economic growth, suffers far more than any 

 English-speaking country from maladies like those 

 of Rome in its decadence; and Rome did not decay 

 from the same causes which affect modern America 



