220 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



barism, as in the invasion of Huns in the fifth 

 century and of Mongols in the thirteenth, and 

 at other times in the shape of an inferior type 

 of civilization, as exemplified by the Arabs and 

 Turks, the principle involved has always been 

 the same. In every case the stake has been the 

 continuance of the higher civilization, though the 

 amount of risk has greatly varied, and in recent 

 centuries has come to be very slight. At the pres- 

 ent day the military strength of mankind is al- 

 most entirely monopolized by the higher civili- 

 zation, and it is no longer in danger of being 

 overwhelmed by external violence. But when 

 the Greeks confronted a social organization of 

 inferior type at Marathon and at Salamis, the 

 danger was considerable ; and in pre-historic times 

 it may well have happened more than once that 

 some germ of a progressive polity has been swept 

 away in a torrent of conquering barbarism. 



Until the rise of the Roman power the chief 

 military business of the cultivated community had 

 been to drive off the barbarian, to slaughter him, 

 or reduce him to slavery ; but the more profound 

 policy of Rome transformed him, whenever it was 

 possible, into a citizen, and enlisted his fighting 

 power on the side of progress. From the conquest 

 of Spain by Scipio to the subjugation of Central 



