226 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



yars makes a dreary and unprofitable history. 

 On a superficial view this whole region seems po- 

 litically a Bedlam, as it is linguistically a Babel. 

 But as was hinted at the beginning of this 

 paper the complication of disorder on the lower 

 Danube is perhaps no greater than has existed, at 

 one time or another, in those parts of Europe 

 that are now most thoroughly civilized. All over 

 Spain, Gaul, and Britain, and even Italy, the con- 

 flicts of races have been fierce and their intermix- 

 tures extremely intricate. But under the organ- 

 izing impulse of Rome, directed alike by Empire 

 and Church, the populations of these countries 

 long ago became so far consolidated in general in- 

 terests and assimilated in manners and speech 

 that in each country the old racial differences are 

 but occasionally traceable in rural customs and 

 patois, and even when plainly traceable have lit- 

 tle or no political importance. It is a long time 

 since the Iberian, the Gaul, the Roman, the Visi- 

 goth, the Burgundian, the Frank, the Walloon, 

 and the Norman disappeared politically in the 

 Frenchman ; and the Scot, whose slogan for ages 

 was " Death to the Sassenach ! " is to-day the 

 most loyal of Britons. Over three fourths of 

 western Europe the adoption of Roman speech 

 has obliterated old lines of demarcation until it 



