238 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



and to whose attacks, as well as to the unman- 

 ageable increase in their own numbers, we must 

 probably ascribe their gradual and long-continued 

 migrations into southern Asia and into Europe. 

 When after many centuries those less civilized 

 Aryans known as Germans and Slavs were driven 

 into collision with their more civilized brethren of 

 the Roman Empire, their invasion was in an all- 

 important respect very different from the inva- 

 sions of Huns or Avars. The followers of Alaric, 

 Hengist, and Chlodwig came to colonize, whereas 

 the followers of Attila came but to riot and de- 

 stroy. The vandalism of the former was inci- 

 dental, while that of the latter was fundamental. 



The Teutonic and Slavic invaders, once over 

 the first intoxication of victory, began, as by nat- 

 ural instinct, to found rural estates and cultivate 

 the soil ; and thus becoming property-holders, 

 although their title rested on violence, it became 

 their interest to assist in preserving the political 

 system so far as practicable. The date 476, 

 which the old historians made to mark the polit- 

 ical fall of the Roman Empire, in reality marked 

 nothing at all at the time except a paltry intrigue 

 by w^iich the German Odoacer, having got rid of 

 a faineant emperor who was too near at hand, 

 continued to administer the affairs of Italy under 



