260 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. it. 



uiider Trajan than in tlie time of Polybios ; that the sum of 

 Latin and Teutonic strength in the days of Charles Martel 

 was greater than in the days of Marcus Aurelius ; that the 

 united Europe of Pope Gregory VII. could have vanquished 

 the united Europe of Charles the Great, but would have 

 been no match for the united Europe of Plilip, Elizabeth, 

 and Henry; or that the existing generation of Aryans in 

 Europe and America represents a greater quantity of mili- 

 tary power than any previous generation. This result is 

 partly due to the mere increase of the civilized communities 

 in size and industrial complexity, and partly to the integra- 

 tion, over wider and wider areas, of communities previously 

 isolated. But while there have been periods of intermittence 

 in the operation of these social and political circumstances, 

 as during the Teutonic reconstruction of the Eoman Empire, 

 the increase in total fighting power appears to have gone on 

 without intermittence, showing that it has been in great 

 degree due to a cause unremitting in its operation. That 

 cause has been natural selection. In the earlier and ruder 

 times it has operated through the actual conquest of the 

 weaker tribes, provinces, or cities, by the stronger. In later 

 and more refined ages, the quieter but equally stringent com- 

 petition of nation with nation, involving W-iq possible conquest 

 or relative humiliation of one by another, has caused a con- 

 siderable proportion of the ever-accumulating intellectual 

 and industrial acquirements of each nation to be expended 

 (or, as Mr. Bagehot more happily says, " invested ") in an 

 increase of military strength. 



From the cooperation of these circumstances the aggregate 

 physical strength of civilized society has increased so enor- 

 nously that in comparison with the military events of our 

 ,ime, the military events of antiquity seem like mere child's 

 play, if we look at physical dimensions alone, and not at 

 world-historic significance. Ignoring the latter point of view, 

 Mr. Eobert Lowe has maintained that the battle of Marathon 



