
-~ 7 1 
OLD AND NEW WAYS OF TREATING HISTORY 29 
Europe, except a few Greek cities, was immersed in 
dense barbarism. 
A similar exclusive devotion to literary or classical 
periods leads us to misjudge certain communities as 
well as certain ages. Our perspective thus gets warped 
in space as well as in time. Few persons realize the 
great importance of the Roman Empire of the East, 
all the way from Justinian to the iniquitous capture of 
Constantinople by the French and Venetians in 1204. 
In these ages Constantinople was the chief centre of 
culture; through her commercial relations with Genoa, 
she exercised a civilizing influence over the whole of 
western Europe, and she was the military bulwark of 
Christendom first against Saracen, then against Turk, 
until at last she succumbed in an evil hour which we 
have not yet ceased to mourn. Largely for want of a 
period of classical literature the so-called Byzantine 
Empire has been grievously underrated.’ 
But the worst distortion of perspective in our study 
of the career of mankind is one of which we have 
only lately begun to rid ourselves. It is the distortion 
caused by supercilious neglect of the lower races. In 
the course of the fifteenth century the expansion of 
maritime enterprise brought civilized Europeans for 
the first time into contact with races of queer-looking 
men with black or red skins, often hideous in feature 
and uncouth in their customs. They called such 
people savages. and the name has been loosely applied 
to a vast number of groups of men in widely different 
stages of culture, but all alike falling far short of the 
European level. Such people have no literature, and 
1Tn the original manuscript Dr. Fiske makes a marginal annotation — 
“ Also ill feeling of western Europe toward Greek Church.” 
