4 DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS. 



cases been due to circumstances which we may term 

 surrounding or accidental. We shall see that races, 

 unlike individuals, may remain through the whole of 

 their historic period without any sign of organic 

 decay, but that the organisations, on the part of 

 individuals of the race for purposes of trade or pro- 

 tection, may be prone to dangers which sooner or 

 later overtake them. 



The Fall of Greek and Roman Political Organisation. 



A few illustrations will assist in making these points 

 clear, and we may begin with the fall of the Greek 

 states under Macedonian rule. It is here quite wrong 

 to assume that the Greeks were at the time of their 

 first conquest a deteriorated race ; individually their 

 conquerors were probably inferior to them; indeed, 

 Alexander, the Macedonian, is reported to have said 

 in a burst of passion, " The Greeks are demigods 

 among Macedonian brutes." The Greeks from earliest 

 times lived in small and independent states, jealously 

 competing with each other, and unwilling to join 

 hands in the face of a common danger. Their 

 political organisation was from the first of the weakest 

 kind, and they were at all times in their history liable 

 to fall a prey to any aggressors who might have a 

 stronger and bigger political organisation than theirs. 

 This want of cohesion all but gave Greece to Persia; 



