PI. m. Progress and Civilisation. 149 



In Politics, in Laws, and in Government, the 

 European element was equally discernible. The vices 

 inherent in all Democracies soon destroyed indeed 

 these brilliant little Communities; but they exhibited 

 varieties and energies during their brief existence 

 quite foreign to every Oriental nation of which we 

 have any knowledge. The love of liberty or the 

 sentiment of patriotism are utterly unknown to 

 the Asiatic. When Greece was absorbed into the 

 Eoman Empire, and that great and glorious nation 

 gradually raised itself to supreme power through 

 ages of sustained effort, the same thoroughly Euro- 

 pean character was reproduced ; indeed of the two 

 nations the Eoman was perhaps the more intensely 

 European. If less brilliant, if less deeply imbued 

 with the sentiment of beauty, his was the more 

 robust and firmer nature. During the long series of 

 ages in which he was gradually arising to supreme 

 power he enjoyed the advantage, which I believe 

 the Englishman alone has ever shared with him, of a 

 political constitution in which the aristocratic and 

 the democratic elements were combined ; and it is 

 probably to the durability which resulted from this 

 union that he owes his twelve hundred years of 

 national existence. But all the features of his 



