Conquest a Limitation of Life 203 



The regime established by the Turks in the 

 European provinces of their Empire was frightful. 

 Greece became a desert under the Turkish rule. 

 At the epoch of its splendour, Attica alone had 

 400,000 inhabitants, while all Greece in 1830 

 did not have 600,000. The city of Athens, from 

 being the abode of an Aristotle and a Praxiteles, 

 had fallen to the rank of a miserable village which 

 did not have a single school or a single stone- 

 cutter. How would Professor Ward fit into his 

 universal law this admirable example of social 

 fertilization and of vital exuberance? 



The example is often cited of how a civilized 

 society takes possession, by fire and sword, of a 

 country previously occupied by savages. If, 

 following this conquest, the country becomes 

 civilized, it is said that it is force which has pro- 

 duced this beneficent result. This is only an 

 illusion which arises from a superficial observation 

 of the facts. It is not simply as a result of con- 

 quest that certain populations can pass from a 

 wandering and anarchistic life to a sedentary and 

 juridical life; it is organization alone which can 

 produce this result. The Philippines have not 

 been civilized by force ; the civilization is the result 

 of education, the introduction of modem methods 

 of hygiene and agriculture. It is because a col- 

 lection of individuals previously disorganized be- 

 come organized that they make progress, and not 

 in any degree as a result of collective homicide. In 

 so far as force has played any r61e in the progress 



