222 A Century of Science 



is realized only in certain rare and high types of 

 mind, and there has been no more brilliant illustra- 

 tion of it than Parkman's volumes afford. 



The struggle between the machine-like social- 

 istic despotism of New France and the free and 

 spontaneous political vitality of New England is 

 one of the most instructive object lessons with 

 which the experience of mankind has furnished us. 

 The depth of its significance is equalled by the 

 vastness of its consequences. Never did Destiny 

 preside over a more fateful contest ; for it deter- 

 mined which kind of political seed should be sown 

 all over the widest and richest political garden plot 

 left untilled in the world. Free industrial Eng- 

 land pitted against despotic militant France for 

 the possession of an ancient continent reserved for 

 this decisive struggle, and dragging into the con- 

 flict the belated barbarism of the Stone Age, 

 such is the wonderful theme which Parkman has 

 treated. When the vividly contrasted modern 

 ideas and personages are set off against the roman- 

 tic though lurid background of Indian life, the 

 artistic effect becomes simply magnificent. Never 

 has historian grappled with another such epic 

 theme, save when Herodotus told the story of 

 Greece and Persia, or when Gibbon's pages re- 

 sounded with the solemn tread of marshalled hosts 

 through a thousand years of change. 



