IMITATIVE CULTURE 241 



traditional habit, but still alive, and, when once 

 emancipated, gaining new strength with every 

 reform that it produces. 



Even in Western society it is only of recent 

 years that the desire for change has liberated itself 

 into forceful activity. In the past, innovators 

 could only overcome the prejudice of habit when 

 they could enlist the assistance of other impulses, 

 or could appeal to the pressure of changing circum- 

 stances. The most potent of these impulses has 

 probably been that of reverence or loyalty. Inno- 

 vations which are favoured by a king or a priest- 

 hood may spread very rapidly. In the remarkable 

 fluctuations of dogma which agitated the early 

 Christian Church, we may see the ebb and flow 

 of the ascendancy of particular bishops : the 

 crusades are a striking, if familiar, illustration of 

 the spread of a strange ideal that was favoured 

 by the Church. To the conversion of monarchs 

 Christianity and Islam have owed sudden and 

 wide extensions. The prestige of a conquering 

 race is a powerful stimulus : and war, however 

 bloody and destructive, has brought different 

 cultures into the same melting pot, so that each 

 could attract something from the other. The 

 conquests of Alexander spread Greek culture 

 throughout Western Asia. Even in distant India 

 the coins of Asiatic dynasties bore Greek inscrip- 

 tions during several centuries. A subject people 

 will imitate the language of its conquerors, how- 

 ever inconsiderable their numbers may be. How 

 much does not the English language owe to 

 Norman-French ! The people of Ireland and Wales 

 adopted the tongue of their English over-lords ; 

 and, if prospects remain unchanged, in another 

 century English will be the language of the Indian 

 continent. 



