BALTIC IDEALS 269 



intermarriage ; during the ages in which trade 

 brought nations into merely surface connection, 

 it was the ebb and flow of conquest and migration 

 that most effectually transported new ideas and 

 usages from land to land. Northern India was no 

 doubt desolated by the Aryan invaders, as subse- 

 quently by the Tartars and Moghals : but from 

 both it gathered some novelties of culture. The 

 Turkish conquest of Constantinople shattered the 

 last fragments of Greek civilization ; but refugees 

 from the catastrophe brought ideas into Western 

 Europe, which took root in eager but uncultured 

 minds and blossomed in the Renaissance. 







Material civilization was late in spreading to 

 Northern Europe, but, once planted there, flour- 

 ished with a changeful vigour which speedily 

 gave it a character of its own. Amongst the 

 Baltic races the provident impulse of acquisitive- 

 ness is very strongly developed ; but until 

 modern times it was chiefly exercised in robbing 

 others, and their history exhibits a covetous 

 turbulence that contrasts very strongly with the 

 placidity with which the Mediterranean races 

 accepted the domination of Rome, and with the 

 acquiescence of the peoples of India in British 

 rule. The prospects of gain that were opened by 

 civilization diverted their energies into more 

 productive channels. Finding that riches and 

 comforts could be acquired by industry or by 

 commerce they have thrown themselves into these 

 pursuits with an aggressive activity which has 

 effected more change in material conditions than 

 had come about in many thousands of years pre- 

 ceding. They have cared little for the philosophi- 

 cal speculations which occupied the minds of the 

 Greeks, and still influence the opinions of Indians 



