162 CIVILIZING WAR. 



In writing a history of Africa I am compelled to write 

 the history of the world, in order that Africa's true 

 position may be defined. And now passing to the 

 general questions discussed in this chapter, it will be 

 observed that War is the chief agent of civilisation in 

 the period which I have attempted to portray. It was 

 war which drove the Egyptians into those frightful 

 deserts, in the midst of which their Happy Valley was 

 discovered. It was war which, under, the Persians, 

 opened lands which had been either closed against 

 foreigners, or jealously held ajar. It was war which 

 colonised Syria and Asia Minor with Greek ideas, and 

 which planted in Alexandria the experimental philosophy 

 which will win for us in time the dominion of the earth. 

 It was war which united the Greek and Latin worlds 

 into a splendid harmony of empire. And when that 

 ancient world had been overcome by langour, and had 

 fallen into oriental sleep ; when nothing was taught 

 in the schools which had not been taught a hundred 

 years before ; when the rapacity of tyrants had extin- 

 guished the ambition of the rich and the industry of 

 the poor; when the Church also had become inert, and 

 roused itself only to be cruel — then again came War 

 across the Rhine and the Danube and the Alps, and 

 laid the foundations of European life among the ruins 

 of the Latin world. In the same manner Asia awoke as 

 if by magic, and won back from Europe the lands which 

 she had lost. But this latter conquest, though effected 

 by means of war, was preserved by means of Religion, 

 an element of history which must be analysed with 

 scientific care. In the next chapter I shall explain 

 the origin of the religious sentiment and theory in 

 savage life. I shall sketch the early career of the 

 three great Shemitic creeds, and the characters of 



