NOTE ON EUROPEAN CONFLICTS 409 



geneous elements. The new regime inaugurated by the Imperial Ukase 

 of October 30, 1905, was, indeed, preceded by the most violent physical 

 struggles — by war against the foreign foe and by revolution at home; 

 but if physical struggle was the immediate cause of the Ukase of 

 October 30, that physical struggle was itself prepared by the intellectual 

 turmoil produced by half a century's slow expansion. Ideas are not 

 inert and abstract forms of the mind ; they are, as M. Fouillee has said, 

 among the most powerful factors in social development and evolution. '^ 



Professor Kovalewsky rightly remarks that "we cannot regard the 

 present hour as an3rthing else but the departure-point of a new phase in 

 social evolution. The limits which Auguste Comte artificially imposed 

 on humanity, the limits of Western Europe, have been extended, and 

 the notion of progress, which is fundamental in sociology, can henceforth 

 be applied, not only to the evolution of the Latin and Germanic peoples, 

 but to the whole of humanity." ^ 



The intellectual conflict which originated in the Renaissance, and 

 which, in the countries of Western Europe, has caused ever-growing 

 divergences of thought, has now crossed the frontier which it seemed 

 destined never to cross. The Slav races, suxik in a seemingly hopeless 

 torpor, have awakened to fresh life and vigour at the contact of Western 

 civilisation. The agreement of the ignorant which characterises ages of 

 intellectual apathy has been replaced, to a considerable extent, by the 

 disagreement of the thoughtful which characterises ages of intellectual 

 effort. During many years the seed has been maturing, and now it is 

 nearly ripe. The awakening of Russia, however impossible such an event 

 may have seemed even to the genial mind of Comte, was inevitable ; for 

 if expansion be the law of life, how could 120 millions of human beings 

 be condemned to vegetate eternally ? The awakening of Russia, like the 

 awakening of Japan, like the prodigious expansion of the United States, 

 is a sociological event of the greatest moment ; for it foreshadows a mighty 

 conflict, of which we have not previously spoken, but which appears 

 inevitable and fraught with danger for European civilisation — the conflict, 

 namely, between the Slav and Germanic races for the ultimate hegemony 

 in Europe. The triumph of the former would imply a great danger for 

 European civilisation ; for the Slav is not a European : he is an Asiatic 

 to the core, and he has always lived outside the pale of European culture 

 and tradition. 



* See the excellent remarks of Professor Marshall on the reality of ideas 

 in his Principles of Economics, p. 104. 



" Revue Internationale de Socidogie, vol. xv.. No. 1. Professor Kova- 

 lewsky draws attention to the spread of the " intellectual conflict " to 

 Mohammedan countries. A national assembly now sits at Teheran, 

 and Turkey is also agitated by demands for constitutional government. 



