THE INFLUENCE OF RACE IN HISTORY. 499 



disappear without leaving any traces. Such has been the lot of 

 all conquering peoples which, though strong in arms, have been 

 weak in numbers. Those only have escaped obliteration which, 

 like the Aryans in India, formerly, and the English, also in India, 

 to-day, have observed a rigid system of castes, preventing the 

 mixture of conquerors and conquered. Except where the rule of 

 caste has operated, the general result has been to see the conquer- 

 ing people absorbed, after a few generations, by the conquered. 

 It has not disappeared, however, without having left traces of its 

 work in civilization behind it. Egypt, conquered by the Arabs, 

 quickly absorbed its conquerors ; but they left the most impor- 

 tant elements of civilization — religion, language, and arts — there. 

 A like phenomenon took place in Europe among the peoples 

 called Latin. The French, Italians, and Spaniards have, in real- 

 ity, no traces of Latin blood in their veins ; but the institutions of 

 the Romans were so strong, their organization was so perfect, 

 their influence in civilization so great, that the countries occupied 

 by them for centuries have remained Latin in language, institu- 

 tions, and peculiar genius. 



It is not, however, by reason of its strength that one people 

 imposes its civilization upon another ; very often the conquered 

 people leads the conquerors in this line. The Franks finally tri- 

 umphed over the Gallo-Roman society, but they were in a short 

 time morally conquered by it. They were also physically over- 

 come, for they had plunged into a population more numerous 

 than themselves. This conquest of the conquerors by the con- 

 quered is to be seen in a still higher degree among the Mussulman 

 peoples. It was precisely when the political power of the Arabs 

 had wholly disappeared, that their religion, language, and arts 

 were spread most extensively. 



But when races too dissimilar are brought in contact by the 

 chance of invasions and conquest, fusion is impossible by any 

 force, and the only result that can be produced is the extermina- 

 tion of the weaker race. This disappearance of the inferior peo- 

 ple in the face of a superior race does not always take place by 

 means of a systematic and sanguinary extermination ; the simple 

 action of presence, to use a chemical term, is sufficient to bring 

 on destruction. When the superior people has established itself 

 in a barbarous country, with its complicated mode of life and its 

 numerous means of subsistence, it monopolizes and masters the 

 living forces of the country much more easily and speedily than 

 the former occupants. The latter, formerly masters of all the re- 

 sources of the land, come at last to only toilsomely gleaning what 

 their conquerors have left. 



When two different races become mingled, notwithstanding a 

 great inequality of civilization, the result is disastrous rather to 



