On this may be consulted a suggestive paper by Mr. Lowes Dickinson in the Free Review, April, 1894, and an instructive study by Mr. T. Whittaker, "A Critical Essay on the Philosophy of History," in his Essays and Notices, 1895. Cp. Spencer, "Progress: Its Law and Cause," in Essays, vol. i.
[135] This also is posited by Dunbar, Essays cited, pp. 230, 233.
[136] This again, as well as the general importance of culture-contacts, is noted by Walckenaer, Essai cited, pp. 202–3.
[137] This was seen in antiquity. Julian, at least, pointed to the fashion in which the Greeks had perfected studies the rudiments of which they had received from other peoples (apud Cyrill, v. 8); and Celsus had said it before him (Origen, Contra Celsum, i. 2).
[138] See some just remarks by Bagehot in Physics and Politics, pp. 67–69, proceeding on Quatrefages, as to the varying success of given race-mixtures in different regions, in terms of the difference of the physical environment. Compare Schäffle, Bau und Körper de Socialen Lebens, 1875–8, ii, 468.
[139] Cp. Dunbar, as cited, p. 211, and Bagehot, as cited, p. 71. In such cases as those of British India and French Algiers the exception is only apparent, the European control being kept up by annual drafts of new men.
[140] E.g. the ancient Ægean civilisation, as seen in "Minoan" Crete; the colonies of the Phœnicians; those of the Greeks in Asia Minor, Italy, and Sicily; the medieval Italian Republics; the Hansa towns; those of the Netherlands; and the United States.
[141] See Dr. Cunningham, Western Civilisation, pp. 73, 74, 83–86, 94–97, etc., for an interesting development of this principle. Cp. Prof. Ashley, Introduction to Economic History, 1888–93, i, 43, and Hildebrand, as there cited. The originality of Hildebrand's ideas on this point has perhaps been overrated by Ochenkowski and others. Smith recognised the main facts (Wealth of Nations, bk. i, c. iv). See also the passage from Torrens cited by M'Culloch in his essay on "Money," Treatises, ed. 1859, pp. 9, 10.
[142] E.g. Babylonia, Egypt, Alexander's empire, and Rome.
[143] This was written before the recent revolution.
[144] Since this was written China has undergone her new birth.
[145] Cp. Pearson's History of England during the Early and Middle Ages, i, 312, and H.W. C. Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins, 1905, pp. 1, 2, 47.
[146] Japan now runs a grave risk of such retrogression.
[147] Cp. Cunningham's Western Civilisation, i, 109.
[148] The point is argued at greater length by the author in an article on "The Economics of Genius" in the Forum, April, 1898 (rep. in Essays in Sociology, vol. ii).
[149] Cp. Tiele, Outlines of the History of Religion, Eng. tr. pp. 205, 207, and the present writer's Short History of Freethought, 2nd ed. i, 122–24.
[150] The civilisations of North America and the English "dominions," while showing much diffusion of average culture, produce thus far relatively few of the highest fruits because of social immaturity and the smallness of their culture class.
[151] Aristotle, Politics, ii, 12; v, 4.
[152] Grote (ii, 150) argues that the need to move the cattle between high and low grounds promoted communication between "otherwise disunited villages." But that would be a small matter. The essential point is that, whatever the contacts, the communities remained alien to each other.
[153] See Stubbs, Const. Hist. of England, 4th ed. iii, 632–33, as to England in the fifteenth century; and Michelet, Introd. to Renaissance (vol. vii of Hist. de France).
[154] See below, pt. vi, ch. i, § 2.
[155] This discussion also goes back for at least two centuries. See Shaftesbury's Characteristics, Misc. iii, ch. i (vol. iii, pp. 137, 152).
[156] Note, in this connection, the tactic of Mr. Balfour in the election struggle of 1909–10.
[157] This was written, of course, before the recent uprising.
[158] Cp. Professor Giles, The Civilisation of China, pp. 1–19, as to the little-recognised diversity of Chinese speech, stock, and climate.
[159] Since these words were written China in turn has had her new birth, vindicating the doctrine above set forth.
PART II
ECONOMIC FORCES IN ANCIENT HISTORY
Chapter I
ROMAN ECONOMIC EVOLUTION
By singling out one set of the forces of aggregation and disintegration touched on in the foregoing general view, it is possible to get a more concrete idea of what actually went on in the Roman body politic. It is always useful in economic science, despite protests to the contrary, to consider bare processes irrespectively of ethical feeling; and the advantage accrues similarly in the "economic interpretation of history."[160] We have sufficiently for our purpose considered Roman history under the aspects of militarism and class egoism: it remains to consider it as a series of economic phenomena.
This has been facilitated by many special studies. Gibbon covers much of the ground in chapters 6, 14, 17, 18, 29, 35, 36 and 41; and Professor Guglielmo Ferrero sheds new light at some points
