in the seventh and eighth centuries, then perhaps a staggering blow might yet be dealt against European civilization.  I will not waste precious time in considering this imaginary case, further than to remark that if the Chinese are ever going to try anything of this sort, they cannot afford to wait very long; for within another century, as we shall presently see, their very numbers will be surpassed by those of the English race alone.  By that time all the elements of military predominance on the earth, including that of simple numerical superiority, will have been gathered into the hands not merely of men of European descent in general, but more specifically into the hands of the offspring of the Teutonic tribes who conquered Britain in the fifth century.  So far as the relations of civilization with barbarism are concerned to-day, the only serious question is by what process of modification the barbarous races are to maintain their foothold upon the earth at all.  While once such people threatened the very continuance of civilization, they now exist only on sufferance.

In this brief survey of the advancing frontier of European civilization, I have said nothing about the danger that has from time to time been threatened by the followers of Mohammed,—­of the overthrow of the Saracens in Gaul by the grandfather of Charles the Great, or their overthrow at Constantinople by the image-breaking Leo, of the great mediaeval Crusades, or of the mischievous but futile career of the Turks.  For if I were to attempt to draw this outline with anything like completeness, I should have no room left for the conclusion of my argument.  Considering my position thus far as sufficiently illustrated, let us go on to contemplate for a moment some of the effects of all this secular turmoil upon the political development of the progressive nations of Europe.  I think we may safely lay it down, as a large and general rule, that all this prodigious warfare required to free the civilized world from peril of barbarian attack served greatly to increase the difficulty of solving the great initial problem of civilization.  In the first place, the turbulence thus arising was a serious obstacle to the formation of closely-coherent political aggregates; as we see exemplified in the terrible convulsions of the fifth and sixth centuries, and again in the ascendency acquired by the isolating features of feudalism between the time of Charles the Great and the time of Louis VI. of France.  In the second place, this perpetual turbulence was a serious obstacle to the preservation of popular liberties.  It is a very difficult thing for a free people to maintain its free, constitution if it has to keep perpetually fighting for its life.  The “one-man-power.” less fit for, carrying on the peaceful pursuits of life, is sure to be brought into the foreground in a state of endless warfare.  It is a still more difficult thing for a free people to maintain its free constitution when it undertakes to govern a dependent