The latter half of the eighteenth century promised for a brief space to inaugurate such a period of expansive life.  The close of the Seven Years’ War seemed to be the starting point for a peaceful campaign against the unknown; but the efforts of Cook, d’Entrecasteaux, and others then had little practical result, owing to the American War of Independence, and the great cycle of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.  These in their turn left Europe too exhausted to accomplish much in the way of colonial expansion until the middle of the nineteenth century.  Even then, when the steamship and the locomotive were at hand to multiply man’s powers, there was, as yet, no general wish, except on the part of the more fortunate English-speaking peoples, to enter into man’s new heritage.  The problems of Europe had to be settled before the age of expansive activity could dawn in its full radiance.  As has been previously shown, Europe was in an introspective mood up to the years 1870-1878.

Our foregoing studies have shown that the years following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, brought about a state of political equilibrium which made for peace and stagnation in Europe; and the natural forces of the Continent, cramped by the opposition of equal and powerful forces, took the line of least resistance—­away from Europe.  For Russia, the line of least resistance was in Central Asia.  For all other European States it was the sea, and the new lands beyond.

Furthermore, in that momentous decade the steamship and locomotive were constantly gaining in efficiency; electricity was entering the arena as a new and mighty force; by this time medical science had so far advanced as to screen man from many of the ills of which the tropics are profuse; and the repeating rifle multiplied the power of the white man in his conflicts with savage peoples.  When all the advantages of the present generation are weighed in the balance against the meagre equipment of the earlier discoverers, the nineteenth century has scant claim for boasting over the fifteenth.  In truth, its great achievements in this sphere have been practical and political.  It has only fulfilled the rich promise of the age of the great navigators.  Where they could but wonderingly skirt the fringes of a new world, the moderns have won their way to the heart of things and found many an Eldorado potentially richer than that which tempted the cupidity of Cortes and Pizarro.

In one respect the European statesmen of the recent past tower above their predecessors of the centuries before.  In the eighteenth century the “mercantilist” craze for seizing new markets and shutting out all possible rivals brought about most of the wars that desolated Europe.  In the years 1880-1890 the great Powers put forth sustained and successful efforts to avert the like calamity, and to cloak with the mantle of diplomacy the eager scrambles for the unclaimed lands of the world.