tland of earlier times, but its relations
to mediaeval Europe, and to determine so far as is possible its place
amongst the world-empires of the past. I use the phrase "Imperial
Britain," and not "British Empire," because from the latter territorial
associations are inseparable. It designates India, Canada, Egypt, and
the like. But by "Imperial Britain" I wish to indicate the informing
spirit, the unseen force from within the race itself, which in the past
has shapen and in the present continues to shape this outward, this
material frame of empire. With the rise of this spirit, this
consciousness within the British race of its destiny as an imperial
people, no event in recent history can fitly be compared. The unity of
Germany under the Hohenzollern is an imposing, a far-reaching
achievement. The aspirations of the period of the
_Aufklaerung_--Lessing, Schiller, Arndt, and Fichte--find in this
edifice their political realization. But the incident is not
unprecedented. Even the writings of Friedrich Gentz are not by it made
obsolete. It has affected the European State-system as the sudden
unity of Spain under Ferdinand or the completion of the French Monarchy
under Louis XIV affected it. But in this unobserved, this silent
growth of Imperial Britain--so unobserved that it presents itself even
now as an unreal, a transient thing--a force intrudes into the
State-systems of the world which, whether we view it in its effects
upon the present age or seek to gauge its significance to the future,
has few, if any, parallels in history.

Sec. I. THE UNCONSCIOUS AND THE CONSCIOUS IN HISTORY

What is the nature of this Consciousness? What is its historical
basis? Is it possible to trace the process by which it has emerged?

In the history of every conscious organism, a race, a State, or an
individual, there is a certain moment when the Unconscious desire,
purpose, or ideal passes into the Conscious. Life's end is then
manifest. The ideal unsuspected hitherto, or dimly discerned, now
becomes the fixed law of existence. Such moments inevitably are
difficult to localize. Bonaparte in 1793 fascinates the younger
Robespierre--"He has so much of the future in his mind." But it is
neither Toulon, nor Vendemiaire, nor Lodi, but the marshes of Arcola,
two years after Robespierre has fallen on the scaffold, that reveal
Napoleon to himself. So Diderot perceives the true bent of Rousseau's
genius long before the Dijon