of
England, to the Petition of Right, to Cromwell's Ironsides, to Chartism
and Reform Acts, and the Democracy, self-governing, imperial and
warlike of the present hour? So that even as a nation, about eighteen
generations may be said to sum England's life, whilst, as we have seen,
Britain's conscious life as an empire extends backwards but to three
generations or to four. Thus if the question were asked, With what
period in the history of Rome does the present age correspond? I
should say, roughly speaking, it corresponds with the period of Titus
and Vespasian, when Rome has still a course of three hundred years to
run; and in the history of Islam, with the period of the early
Abbassides, when the fall of the Saracenic dominion is still some four
centuries removed.

Does this justify us in inferring that the course which England has to
run will extend still over three centuries and that then England too
will pass away, as Rome, as the Saracenic empire, have passed away? So
far as the determination of the eras in our history which correspond in
development to eras in the history of Rome or of Islam is concerned,
the inference from analogy possesses a certain validity. And the
accidental or fixed resemblances between the empires of Islam,[3] Rome,
and Imperial Britain are numerous and striking enough to render such
comparisons of real significance to speculative politics. But the
similarity in structural expansion or in environment which can be
traced throughout the completed dramas of Rome and Islam is to be found
only in the initial stages of Imperial Britain. Then the argument from
analogy fails, and our judgment is at a stand.

Assuming that each imperial race starts its career dowered with a vital
capacity of definite range, and allowing for the necessary divergences
in their course between a civic and a national state. Imperial
Britain, regarded from its past, may be said in the present era to have
reached a stage represented by the era of Vespasian and Titus; but to
proceed further is perilous, so momentous is the distinction that now
arises between the circumstances of the two empires. During the
present century the vast transformations which have been effected by
science in the surroundings of man's physical life make all speculation
upon the duration of Imperial Britain by analogies drawn from the
duration either of Rome or of other empires, indecisive or rash.

The growth of the idea of freedom, and