the modern interpretation of
that idea in the spirit of Condorcet, have, within the bounds of the
English nation itself, increased the intercourse between ranks to a
degree unparalleled in the ancient world. The self-recuperative powers
of the race have been strengthened by the course of its political and
religious history. Fresh blood adds new energy to effete stocks. The
effect of this restorative power from within is heightened in manifold
ways by such a circumstance as the enormous facilities of locomotion
which have arisen during the past two generations.

In the age of the first conscious beginnings of Imperial Britain, the
communication between the regions of the empire was as difficult as in
the Rome of Sulla; but the development of that consciousness has been
synchronous, not only with increased intercourse between the ranks of
the same nation, but with increased intercourse between all the various
climes of an empire upon which the sun never sets. From city to city,
from town to town, from province to province, from colony to colony,
emigration and immigration, change and interchange of vast masses of
the population are incessant. This increased intercommunication
between the various members of the race, the influences of the change
of climate upon the individual, aided by such imperceptible but
many-sided forces as spring from the diffusion of knowledge and
culture, mark a revolution in the vital resources and the environment
in the British, as distinguished from the Saracenic or Roman race, so
extraordinary that all analogy beyond the point which we have indicated
is impossible, or so guarded by intricate hypotheses as to be useless
or misleading.

Nature seems pondering some vast and new experiment, and an empire has
arisen whose future course, whether we consider its political or its
economic, its physical or its mental resources, leaves conjecture
behind. The world-stage is set as for the opening of a drama which, at
least in the magnitude of its incidents and the imposing circumstance
of its action, will make the former achievements of men dwindle and
seem of little account.

Sec. 2. THE DESTINY OF MAN

At this point we may fitly close our survey, and these "Reflections,"
by endeavouring to determine, not the remote future of Imperial
Britain, but its immediate task, Fate's mandate to the present, and as
we have considered Imperial Britain in its relations to the destiny of
past empires,