e, and
hence the power and influence of the lowly. Meantime the mariner's
compass opened up new territories beyond the seas, and in due course men
of lowly origin were seen to attain to wealth and power through
commercial pursuits, thus tending to break in upon the established
social order. In the colonial territories themselves all men were
subjected more or less to the same perils and dependent upon their own
efforts. Success and prominence in the community came not as a
birthright, but as the result of demonstrated fitness. The great lesson
that the interests of all members of a community are, in the last
analysis, mutual could be more clearly distinguished in these small
colonies than in larger and older bodies politic. Through various
channels, therefore, in the successive generations of this middle period
of civilization, the idea gained ground that intelligence and moral
worth, rather than physical prowess, should be the test of greatness;
that it is incumbent on the strong in the interests of the body politic
to protect the weak; and that, in the long run, the best interests of
the community are conserved if all its members, without exception, are
given moral equality before the law. This idea of equal rights and
privileges for all members of the community--for each individual "the
greatest amount of liberty consistent with a like liberty of every other
individual"--first found expression as a philosophical doctrine towards
the close of the 18th century; at which time also tentative efforts were
made to put it into practice. It may be said therefore to represent the
culminating sociological doctrine of the middle period of
civilization,--the ideal towards which all the influences of the period
had tended to impel the race.

It will be observed, however, that this ideal of individual equality
within the body politic in no direct wise influences the status of the
body politic itself as the centre of a localized civilization that may
be regarded as in a sense antagonistic to all other similarly localized
civilizations. If there were any such influence, it would rather operate
in the direction of accentuating the patriotism of the member of a
democratical community, as against that of the subject of a despot,
through the sense of personal responsibility developed in the former.
The developments of the middle period of civilization cannot be
considered, therefore, to have tended to decrease the spirit of
nationality