in
turn was with some justice proclaimed lord of the world; each in turn
felt the impulse of her glory and advanced rapidly in culture and
knowledge of the arts; and each in turn succumbed to the temptations
that beset unlimited success. They degenerated not only in physical
strength, but in moral honesty.

Let us recognize, however, that the term "world-ruler" as applied to
even the greatest of these nations has but a restricted sense. When the
Persian monarch called himself lord of the sun and moon, he only meant
in a figurative way that he was acquainted with no other king so
powerful as himself; that beyond his own dominions he heard only of
feeble colonies, and beyond those the wilderness. Alexander, when he
sighed for more worlds to conquer, had in reality made himself lord of
less than a quarter of Asia and of about one-sixtieth part of Europe.

No man and no nation has ever yet been intrusted with the government of
the entire globe. None has proved sufficiently fitted for the giant
task. Each empire has been, as it were, but an experiment; and beyond
the border line of seas and deserts which ringed each boastful
conqueror, there were always other races developing along slower, and it
may be surer, lines.

In those old days our world was in truth too big for conquest. Armies
marched on foot. Provisions could not be carried in any quantity, unless
a general clung to the sea-shore and depended on his ships. What
Alexander might with more truth have sighed for, was some modern means
of swift transportation, possessed of which he might still have enjoyed
many interesting, bloody battles in more distant lands.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREEKS

Taking the idea "world power" in the restricted sense suggested, Persia
lost it to Greece at Salamis. As the Asiatic hordes fled behind their
panic-stricken king, the Greeks, looking round their limited horizon,
could see no power that might vie with them. The idea of pressing home
their success and overthrowing the entire unwieldy Persian empire was at
once conceived.

But the Greeks were of all races least like to weld earth into one
dominion. They could not even unite among themselves. In short it cannot
be too emphatically pointed out that the work of Greece was not to
consolidate, but to separate, to teach the value of each individual man.
Asia had made monarchies in plenty. King after king had passed in
splendid, glittering pomp across her plains, circled by a crowd