an Asia would throw itself in vain against the insuperable
barrier constituted by Russia. But I have heard it quite seriously
suggested that if some future Attila or Jinghis were to wield as a unit
the entire military strength of the four hundred millions of Chinese,
possessed with some suddenly-conceived idea of conquering the world,
even as Omar and Abderrahman wielded as a unit the newly-welded power of
the Saracens in the seventh and eighth centuries, then perhaps a
staggering blow might yet be dealt against European civilization. I will
not waste precious time in considering this imaginary case, further than
to remark that if the Chinese are ever going to try anything of this
sort, they cannot afford to wait very long; for within another century,
as we shall presently see, their very numbers will be surpassed by those
of the English race alone. By that time all the elements of military
predominance on the earth, including that of simple numerical
superiority, will have been gathered into the hands not merely of men of
European descent in general, but more specifically into the hands of the
offspring of the Teutonic tribes who conquered Britain in the fifth
century. So far as the relations of civilization with barbarism are
concerned to-day, the only serious question is by what process of
modification the barbarous races are to maintain their foothold upon the
earth at all. While once such people threatened the very continuance of
civilization, they now exist only on sufferance.

In this brief survey of the advancing frontier of European
civilization, I have said nothing about the danger that has from time to
time been threatened by the followers of Mohammed,--of the overthrow of
the Saracens in Gaul by the grandfather of Charles the Great, or their
overthrow at Constantinople by the image-breaking Leo, of the great
mediaeval Crusades, or of the mischievous but futile career of the Turks.
For if I were to attempt to draw this outline with anything like
completeness, I should have no room left for the conclusion of my
argument. Considering my position thus far as sufficiently illustrated,
let us go on to contemplate for a moment some of the effects of all this
secular turmoil upon the political development of the progressive
nations of Europe. I think we may safely lay it down, as a large and
general rule, that all this prodigious warfare required to free the
civilized world from peril of barbarian attack served great