that the political institutions of the Germans of Tacitus
have had a more normal and uninterrupted development in England than
anywhere else. Nowhere, indeed, in the whole history of the human race,
can we point to such a well-rounded and unbroken continuity of political
life as we find in the thousand years of English history that have
elapsed since the victory of William the Norman at Senlac. In England
the free government of the primitive Aryans has been to this day
uninterruptedly maintained, though everywhere lost or seriously impaired
on the continent of Europe, except in remote Scandinavia and impregnable
Switzerland. But obviously, if in the conflict of ages between
civilization and barbarism England had occupied such an inferior
strategic position as that occupied by Hungary or Poland or Spain, if
her territory had been liable once or twice in a century to be overrun
by fanatical Saracens or beastly Mongols, no such remarkable and quite
exceptional result could have been achieved. Having duly fathomed the
significance of this strategic position of the English race while
confined within the limits of the British islands, we are now prepared
to consider the significance of the stupendous expansion of the English
race which first became possible through the discovery and settlement of
North America. I said, at the close of my first lecture, that the
victory of Wolfe at Quebec marks the greatest turning-point as yet
discernible in all modern history. At the first blush such an
unqualified statement may have sounded as if an American student of
history were inclined to attach an undue value to events that have
happened upon his own soil. After the survey of universal history which
we have now taken, however, I am fully prepared to show that the
conquest of the North American continent by men of English race was
unquestionably the most prodigious event in the political annals of man
kind. Let us consider, for a moment, the cardinal facts which this
English conquest and settlement of North America involved.

Chronologically the discovery of America coincides precisely with the
close of the Middle Ages, and with the opening of the drama of what is
called _modern_ history. The coincidence is in many ways significant.
The close of the Middle Ages--as we have seen--was characterized by the
increasing power of the crown in all the great countries of Europe, and
by strong symptoms of popular restlessness in view of this inc