d there, not only Italy, but
Gaul and Spain, became Roman. The people of those lands, admitted step
by step to the Roman franchise, adopted the name and tongue of Romans.
It must soon have been hard to distinguish the Roman colonist in Gaul
or Spain from the native Gaul or Spaniard who had, as far as in him
lay, put on the guise of a Roman. This process of assimilation has
gone on everywhere and at all times. When two nations come in this way
into close contact with one another, it depends on a crowd of
circumstances which shall assimilate the other, or whether they shall
remain distinct without assimilation either way. Sometimes the
conquerors assimilate their subjects; sometimes they are assimilated by
their subjects; sometimes conquerors and subjects remain distinct
forever. When assimilation either way does take place, the direction
which it takes in each particular case will depend, partly on their
respective numbers, partly on their degrees of civilization. A small
number of less civilized conquerors will easily be lost among a greater
number of more civilized subjects, and that even though they give their
name to the land and people which they conquer. The modern Frenchman
represents, not the conquering Frank, but the conquered Gaul, or, as he
called himself, the conquered Roman. The modern Bulgarian represents,
not the Finnish conqueror, but the conquered Slave. The modern Russian
represents, not the Scandinavian ruler, but the Slave who sent for the
Scandinavian to rule over him. And so we might go on with endless
other cases. The point is that the process of adoption,
naturalization, assimilation, has gone on everywhere. No nation can
boast of absolute purity of blood, though no doubt some nations come
much nearer to it than others. When I speak of purity of blood, I
leave out of sight the darker questions which I have already raised
with regard to the groups of mankind in days before recorded history.
I assume great groups like Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic, as having what
we may call a real corporate existence, however we may hold that that
corporate existence began. My present point is that no existing nation
is, in the physiologist's sense of purity, purely Celtic, Teutonic,
Slavonic, or anything else. All races have assimilated a greater or
less amount of foreign elements. Taking this standard, one which comes
more nearly within the range of our actual knowledge than the
possibilities of unrec