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 increasing
power. It was characterized also by the great Protestant outbreak
against the despotic pretensions of the Church, which once, in its
antagonism to the rival temporal power, had befriended the liberties of
the people, but now (especially since the death of Boniface VIII.)
sought to enthrall them with a tyranny far worse than that of
irresponsible king or emperor. As we have seen Aryan civilization in
Europe struggling for many centuries to prove itself superior to the
assaults of outer barbarism, so here we find a decisive struggle
beginning between the antagonist tendencies which had grown up in the
midst of this civilization. Having at length won the privilege of living
without risk of slaughter and pillage at the hands of Saracens or
Mongols, the question now arose whether the people of Europe should go
on and apply their intelligence freely to the problem of making life as