study a civilization in its earlier stages, to be present almost at its
birth, to watch the methods of the Master-builder in the making of a
race. Gazing at similar developments in the days of Egypt and Babylon,
we guessed vaguely that they must have been of slowest growth. Here at
last one takes place under our eyes, and it does not need so many ages
after all. There is no study more fascinating than to trace the slow
changes stamping themselves ineradicably upon the Teutonic mind and soul
during these misty far-off centuries of turmoil.

On the whole, of course, the sixth, seventh, and even the eighth
centuries form a period of strife. The Teutons had spent too many ages
warring against one another in petty strife to abandon the pleasure in a
single generation. Men fought because they liked fighting, much as they
play football to-day. Then, too, there came another great outburst of
Semite religious enthusiasm. Mahomet[9] started the Arabs on their
remarkable career of conquest.


THE MAHOMETAN OUTBURST

Mahomet himself died (632) before he had fully established his influence
even over Arabia: his successors had practically to reconquer it. Yet
within five years of his death the Arabs had mastered Syria.[10] They
spread like some sudden, unexpected, immeasurable whirlwind. Ancient
Persia went down before them. By 640 they had trampled Egypt under foot,
and destroyed the celebrated Alexandrian library.[11] They swept over
all Africa, completely obliterating every trace of Vandal or of Roman.
Their dominion reached farther east than that of Alexander. They wrested
most of its Asiatic possessions from the pretentious Empire at
Constantinople, and reduced that exhausted State to a condition of