divergent enlargements of the national activities and influence is one
of the most pregnant facts of our time, the more so that their course
is marked in the case of each state by a persistence of the same
national traits that characterized the great era of colonization,
which followed the termination of the religious wars in Europe, and
led to the world-wide contests of the eighteenth century. In one
nation the action is mainly political,--that of a government pushed,
by long-standing tradition and by its passion for administration, to
extend the sphere of its operations so as to acquire a greater field
in which to organize and dominate, somewhat regardless of economical
advantage. In another the impulse comes from the restless, ubiquitous
energy of the individual citizens, singly or in companies, moved
primarily by the desire of gain, but carrying ever with them,
subordinate only to the commercial aim, the irresistible tendency of
the race to rule as well as to trade, and dragging the home government
to recognize and to assume the consequences of their enterprise. Yet
again there is the movement whose motive is throughout mainly private
and mercantile, in which the individual seeks wealth only, with little
or no political ambition, and where the government intervenes chiefly
that it may retain control of its subjects in regions where but for
such intervention they would become estranged from it. But, however
diverse the modes of operation, all have a common characteristic, in
that they bear the stamp of the national genius,--a proof that the
various impulses are not artificial, but natural, and that they
therefore will continue until an adjustment is reached.

What the process will be, and what the conclusion, it is impossible to
foresee; but that friction at times has been very great, and matters
dangerously near passing from the communications of cabinets to the
tempers of the peoples, is sufficiently known. If, on the one hand,