not only to conflicts between nations, but to conflicts between
the Church of Rome and the civil power of the Kings and Emperors,
to conflicts among the feudal lords, and to conflicts between the
sovereigns and the feudal lords. The power of the Roman Church was
beneficent in checking a too arrogant and military tendency, and
was the main factor in preventing an utter lapse back to barbarism.

The end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of what are usually
called "Modern Times" found only four great countries in the
world--France, Germany, Spain, and England. Of these Spain dropped
out in the latter part of the sixteenth century. The other three
countries still stand, though none of them lies within exactly
the same boundaries as when modern times began; and Austria, which
was a part of Germany then, is now--with Hungary--a separate state
and nation.

This very brief survey of history shows that every great nation
has started from a small beginning and risen sometimes gradually,
sometimes rapidly to greatness; and then fallen, sometimes gradually,
sometimes rapidly, to mediocrity, dependence, or extinction; that
the instrument which has effected the rise has always been military
power, usually exerted by armies on the land, sometimes by navies
on the sea; and that the instrument which has effected the actual
fall has always been the military power of an adversary. In other
words, _the immediate instrument that has decided the rise and
the fall of nations has been military power_.

That this should have been so need not surprise us, since nations
have always been composed of human beings, influenced by the same
hopes and fears and governed by the same laws of human nature. And