following up an analogy suggested by it, there is plainly no
objection. Everyone now admits that human history is guided by
certain laws, and all that is here aimed at is to indicate, in a
more or less distinct way, an infinitesimally small portion of such
laws. The discussion of these three principles cannot be kept quite
apart except by pedantry; but it is almost exclusively with the
first--that of the competition between nation and nation, or tribe
and tribe (for I must use these words in their largest sense, and so
as to include every cohering aggregate of human beings)--that I can
deal now; and even as to that I can but set down a few principal
considerations. The progress of the military art is the most
conspicuous, I was about to say the most SHOWY, fact in human
history. Ancient civilisation may be compared with modern in many
respects, and plausible arguments constructed to show that it is
better; but you cannot compare the two in military power. Napoleon
could indisputably have conquered Alexander; our Indian army would
not think much of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand. And I suppose the
improvement has been continuous: I have not the slightest pretence
to special knowledge; but, looking at the mere surface of the facts,
it seems likely that the aggregate battle array, so to say, of
mankind, the fighting force of the human race, has constantly and
invariably grown. It is true that the ancient civilisation long
resisted the 'barbarians,' and was then destroyed by the barbarians.
But the barbarians had improved. 'By degrees,' says a most
accomplished writer, [Footnote: Mr. Bruce] 'barbarian mercenaries
came to form the largest, or at least the most effective, part of
the Roman armies. The body-guard of Augustus had been so composed;
the praetorians were generally selected from the bravest frontier
troops, most of them Germans.' 'Thus,' he continues, 'in many ways
was the old antagonism broken down, Romans admitting barbarians to