policy of civilization.

Rome, therefore, which came last in the succession, and swallowed up the
three great powers that had _seriatim_ cast the human race into one
mould, and had brought them under the unity of a single will, entered by
inheritance upon all that its predecessors in that career had
appropriated, but in a condition of far ampler development. Estimated
merely by longitude and latitude, the territory of the Roman empire was
the finest by much that has ever fallen under a single sceptre. Amongst
modern empires, doubtless, the Spanish of the sixteenth century, and the
British of the present, cannot but be admired as prodigious growths out of
so small a stem. In that view they will be endless monuments in
attestation of the marvels which are lodged in civilization. But
considered in and for itself, and with no reference to the proportion of
the creating forces, each of these empires has the great defect of being
disjointed, and even insusceptible of perfect union. It is in fact no
_vinculum_ of social organization which held them together, but the
ideal _vinculum_ of a common fealty, and of submission to the same
sceptre. This is not like the tie of manners, operative even where it is
not perceived, but like the distinctions of geography--existing to-day,
forgotten to-morrow--and abolished by a stroke of the pen, or a trick of
diplomacy. Russia, again, a mighty empire, as respects the simple grandeur
of magnitude, builds her power upon sterility. She has it in her power to
seduce an invading foe into vast circles of starvation, of which the radii
measure a thousand leagues. Frost and snow are confederates of her
strength. She is strong by her very weakness. But Rome laid a belt about
the Mediterranean of a thousand miles in breadth; and within that zone she
comprehended not only all the great cities of the ancient world, but so
perfectly did she lay the garden of the world in every climate, and for
every mode of natural wealth, within her own ring-fence, that since that