Page:Celtic migrations (Heron, 1853).pdf/14

14 The old kingdoms of Spain are now under one government. Most of the Sclavonic races have been united under the empire of Russia; whilst, in present continental politics, the schemes of uniting Italy under one government—of a German empire, and of a Pansclavonic union, are agitated by many ardent politicians. The stage of civilisation at which no nation has yet arrived, but at which I believe all will arrive, provided sufficient time be allowed, is that in which we shall entertain the same sympathy for all mankind, which has been felt for family, tribe, nation, race—in which the crime of killing a stranger in war shall be regarded as we now regard the crime of murdering a brother; when the liberty of the individual citizen shall be completely developed, and, as a necessary consequence, slavery abolished; and, again I say, when men, true citizens of the world, shall possess over the earth their rights, and, by the law, the means of enforcing them.

However, although perceiving that all human races now upon the earth are apparently in a state of progress, tending towards the same legal civilization, I am far from the ideas of those who would bring the nations of the world into one sink of level avarice. The gifts of nature are variously scattered among the children of great national families, and the brilliant variety of genius, taste, and imagination in races, constitutes the splendour of mankind. The types of nationalities with difficulty disappear; and there is in all nature one uniform variety. Grandeur and beauty would vanish from the earth if it were smoothed into level plainness. And although, once the laws be discovered under which we may best live in happiness, all nations in a similar state of civilisation will adopt them, the glorious diversity of mankind must ever still proceed.