Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/556

494 Upon this it may be observed that, whatever may be the eventual advantage to England from her possession of India (for of the immediate advantage there can be little doubt), it already seems plain that the effect upon man's general progress must be very great.

That one of the foremost nations of Western Europe – foremost as a harbinger of light and liberty – should have established a vast empire in Asia is an accomplished fact which must necessarily give an enormous impulse and a totally new direction to the civilization of that continent. It will be remembered that since the Roman Empire began to decline, civilization has not been spreading eastward; on the contrary, it has distinctly receded in Asia; it was driven out and so fundamentally uprooted by the Turkish Sultans that the long dominion of Rome in Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor has left very little beyond names and ruins. On the other hand, the exceedingly slow advance of new ideas and social changes among the Oriental races proves the strength of resistance possessed by barbarism entrenched behind the unchanging conditions of Asiatic existence. The only important ground in Asia recovered for centuries by civilization has been won in India by the English.

But although civilization has hitherto gone forward very slowly in Asia, the spread of European power is now clearing the ground for rapid movement upon a very extensive line of advance. Notwithstanding all risks and obstacles, the process of sweeping wide territories within new border-lines, under the form of pro-