Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/651

Rh formative period, it is, I think, important to recognize the elements at work in the process. The East and West were to be dealt with by a new religion; more than this, the barbarian must be subdued; the savage conqueror from beyond the Alps must be trained. As has been said, it would prove far more difficult to adjust philosophies and old religions to the new faith than to convert and baptize the rough, fresh peoples who were but just coming to self-consciousness, and whose vigor would furnish material for the world's progress. When we consider the magnitude of the problem, we shall not wonder that the day was long in dawning; we shall not wonder that Christian went astray from the path whose dire it contained within itself. Throughout the entire middle period Christianity was unable to assimilate, organize the heritage of classical thought. It seemed necessary that Christianity should, preserve existence and form as against Grecian philosophy and Oriental mysticism by rising above all human things, by fixing the eye on heaven.

At this time, when the treasures of the world's learning seemed lost beyond recovery, the cry is again heard, "Ex oriente lux!" One of the most brilliant and ending phenomena of human history now appeared—Arabian culture.

It has been said, and perhaps too often of late, that what we regard as the deeper differences of our fellows correspond to the broad divisions of the earth. Races and peoples differentiate themselves according to climate and territory. This is taken as a clew to the proper definition of a people—viz., a "totality of individuals in the mass of humanity," a totality conditioned by the land to which they belong and by the stage of development on which they enter. It is important to remark the word conditioned. The distinguishing characteristics of a people do not come entirely from without. There is something more than climate and environment. This may properly be called the race type, which, like the primal institution of the individual is never created by education; dependent on land and climate for expression, it unfolds after its own kind. The impress of the original type found wherever the development has been sufficiently advance to bring out the varied parts of our nature. By this is not meant that each people accomplishes something distinctive in religion and government. morals, science, and art.

Our meaning rather is that the mark of each people is plainly visible on all these manifestations. The statement is just that each people is an individual within the race, and that it will show the working of three forces—original constitution, climatic condition, influence from adjacent nations.

Our examination of any national movement can not deserve approval unless the idea of development control the investigation. We are above being satisfied by facts alone. History is alive. It is no longer enough to know that at such a time the Arabians conquered