Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/842

824 to the past ages of barbarism and semi-civilization they are far from being correct. Nor will it be difficult, in support of the above assertion, to present instances of long-prevailing peace and of continued warfare, and to show that the latter has had far the most beneficial influence on human progress.

I shall adduce some such instances here as historical evidences in support of my proposition, and afterward consider the causes which lead to such seemingly improbable results. While it may not be possible to name any nations which have existed for a long period in a state of profound peace, there are two very prominent ones which during many centuries have not indulged, or only to an unimportant extent, in foreign warfare. These two possessors of the golden age of peace are China and India. They have had their petty internal combats, but they have not gone abroad as conquerors. They have been conquered, at long intervals apart, by exterior races; but the influx of strange peoples has been like that of the waters of a brook into a lake—the vast masses of the conquered have given color to, instead of receiving color from, their few conquerors. Thus, in these two great nations, the results of long-continued peace have been attained to a more complete extent than elsewhere in the world of civilization.

But when we look at these results we are not strongly encouraged in favor of a golden age of peace. These nations have grown old as many men grow old, their prejudices become rigid, their conceits hardened, their beliefs inflexible. They have reached the limit of their narrow line of development, and crystallized there. Their ideas of industry, of social custom, of law and government, have become fixed and unchangeable. National isolation has removed China from the useful influence of intellectual contact with exterior peoples. Mental isolation has had the same effect in India. Local pride and self-satisfaction have hindered progress, but they have not hindered the deterioration which is sure to set in when progress halts. These nations having, ages ago, lost all active development, and solidified into unchangeable forms, they have become subject to the influences which affect a tree that has ceased to grow. Inevitable decay has supervened. Whole swarms of political, social, and moral delinquencies have crept in and fastened themselves upon the body corporate, which has lacked the vitality to throw them off, and which is being gradually consumed by these eating parasites.

It may be argued, however, that both these nations had attained a considerable degree of civilization before their progress became thus checked. This must be admitted; but it must also be admitted that this progress was chiefly attained during their earlier, warlike stage. Of this we have abundant evidence.