Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/220

 in Asia did not produce those farther revolutionary consequences which might have been anticipated;—the spirit of the conquerors, which alone might have been capable of holding together this immense empire and of moulding it according to the Grecian Ideal, forsook its ancient abode, and the victorious generals divided the conquered countries as a spoil among themselves. As each had an equal right, or want of right, to the whole, there arose endless wars between these new kingdoms, with alternate expulsions and restorations of the reigning families, leaving little time for the cultivation of the arts of peace, and producing universal enervation. The old common Fatherland was, at the same time, depopulated by the emigration of its young and warlike manhood to the military service of these Kings, and thus rendered powerless for its own undertakings;—so that after all, the commencement of the supremacy of the Greeks was also the beginning of their fall. Scarcely a single significant result of this event has found a place in World-History, excepting this: that thereby the Greek Language was spread over all Asia;—a circumstance which greatly helped the subsequent diffusion of Christianity throughout Asia, and from thence into other lands;—further, that in consequence of this squandering of strength and energy in internal wars, the conquest and peaceful occupation of all these countries was made an easy matter for the Romans.

It was these Romans who united in one State the Culture which had now been produced by the intermixture of different races, and who thereby completed the period of Ancient Time and closed the simple course of Ancient Civilization. With respect to its influence on Universal History, this nation, more than any other, was the blind and unconscious instrument for the furtherance of a higher World-Plan, since it had formed itself, as indicated above, into a most fit and proper