Page:The Ifs of History (1907).pdf/32

 sicklied over with oriental contemplativeness.

The "hustler" never could have existed under Moslem rule. The speculator never would have risen, because he would not have been tolerated. The Moslem doctrine forbids censuses and statistics, treating them as a form of wicked curiosity concerning the rule of God on earth. Pictorial art, and sculpture, which the Koran regards as idolatrous, would have been sternly repressed. Literature would have been great along the line of poetry; science great along the line of mathematics.

The western woman would have been orientalized. So far from forming clubs, she would not have been permitted even to pray in the mosques.

America would have remained undiscovered for centuries; and if at last accident or search had laid it bare, it would have followed the path of Europe. The mellifluous tones of