Page:The inequality of human races (1915).djvu/64

Rh what they are in cases where the peoples themselves have invented the institutions. But may we say the same of the second hypothesis, which deals with cases where a nation receives its code from the hands of foreigners powerful enough to enforce their will, whether the people like it or not?

There are a few cases of such attempts; but I confess I cannot find any which have been carried out on a great scale by governments of real political genius in ancient or modern times. Their wisdom has never been used to change the actual foundations of any great national system. The Romans were too clever to try such dangerous experiments. Alexander the Great had never done so; and the successors of Augustus, like the conqueror of Darius, were content to rule over a vast mosaic of nations, all of which clung to their own customs, habits, laws, and methods of government. So long as they and their fellow-subjects remained racially the same, they were controlled by their rulers only in matters of taxation and military defence.

There is, however, one point that must not be passed over. Many of the peoples subdued by the Romans had certain features in their codes so outrageous that their existence could not be tolerated by Roman sentiment; for example, the human sacrifices of the Druids, which were visited with the severest penalties. Well, the Romans, for all their power, never succeeded in completely stamping out these barbarous rites. In Narbonese Gaul the victory was easy, as the native population had been almost entirely replaced by Roman colonists. But in the centre, where the tribes were wilder, the resistance was more obstinate; and in the Breton Peninsula, where settlers from England in the fourth century brought back the ancient customs with the ancient blood, the people continued, from mere feelings of patriotism and love of tradition, to cut men's throats on their altars as often as they dared. The strictest supervision did not succeed in taking the sacred knife and torch out of their hands. Every revolt began by restoring this terrible feature of the national cult; and Christianity, still panting with rage after its victory over an immoral polytheism, hurled itself with 44