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human societies, in the history of the rise to prominence, of the
development and change, of the temporary dominance, and death or
transformation, of the groups of varying kind which form races or
nations. Here, as in biology, it is necessary to keep in mind that we
use each of the words "birth" and "death," "youth" and "age," often
very loosely, and sometimes as denoting either one of two totally
different conceptions. Of course, in one sense there is no such thing
as an "old" or a "young" nation, any more than there is an "old" or
"young" family. Phylogenetically, the line of ancestral descent must
be of exactly the same length for every existing individual, and for
every group of individuals, whether forming a family or a nation. All
that can properly be meant by the terms "new" and "young" is that in a
given line of descent there has suddenly come a period of rapid
change. This change may arise either from a new development or
transformation of the old elements, or else from a new grouping of
these elements with other and varied elements; so that the words "new"
nation or "young" nation may have a real difference of significance in
one case from what they have in another.

As in biology, so in human history, a new form may result from the
specialization of a long-existing, and hitherto very slowly changing,
generalized or non-specialized form; as, for instance, occurs when a
barbaric race from a variety of causes suddenly develops a more
complex cultivation and civilization. This is what occurred, for
instance, in Western Europe during the centuries of the Teutonic and,
later, the Scandinavian ethnic overflows from the north. All the
modern countries of Western Europe are descended from the states
created by these northern invaders. When first created they would be
called "new" or "young" states in the sense that part or all of the
people composing them were descended from races that hitherto had not
been civilized, and that therefore, for the first time, entered on the
career of civilized communities. In the southern part of Western
Europe the new states thus formed consisted in bulk of the inhabitants
already in the land under the Roman Empire; and it was here that the
new kingdoms first took shape. Through a reflex action their influence
then extended back into the cold forests from which the invaders had
come, and Germany and Scandinavia witnessed the rise of communities
with essentially the same civilization