Sec. 2. ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM

Definitions are perilous, yet we must now attempt to define this ideal,
to frame an answer to the question--What is the nature of this ideal
which has thus arisen, of this Imperialism which is insensibly but
surely taking the place of the narrower patriotism of England, of
Scotland, and of Ireland? Imperialism, I should say, is patriotism
transfigured by a light from the aspirations of universal humanity; it
is the passion of Marathon, of Flodden or Trafalgar, the ardour of a de
Montfort or a Grenville, intensified to a serener flame by the ideals
of a Condorcet, a Shelley, or a Fichte. This is the ideal, and in the
resolution deliberate and conscious to realize this ideal throughout
its dominions, from bound to bound, in the voluntary submission to this
as to the primal law of its being, lies what may be named the destiny
of Imperial Britain.

As the artist by the very law of his being is compelled to body forth
his conceptions in colour, in words, or in marble, so the race dowered
with the genius for empire is compelled to dare all, to suffer all, to
sacrifice all for the fulfilment of its fate-appointed task. This is
the distinction, this the characteristic of the empires, the imperial
races of the past, of the remote, the shadowy empires of Media, of
Assyria, of the nearer empires of Persia, Macedon, and Rome. To spread
the name, and with the name the attributes, the civilizing power of
Hellas, throughout the world is the ideal of Macedon. Similarly of
Rome: to subdue the world, to establish there her peace, governing all
in justice, marks the Rome of Julius, of Vespasian, of Trajan. And in
this measureless devotion to a cause, in this surplus energy, and the
necessity of realizing its ideals in other races, in other peoples,
lies the distinction of the Imperial State, whether city or nation.
The origin of these characteristics in British Imperialism we shall
examine in a later lecture.

Let me now endeavour to set the distinctive ideal of Britain before you
in a clearer light. Observe, first of all, that it is essentially
British. It is not Roman, not Hellenic. The Roman ideal moulds every
form of Imperialism in Europe, and even to a certain degree in the
East, down to the eighteenth century. The theory of the mediaeval
empire derives immediately from Rome. The Roman justice disguised as
righteousness easily warrants persecution, papal or imperial. The
Revoca