ld have shuddered, did shudder, at such a
notion. The supreme class was to keep itself pure, and avoid all taint
of darker blood, shutting its eyes to the fact that some of its most
famous heroes had been born of such left-handed marriages as that of
Robert of Normandy with the tanner's daughter of Falaise. "Some are so
curious in this behalf," says quaint old Burton, writing about 1650, "as
these old Romans, our modern Venetians, Dutch, and French, that if two
parties dearly love, the one noble, the other ignoble, they may not, by
their laws, match, though equal otherwise in years, fortunes, education,
and all good affection. In Germany, except they can prove their
gentility by three descents, they scorn to match with them. A nobleman
must marry a noblewoman; a baron, a baron's daughter; a knight, a
knight's. As slaters sort their slates, do they degrees and families."

And doubtless this theory--like all which have held their ground for many
centuries--at first represented a fact. These castes were, at first,
actually superior to the peoples over whom they ruled. I cannot, as long
as my eyes are open, yield to the modern theory of the equality--indeed
of the non-existence--of races. Holding, as I do, the primaeval unity of
the human race, I see in that race the same inclination to sport into
fresh varieties, the same competition of species between those varieties,
which Mr. Darwin has pointed out among plants and mere animals. A
distinguished man arises; from him a distinguished family; from it a
distinguished tribe, stronger, cunninger than those around. It asserts
its supremacy over its neighbours at first exactly as a plant or animal
would do, by destroying, and, where possible, eating them; next, having
grown more prudent, by enslaving them; next, having gained a little
morality in addition to its prudence, by civilising them, raising them
more or less toward its own standard. And thus, in every land,
civilisation and national life has arisen out of the patriarchal state;
and the Eastern scheik, with his wives, free and slave, and his hundreds
of fighting men born in his house, is the type of all primaeval rulers.
He is the best man of his horde--in every sense of the word best; and
whether he have a right to rule them or not, they consider that he has,
and are the better men for his guidance.

Whether this ought to have been the history of primaeval civilisation, is
a question not to be determined here