e source of instruction: our past experience, which has
now extended over four centuries, and which we have in this book
endeavoured to survey.

Now while it is undeniably true that the mere lust of power has always
been present in the imperial activities of the European peoples, it is
certainly untrue (as our study ought to have shown) that it has ever
been the sole motive, except, perhaps, in the great German challenge.
And in the course of their experience the colonising peoples have
gradually worked out certain principles in their treatment of subject
peoples, which ought to be of use to us. The fullest and the most
varied experience is that of the British Empire: it is the oldest of
all the world-states; it alone includes regions of the utmost variety
of types, new lands peopled by European settlers, realms of ancient
civilisation like India, and regions inhabited by backward and
primitive peoples. It would be absurd to claim that its methods are
perfect and infallible. But they have been very varied, and quite
astonishingly successful. And it is because they seem to afford clearer
guidance than any other part of the experiments which we have recorded
that we have studied them, especially in their later developments, with
what may have seemed a disproportionate fulness. What are the
principles which experience has gradually worked out in the British
Empire? They cannot be embodied in a single formula, because they vary
according to the condition and development of the lands to which they
apply.

But in the first place we have learnt by a very long experience that in
lands inhabited by European settlers, who bring with them European
traditions, the only satisfactory solution is to be found in the
concession of the fullest self-governing rights, since these settlers
are able to use them, and in the encouragement of that sentiment of
unity which we call the national spirit. And this involves a
recognition of the fact that nationality is never to be defined solely
in terms of race or language, but can arise, and should be encouraged
to arise, among racially divided communities such as Canada and South
Africa. Any attempt to interpret nationhood in terms of race is not
merely dangerous, but ruinous; and such endeavours to stimulate or
accentuate racial conflict, as Germany has been guilty of in Brazil, in
South Africa, and even in America, must be, if successful, fatal to the
progress of the countries affected, and da