rators. As such
they spread Greek culture, the Greek idea of individualism, over all
their world.

How deep was the change, made upon the imbruted Asiatics, we may perhaps
question. Our own age has seen how much of education may be lavished on
an inferior race without materially altering the brute instincts within.
The building-up of the soul in man is not a matter of individuals, but
of centuries. Yet in at least a superficial way Greek thought became the
thought of all mankind. We may dismiss Alexander's savage conquests with
a sigh of pity; but we cannot deny him recognition as a most potent
teacher of the world.

His empire did not last. It was in too obvious opposition to all that we
have recognized as the Grecian spirit. At his death the same impulse
seems to have stirred each one of his subordinates, to snatch for
himself a kingdom from the confusion. Instead of one there were soon
three, four, and then a dozen semi-Grecian states in Asia. The Greek
element in each grew very faint.

From this time onward Asia takes a less prominent place in world
affairs. Her ancient leadership in the march of civilization had long
been yielded to the Greeks. Now her semblance of military power
disappeared as well. Only two further happenings in all Asia seem worth
noting, down to the birth of Christ. One of these was the Tartar
conquest of China, an event which coalesced the Tartars, helped make
them a nation.[8] It was thus fraught with most disastrous consequences
for the Europe of the future. The other was the revolt of the Hebrews
under Judas Maccabaeus, against their Grecian rulers. This was a
religious revolt, a religious war. Here for the first time we find a
people who will believe, who can believe, in no god but their own, who
will die sooner than give worship to another. We approach the borders of
an age where the spirit is more valued than the body, where the mental
is stronger than the physical, where facts are dominated by ideas.[9]

[Footnote 8: See _Tartar Invasion of China_, page 126.]

[Footnote 9: See _Judas Maccabaeus Liberates Judea_, page 245.]

Had Alexander even at the moment of his greatest strength directed his
forces westward instead of east, he would have found a different world
and encountered a sturdier resistance. He himself recognized this, and
during his last years was gathering all the resources of his unwieldy
empire, to hurl them against Carthage and against Italy. What the issue
might h