a sort of pure philosophical view of
the Turks and their position, though it be but abstract and theoretical,
and require correction when confronted by the event. There is a use in
investigating what ought to be, under given suppositions and conditions,
even though speculation and fact do not happen to keep pace together.

As to myself, having laid down my premisses, as drawn from historical
considerations, I must needs go on, whether I will or no, to the
conjectures to which they lead; and that shall be my business in this
concluding discussion. My line of argument has been as follows:--First,
I stated some peculiarities of civilized and of barbarian communities; I
said that it is a general truth that civilized states are destroyed from
within, and barbarian states from without; that the very causes, which
lead to the greatness of civilized communities, at length by continuing
become their ruin, whereas the causes of barbarian greatness uphold
that greatness, as long as they continue, and by ceasing to act, not by
continuing, lead the way to its overthrow. Thus the intellect of Athens
first was its making and then its unmaking; while the warlike prowess of
the Spartans maintained their pre-eminence, till it succumbed to the
antagonist prowess of Thebes.

1.

I laid down this principle as a general law of human society, open to
exceptions and requiring modifications in particular cases, but true on
the whole. Next, I went on to show that the Ottoman power was of a
barbarian character. The conclusion is obvious; viz., that it has risen,
and will fall, not by anything within it, but by agents external to
itself; and this conclusion, I certainly think, is actually confirmed by
Turkish history, as far as it has hitherto gone. The Ottoman state
seems, in matter of fact, to be most singularly constructed, so as to
have nothing inside of it, and to be moved solely or mainly by
influences from without. What a contrast, for instance, to the German
race! In the earliest history of that people, we discern an element of
civilization, a vigorous action of the intellect residing in the body,
independent of individuals, and giving birth to great men, rather than
created by them. Again, in the first three centuries of the Church, we
find martyrs indeed in plenty, as the Turks might have soldiers; but (to
view the matter humanly) perhaps there was not one great mind, after the
Apostles, to teach and to mould her children. The highes