the stream of history which, beginning on the shores
of the Mediterranean Sea, has widened until in our day it covers both
sides of the Atlantic and is fast extending over the remotest parts of
the earth,--in this main stream of history the warfare which has gone on
has had a clearly discernible purpose and meaning. Broadly considered,
this warfare has been chiefly the struggle of the higher industrial
civilization in defending itself against the attacks of neighbours who
had not advanced beyond that early stage of humanity in which warfare
was chronic and normal. During the historic period, the wars of Europe
have been either contests between the industrial and the predatory types
of society, or contests incident upon the imperfect formation of large
political aggregates. There have been three ways in which great
political bodies have arisen. The earliest and lowest method was that of
_conquest without incorporation_. A single powerful tribe conquered and
annexed its neighbours without admitting them to a share in the
government. It appropriated their military strength, robbed them of most
of the fruits of their labour, and thus virtually enslaved them. Such
was the origin of the great despotic empires of Oriental type. Such
states degenerate rapidly in military strength. Their slavish
populations, accustomed to be starved and beaten or massacred by the
tax-gatherer, become unable to fight, so that great armies of them will
flee before a handful of freemen, as in the case of the ancient Persians
and the modern Egyptians. To strike down the executive head of such an
assemblage of enslaved tribes is to effect the conquest or the
dissolution of the whole mass, and hence the history of Eastern peoples
has been characterized by sudden and gigantic revolutions.

The second method of forming great political bodies was that of
_conquest with incorporation_. The conquering tribe, while annexing its
neighbours, gradually admitted them to a share in the government. In
this way arose the Roman empire, the largest, the most stable, and in
its best days the most pacific political aggregate the world had as yet
seen. Throughout the best part of Europe, its conquests succeeded in
transforming the ancient predatory type of society into the modern
industrial type. It effectually broke up the primeval clan-system, with
its narrow ethical ideas, and arrived at the broad conception of rights
and duties coextensive with Humanity. But in the