speak as if they hated, the present political
England--nevertheless to 'the old home.' There was then no organised
means of communication--no practical communication, we may say, between
parted members of the same group; those who once went out from the
parent society went out for ever; they left no abiding remembrance, and
they kept no abiding regard. Even the language of the parent tribe and
of the descended tribe would differ in a generation or two. There being
no written literature and no spoken intercourse, the speech of both
would vary (the speech of such communities is always varying), and
would vary in different directions. One set of causes, events, and
associations would act on one, and another set on another; sectional
differences would soon arise, and, for speaking purposes, what
philologists call a dialectical difference often amounts to real and
total difference: no connected interchange of thought is possible any
longer. Separate groups soon 'set up house;' the early societies begin
a new set of customs, acquire and keep a distinct and special 'luck.'

If it were not for this facility of new formations, one good or bad
custom would long since have 'corrupted' the world; but even this would
not have been enough but for those continual wars, of which I have
spoken at such length in the essay on 'The Use of Conflict,' that I
need say nothing now. These are by their incessant fractures of old
images, and by their constant infusion of new elements, the real
regenerators of society. And whatever be the truth or falsehood of the
general dislike to mixed and half-bred races, no such suspicion was
probably applicable to the early mixtures of primitive society.
Supposing, as is likely, each great aboriginal race to have had its own
quarter of the world (a quarter, as it would seem, corresponding to the
special quarters in which plants and animals are divided), then the
immense majority of the mixtures would be between men of different
tribes but of the same stock, and this no one would object to, but
every one would praise.

In general, too, the conquerors would be better than the conquered
(most merits in early society are more or less military merits), but
they would not be very much better, for the lowest steps in the ladder
of civilisation are very steep, and the effort to mount them is slow
and tedious. And this is probably the better if they are to produce a
good and quick effect in civilising those they ha