New-York tribune., 1910-06-08

history Of human societies. IN tne 49,
- -,~s IN prominence. of the deVeiOp
I'D change. of the temporary oOi"i
.,d death or transformation, VI
49,. rr-o,,ns of varying kind which loiIi
-...s or nations Here, as in o1oio8S' II
,,.cessarv to keep In mind that we use ea0n
~ tbe words ''bIrth'' and death 'u
and age" often very loosely, anu soin
,trnes as denotfng either one OF t"o 'o'"--S
dirrerent conceptions or course III O
sanse there is no such thing as an oiu
..,-o,,ne', nation any more than there
,s an "oId'' or young family Pnyio-
,oreticaII,. the line of ancestral descent
So. - ., exactly the same length for
.,,e-v existing Individual. and for every
u-,,,, of individuals, whether forming a
Family or a nation. All that can properly
- ,,,espt nv the terms new" and young
a, .h,+ in a given line of descent there mas
s,,dd.nIv come a period OF rapid change
1-b,e change may arise either from ne"
dsyaIoopoent or transformation or the on
elements or else from new grouping Oh
those elements with other and varied eiS-
nents. 80 that the words new nation OF
young nation may have real olneIehOo
- .,rnihcance in one case from what tney
have In another.
DEVELOPMENT Of Barbsrtans.
h,o,,,, so IN human history.
new form may result from the speciaiiza-
+ton o+ long existing and hitherto very
s1ou5v changing zeneralized or non-special~
izsd form: as, for instance. when 8 oaroaric
race from a variety of causes suddenly oe-
,,slons a more complex cultivation ana
ciyfIization This is what occurred, Tot IN
stance in Western Europe during the cen
t,,ries of the Teutonic and later the Scan
dInsvtan ethnic overf1Ows from the nortn.
All the modern countries of western Eu-
rome are descended from the states created
by these northern invaders When nrS'
created they could be called ne" vi
s.,,o,,ne,, states In the sense that part or
all of the people composing them were de-
sce,ded from races that hitherto had not
beer, civilized at ALL and that therefore lot
the first time entered on the career OF CIVIL
lied communities. In the southern part OL
Western Europe the new states thuS
formed consisted in bulk of the inhaDltantS
already in the land under the Roman Erh-
pire: and IL was here that the new khs-
donls first took shape. Through a reheN aO-
tion their influence then extended back into
the cold forests from which the invaders
had come. and Germany and Scandinavia
essentially the same civilization as their
southern neighbors; though In those COM
,nunities unlike the southern communities,
there was no infusion of new blood, and IN
each case the new civilized nation which
gradually developed was composed ent1rely
Of members of the same race which IN the
same region had for ages lived the life OF
a slowly changing barbarism. The same
was true of the SIavs and the Slavonlzeo
Firms of Eastern Europe, when an inHitra-
ton of Scandinavian leaders from the norIn
and an infiltration of Byzantine culture
from the south joined to produce tne
changes which have gradually, out or the
little SIav communities OF the forest and
the steppe formed the mighty Russian En-
pire of to-day.
Terms to Indicate Development.
Again the new form may represent mere
Iv a splitting off from long established.
highly developed and specialized nation In
this case the nation Is usually spoken Of
as a young" and is correctly spoken OF
as a new" nation; but the term should
always be used with clear sense Of the
difference between what Is described in
such case and what IS described by the
same term in speaking of a civilized nation
lust developed from a barbarisnl. Carthage
ard Syracuse were new cities compared
with Tyre and Corinth; but the Greek or
Phoenician race was in every sense or the
word as old in the new city as in the old
CITY. So nowadays Victoria or Manitoba
is a new community compared with Eng
land or Scotland; but the ancestral type OF
civilization and culture is as old IN one
case as in the other. !. OF course. do not
mean for a moment that great changes are
not produced by the mere fact that the OLD
civilized race is suddenly placed IN sur
roundings where it has again TO go through
the work of tanning the wilderness. work
finished many centuries before in the orig
inal home of the race: merely mean that
the ancestral history is the same in each
case We can rightly use the phrase "a new
people" in speaking OF Canadians or Aus
.traIians, Americans or Africanders. But We
use IT in an entirely different sense from
that in which we use 1t when speaking OF
such communities as those founded by tie
Mortimer and their descendants during
that period of astonishing growth which
saw the descendants of the Morse sea
thieves conquer and transform Normandy,
Sicily and the British Islands: we use it in
an entirely different sense from that in
which we use it when speaking Of the new
states that grew up around Warsaw. Kieff,
Novgorod and Moscow, as the wild savages
of the steppes and the marshy forests
struggled haltingly and stumblingly up
ward to become builders of cities and to
form stable governments.
Nations Made by Cleavage.
The kingdoms of Charlemagne and Alfred
we're new compared with the empire on
the Bosporus: they were also in every
way different: thei- lines of ancestral de-
scent had nothing in common with those
of the polyglot realm which paid tribute
to the Caesars of Byzantine; their social
problems and aftertime history were totally
different. This is rot true of those new
nations which spring direct from old na-
tions. Brazil, the Argentine, the United
States. are all new nations, compared
with the nations of Europe: but, with what
ever changes in detail. their civilization is
nevertheless of the general European type
as shown in Portugal, Spain and England
The differences between these new Amer
lean and these 'old" European nations are
not as great as those which separate the
new" nations Cne from another and the
'old" nations one from another. There are
in each case very real differences between
the new and the old nation-differences both
for good and for evil; but in each case
there is the same ancestral history TO
reckon with, the same type of civilization
with its attendant benefits and ShortcO,,,