River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-06-09
ROOSEVELT GIVES
R0MANES LECTURE
Former President of United
States at Oxford
LORD CURz0N IN THE CHAIR
SheIdonian Theater Crowded with
Distinguished People When Amer
lean Talks on theological An
aIogies In History"

diOQlCS
Oxford. England.-The Romanes
lecture by Theodore Roosevelt, which
was to have been delivered on May IS,
but which was postponed on account
of the death of King Edward, was
given on June by the distinguished
American. The Sheldonian theater
was filled to its capacity by notable
persons and Oxford students and the
lecture, which was on biological
Analogies in History" was well re-
ceived. Lord Curzon, chancellor of the
university, presided.
In seeking to penetrate the causes
of the mysteries that surround not
only mankind but all life, both in the
present and the past. said Mr.. Roose-
welt, we see strange analogies In the
phenomena of life and death, of birth
growth and change, between those
physical groups of animal life which
We designate as species, forms, races
and the highly complex and composite
entities which rise before our minds
when we speak of nations and civil
lizations. 1t is this study, he assert
ed, that has given science its present
day prominence, and the historian of
mankind must work in the scientific
spirit and use the treasure-houses Of
science.
To illustrate, the lecturer took sew
eral instances of the development Of
new species and the extinction Of spe-
cies in the history Of mammalian life,
showing that in some cases the causes
can be traced with considerable accu-
racy, and in other cases we cannot so
much as hazard a guess as to why
given change occurred.
Analoges In Human History.
Continuing, Mr.. Roosevelt said in
part:
Now, as to all Of these phenomena in the
evolution of species, there are, If not
homologies, at least certain analogies, In
the history Of human societies, in the
history of the rise to prominence, OF the
development and change, of the tenn
porary dominance, and death or trans
formation, of the groups of varying KIND
which form races or nations
AS in biology, so In human history,
new form may result from the Specialize
ton of a long-existing and hitherto very
slowly-changing generalized or nom
specialized form; as, for instance, when
a barbaric race from a variety OF causes
suddenly develops a more complex cult1-
walton and civilization. That is what oc-
Cured, for instance, in western Europe
during the centuries Of the Teutonic and
later the Scandinavian ethnic overfiows
from the north. All the modern countries
of western Europe are descended from the
states created by these northern invaders
When first created they could be called
NEW" or young states in the sense
that part or all Of the people composing
them were descended from races that
hitherto had not been civilized at all, and
that therefore for the first time entered
on the career of civilized communities.
In the southern part of western Europe
the new states thus formed consisted in
bulk Of the inhabitants already in the land
under the Roman empire; and it was
here that the new Kingdoms first took
shape. Through a reflex action their
influence then extended back into the cold
forests from which the invaders had come,
and Germany and Scandinavia witnessed
the rise of communities with essentially
the same civilization as their southern
neighbours; though in those communities,
unlike the southern communities, there
was no infusion of new blood, and in each
case the new civilized nation which gradu-
ally developed was composed entirely 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 Slavs and the Slavonized
Firms of eastern Europe, when an infil-
tration Of Scandinavian leaders from the
north and infiltration of Byzantine
culture from the south Joined to produce
the changes which have gradually, out of
the little Slav communities Of the forest
and the steppe, formed the mighty Russian
empire of today.
"NeW" and "Young" Nations.
Again, the new form may represent
merely a splitting off from a long-estab-
lished 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 de-
scribed by the same term in speaking of
a civilized nation just developed from a
barbariSm. Carthage and Syracuse were
new cities compared with Tyre and Cor
NTH; but the Greek or Phoenician race was
in every sense of the word as old in the
new city as in the old city. So, nowadays.
Victoria or Manitoba is a new community
compared with England or Scotland; but
the ancestral type of civilization and Gull
ture is as old in one case as in the other
I 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 surroundings where
it has again to go through the work of
tanning the wilderness, a work finished
many centuries before in the original
home of the race; I 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 Australians, Americans or Afrikanders.
But we use it in an entirely different
sense from that in which we use it when
speaking of such communities as those
founded by the northmen and their de-
scendants during that period Of astonish-
ing growth which saw the descendants of