dangerous indulgences anywhere, whether those men who pursue them are princes or private men.

The Sultan, therefore, though now freed from the fear of his Janissaries' sabres, is occasionally disturbed by visions of Russian bayonets. From these he was delivered not long ago by England and France, at no small cost to themselves. This might, perhaps, have the effect of enabling the Sultan to enjoy himself in quiet for a long time to come, provided that England and France can always be reckoned on to join against Russia. But suppose

that France should join Russia instead of joining England, England would then have rather a tough job in hand, not only to defend herself, but to defend Turkey against Russia and France united. Under these circumstances, if the Spahis cannot be reorganized in their pristine strength, it would seem very desirable both for England and Turkey to re-establish the Janissaries, or some other equally effective check or control upon the imbecility and vices of the Turkish government; a check of that kind being the only constitutional check which the Turkish government, like almost all the Asiatic governments, of the nature of which it partakes largely, would appear to admit of.

Both the Spaniards and the Turks furnish remarkable examples of a principle which is found in a greater or less degree in operation among all nations

-the principle of regarding all other nations as inferior, and distinguishing them by an epithet more or less opprobrious. With the Greeks and Romans all foreign nations were distinguished by a word which, though originally meaning only foreigners, came to have a stronger signification-barbarians. This word, though it might involve that idea, did not adopt for the leading idea it was meant to convey a different religious worship. But with the Arabs, the Turks, and the Spaniards, the religious idea was the predominant one in the term which they bestowed on other nations. With the Arabs, most foreigners were Kaffirs; with the Turks, Giaours; and with the Spaniards, Heretics. Kaffirs, Giaours, and Heretics were wretches; to conquer, rob, and slaughter whom was not only a meritorious deed on earth, but a passport to eternal happiness in heaven.

With nations such as these, when they set up the trade of conquerors, there evidently would be no middle course. Their mission on earth being, as the chosen people of the true God, to spread the knowledge and worship of their true God by fire and sword, they must either destroy or be destroyed. The Arabs have lost their place among the nations. The Turks and the Spaniards still hold a nominal place; but a place so fallen from that they once held in the height of their power and of their savage and fanatical arrogance, that they may serve as a warn

ing to after ages of the vengeance of the Omnipotent on the mingled folly and wickedness of men who presumed to perpetrate, in the name of God, deeds of cruelty and rapine worthy of the most ferocious beasts of prey.

CHAPTER VI.

CIVILIZATION AND CONQUEST.-HERO-WORSHIP AND DEVIL-WORSHIP.

WHETHER or not it be true, according to the remark of David Hume, that the world is yet too young to have a political philosophy, it is certainly yet too young to be able to boast of having civilization, in any high and extended sense of that term. Even in those communities which reckon themselves thé most civilized in the world, we find that the old saying, "homo homini lupus" (man is a wolf to man), still holds true. For, though cruelty is not there found in the shape of that callousness to physical human suffering which we find in the actions of the Greeks and Romans and of our own ancestors, it is abundantly found in the copious use of falsehood as the means to self-aggrandizement, the triumph of political factions, and the consequent defeat of personal and political adversaries. As such defeat, thus brought about by means which a strictly humane and honourable man cannot employ,

may, and often does, reduce the opposite party to ruin and beggary, it proves the existence of an amount of cruelty showing that man is still a wolf to man, and disproves the existence of civilization, in its highest sense.

But whatever difference of opinion there may be on this point, the problem is one of which I shall not now attempt the solution. The progress of society— or, at least, of that portion of the world which calls itself civilized society-has long been, and still is, towards the use of truth and the disuse of falsehood; though, to judge from the grand results, falsehood is still considerably the stronger and more prosperous power of the two. Still the world is advancing. The quaint remark of an old writer-I think it was Sir Walter Raleigh-that "a man might follow truth so near the heels, that it might at last dash out his teeth," is not quite so extensively true now as it was two centuries and a half ago. And though following truth very near the heels is still not altogether free from peril, the chances are rather more in favour of the truth-seeker's teeth, and head too, than they were in the days of the Tudors and the Stuarts.

But there is another problem having reference to civilization, of which, at the present time, it may be useful to attempt the solution. And that question is, whether civilization can, to any considerable extent, be the result of conquest?