Conquest
improved mankind by the intermixture of strengths; the armed truce,
which was then called peace, improved them by the competition of
training and the consequent creation of new power. Since the long-
headed men first drove the short-headed men out of the best land in
Europe, all European history has been the history of the
superposition of the more military races over the less military of
the efforts, sometimes successful, sometimes unsuccessful, of each
race to get more military; and so the art of war has constantly
improved. But why is one nation stronger than another? In the answer
to that, I believe, lies the key to the principal progress of early
civilisation, and to some of the progress of all civilisation. The
answer is that there are very many advantages--some small and some
great--every one of which tends to make the nation which has it
superior to the nation which has it not; that many of these
advantages can be imparted to subjugated races, or imitated by
competing races; and that, though some of these advantages may be
perishable or inimitable, yet, on the whole, the energy of
civilisation grows by the coalescence of strengths and by the
competition of strengths.
II.
By far the greatest advantage is that on which I observed before--
that to which I drew all the attention I was able by making the
first of these essays an essay on the Preliminary Age.
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