But
anyhow it is impossible not to trace the supremacy of Teutons,
Greeks, and Romans in part to their common form of government. The
contests of the assembly cherished the principle of change; the
influence of the elders insured sedateness and preserved the mould
of thought; and, in the best cases, military discipline was not
impaired by freedom, though military intelligence was enhanced with
the general intelligence. A Roman army was a free body, at its own
choice governed by a peremptory despotism.
The MIXTURE OF RACES was often an advantage, too. Much as the old
world believed in pure blood, it had very little of it. Most
historic nations conquered prehistoric nations, and though they
massacred many, they did not massacre all. They enslaved the subject
men, and they married the subject women. No doubt the whole bond of
early society was the bond of descent; no doubt it was essential to
the notions of a new nation that it should have had common
ancestors; the modern idea that vicinity of habitation is the
natural cement of civil union would have been repelled as an impiety
if it could have been conceived as an idea. But by one of those
legal fictions which Sir Henry Maine describes so well, primitive
nations contrived to do what they found convenient, as well as to
adhere to what they fancied to be right.
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