The Goth and the Saracen; A Comparison Between the Historical Effects Produced Upon the Condition of Mankind by the Mahometan Conquests and Those of the Northern Barbarians (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1859. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III. A CONSIDERATION OP SOME OP THE MORE REMOTE EFFECTS OF THE CONQUESTS. 'ek Itk6tou tpdos. In this Chapter I propose to complete my subject by the consideration of some of the more general and constructive effects of the two great movements which I am endeavouring to discuss and compare. We of the present day naturally conceive of mediseval history chiefly as a preparation for modern history: all that preceded the great moral resurrection of the sixteenth century only interests us in so far as it prepared the way for that catastrophe. Nor is such a view either unreasonable or unprofitable, if it be not dwelt upon too exclusively. My remarks in the present Chapter will to some extent have this bearing. Now, that the world should have entered upon a modern period of history at all, it was clearly necessary that the two great centres of the old Roman civilization, Rome and Constantinople, should pass under the hand of the conqueror. Let us endeavour to see how the conquest of each was made to minister to the establishment of the great European Republic of modern history, to the maintenance of which by the theory of the ' balance of power' all our present international policy is directed. We saw that it was well for the world of the fifth century, --we may now see that it was well for us, --that the Roman Empire of the West should cease to exist. Great empires, as it was observed above, have never exercised, during their lifetime, a satisfactory influence on the social and moral condition of mankind: it seems as though the coagulation of men in political bodies of more than a certain size contradicted some fundamental principle of Man's being upon earth, --as though the differences between nation and nation (with whatever plausibility we may be able to...