Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/246

Race distinctions, which have borne so prominent a part for ages in the movements and contests of men, grew up in consequence of the isolation of various portions of the human race from each other. The process, before our historic period began, must have been infinitely long. As further consequence of this differentiation qualities have grown up among various peoples and races which one or another among them lacks. The modern movement, due to improved methods of locomotion, brings these various races now more and more into contact. It is a movement which, however, has been in progress, notably, since the dawn of history. The East has been pressing continually toward the West. Aryan man, at a date too early even for conjecture, passed from Asia into Europe. His descendants have passed from Europe to America. And from both directions Aryan man has completed the circuit of the globe. He meets his fellows now in Australia, in New Guinea, in Borneo, in the Philippines, in New Zealand, in India, in China. Through ages Asia had been pouring her multitudes, our ancestors, into Europe. The gray dawn of history breaks upon the closing scenes of this vast movement. The Huns came into Europe later; long after them the Turks, both nations offshoots of the great Turanian race. The return movement, however, the reflux of the invasion, began long before the Christian era, with the Greek expedition described in the immortal pages of the Anabasis of Xenophon. It was this expedition of Cyrus, with his Greek mercenaries, to recover the throne of Persia that opened the way for Alexander, whose career carried Greek influence into Africa and Asia and gave it permanent establishment in both continents. It was the beginning of the transformation that has made the modern world. Forces that Alexander set in motion continue, in their consequences, to this day. The current of influence and power passed