century the absorption of the unoccupied or weakly-held portions of the earth, and the reduction of the uncivilized or semi-civilized States to a dependent position, have proceeded at such a pace that the end is almost within sight. The partition of Africa is almost complete. Eastern Asia is emerging from the melting-pot, and it is beginning to be possible to foresee the lines on which it will be reconstructed; and it is only in the case of Turkey and the other Mohammedan countries of Western Asia that the future is still wholly dark, and that great conflicts must too probably precede the final solution.
VI.
Now, the Imperialism of the hour is in one sense only the expression of this shifting of interest from the internal problems of Europe to the outward expansion of her influence; and if we are to believe its enemies, who will admit the possibility of no Imperialism but the Imperialism of conquest, it is that in its worst form, and nothing more. But if the Imperial ideal were only an appeal to the lust of conquest, it would not possess the immense attraction it now possesses for the best minds of our generation. It is not the mere glorification of conquest and dominion as compared with internal improvement; it is not the mere preference of power to freedom; it is not the enemy of nationality and liberty. It is not the mere assertion of one of the great principles that have underlain the history of the last five hundred years against the other; it is their combination and fulfilment. In political history, unlike geometry, there are no parallel lines that, being produced, only meet at infinity; and the two great currents which, as we have seen, have flowed through history since the end of the Middle Ages are now joining to form a nobler stream, which may bear us to the promised land of a fairer and larger political order than the world has yet seen.
Taken by itself, the national ideal was limited and
