The absorption of Greece by Macedonia was one of the greatest
misfortunes which ever happened to the world: that of any of the
principal countries of Europe by Russia would be a similar one.
If the smaller nationality, supposed to be the more advanced in
improvement, is able to overcome the greater, as the Macedonians,
reinforced by the Greeks, did Asia, and the English India, there is
often a gain to civilisation: but the conquerors and the conquered
cannot in this case live together under the same free institutions.
The absorption of the conquerors in the less advanced people would
be an evil: these, must be governed as subjects, and the state of
things is either a benefit or a misfortune, according as the
subjugated people have or have not reached the state in which it is an
injury not to be under a free government, and according as the
conquerors do or do not use their superiority in a manner calculated
to fit the conquered for a higher stage of improvement. This topic
will be particularly treated of in a subsequent chapter.
When the nationality which succeeds in overpowering the other is
both the most numerous and the most improved; and especially if the
subdued nationality is small, and has no hope of reasserting its
independence; then, if it is governed with any tolerable justice,
and if the members of the more powerful nationality are not made
odious by being invested with exclusive privileges, the smaller
nationality is gradually reconciled to its position, and becomes
amalgamated with the larger.
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