We
do not know which of the widely different stocks now speaking Aryan
tongues represents in physical characteristics the ancient Aryan type,
nor where the type originated, nor how or why it imposed its language
on other types, nor how much or how little mixture of blood
accompanied the change of tongue.
The phenomena of national growth and decay, both of those which can
and those which cannot be explained, have been peculiarly in evidence
during the four centuries that have gone by since the discovery of
America and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. These have been the
four centuries of by far the most intense and constantly accelerating
rapidity of movement and development that the world has yet seen. The
movement has covered all the fields of human activity. It has
witnessed an altogether unexampled spread of civilized mankind over
the world, as well as an altogether unexampled advance in man's
dominion over nature; and this together with a literary and artistic
activity to be matched in but one previous epoch. This period of
extension and development has been that of one race, the so-called
white race, or, to speak more accurately, the group of peoples living
in Europe, who undoubtedly have a certain kinship of blood, who
profess the Christian religion, and trace back their culture to Greece
and Rome.
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