Othman will pass to new rulers. Will this come to pass by insurrection or by foreign conquest? So far, reforming or revolutionary movements-for there has been nothing approaching an insurrection-have produced only massacres and repression; nor is there any likelihood that either Greeks or Armenians could take up arms with the least prospect of success. Even if an insurrection be supposed successful, what sort of new political community could it create? The Mussulmans have been too long accustomed to superiority to become fellow-citizens with Greeks or Armenians in any constitutional government. There is no large area of Asia Minor where the Greeks are in such a majority as to enable them to set up a government conducted on European lines, even such a government as those of the Hellenic kingdom and Bulgaria. Nor is there any region in which the Armenians are strong enough, as against either the Kurds or the other Mussulmans, to mark it out as the seat of an Armenian principality or kingdom. Mr Lynch estimates the population of the Armenian plateau at 392,000 Christians, 442,000 Turks, 410,000 Kurds; and the Kurds are far too turbulent, their country far too difficult, to give hope that they could be reduced to peace except by a strong hand. Accordingly the various plans which English or American sympathy with the misfortunes of the Armenian Christians has suggested have always pointed to the creation of a large administrative province under a governor named by the European Powers and not removable by the Sultan, who might use the revenues of his province in maintaining a force strong enough to keep the Kurds in check, and to enable the peaceful Mussulmans and Christians to restore prosperity to the country. The steady opposition of the Sultan and the indifference of all the Powers, except England, have prevented these plans from being even seriously considered; nor is the prospect any better now than it was in 1878.

If the present disorders are ever to cease, it is apparently from without that deliverance will come, that is to say, from some one or more of the five European Powers which retain an interest in the fate of the East. The position and policy of these five have notably altered of late years. In the days of the Crimean War England and France, though they had often thwarted one another,

stood together against Russia. Now England and France are again divided, and show much less active interest. France has placed herself on the side of Russia. England has practically withdrawn from the Anglo-Turkish Convention of 1878, though not from the occupation of Cyprus; and the language of her statesmen indicates an abandonment of the old policy. Her Eastern interests lie now in Egypt. It is pretty well understood that she would not go to war in order to keep Constantinople from falling into Russia's hands; nor is it likely, though Mr Lynch and Lord Percy might regret the fact, that she would take such a step even to prevent Russia from advancing across the Armenian plateau to the edge of the Mesopotamian plain.

But while France and England have to some extent fallen into the background, a new force has pressed to the front. Germany began about ten years ago to exert her influence in Constantinople to secure trade-advantages and concessions for her subjects; and, through the increasing numbers of Germans who were concerned in enterprises in Turkey, she became a prominent factor there, and thought it worth her while to pose as the friend and protector of the Sultan. The important line of railway from the Bosphorus to Konieh belongs to a German company; and a few months ago the long-sought concession was granted to this company to extend the railway from Konieh to Baghdad, across Cilicia and Northern Syria, and down the valley of the Euphrates. This grant, being taken to imply the recognition of south-western Asia Minor as falling within a sort of 'German sphere of influence,' roused Russia, which pressed for and obtained a declaration that in the making of railways in northern and eastern Asia Minor her interests and wishes should be regarded. This partition, and the leaving out of Englishmen from similar concessions, are significant, and have been deemed presageful of the future, for nowadays the control of a railway means a great deal; and Germany is a power not likely to neglect any source of influence that comes to her hand.

Important, however, as such a trunk-line will be, it is a long step from ownership of a railway to political occupation. The part which Germany can play in the Levant depends upon many conditions outside the purview of this

article, and in particular depends largely upon the fate of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Should that illcompacted fabric break up, should the German-speaking provinces fall to the German Empire, enabling it to reach the Adriatic, should Croatia and Bosnia pass under German control, the whole position would be changed, and Germany would find projects of Eastern conquest easier and more tempting. Asia Minor is two thirds empty; and the population of Germany overflows. Russia may be jealous; but the Germans would avoid a quarrel, for good relations with their great Eastern neighbour are a fundamental principle of their policy. France might murmur, but she will not return to her old ambitions and occupy Syria except by an understanding with her indispensable northern ally. Should part of Asia Minor fall to Germany, England need not object, but might rather be pleased to see a counterpoise to the power of the Czars created in that region.

Were any such consummation to come about, it could not be for a long while. But the acquisition of Armenia and north-eastern Asia Minor by Russia is an event that might happen almost any day. The disorders and oppressions that go on within the Turkish border would supply a pretext, while the vast force which Russia can place in Transcaucasia would make the defence of the plateau of Erzerum and the plain of Van a hopeless task. No Power except England would feel its interests affected by such an advance; and, if England wished to oppose, she could do so only by trying to annoy Russia in some other quarter, not by aiding the Turks to protect their frontier. Whether English public opinion would approve a war undertaken in such a cause seems more than doubtful. It is, of course, likely enough that Russia, which has her hands pretty full at present, may not for many years care to extend her dominions either in Asiatic Turkey or in Persia. To hold one or both of these as a practically vassal state is easier and less costly. But when she does choose to advance, no European combination, unless the present grouping of states is materially altered, will be formed to repel her.

One question more demands a few words before we close this article. What will become of the subjectVol. 195.-No. 390.

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populations, and especially of the two Christian races which have clung to their faith and their culture through centuries of oppression and misery? They are races of great natural capacity, fully equal, in respect of natural intelligence, to any European people. They have sufficient national consciousness to desire to maintain their nationality, and they would doubtless increase rapidly in numbers under a government such as Germany or such even as Russia would give them. Russia might not try to Russify the Greeks as she has been trying, in defiance of her pledges, to Russify the Finns, for the Greeks belong to the Orthodox Church. She would doubtless try to Russify the Armenians of Asia Minor, as she has been for the last thirty years trying to drive her own Armenian subjects in Transcaucasia into the Orthodox fold and the use of the Russian tongue. But she has so far failed in Transcaucasia; and she would fail in Armenia also so long as the people cling to the patriotism which consecrates their ancient Church.

A philosopher surveying the movements of the world in our time might be disposed to regret the tendency which each of the great nations shows to extinguish or absorb smaller races and minor languages in order to establish its own type of culture, or, in the case of Russia, its own form of religion. For the sake of those who are to come after, it would be well to save some at least of these small peoples with their characteristic types. In literature and art, in science, philosophy, and religion, the record of the small peoples, and even, perhaps, of the small communities, is a richer one than that of the large nations; and in the future there may be reason to lament that types of culture are becoming too few. It is, however, possible that the phase through which we are passing may be transient, powerful as is the present impulse of the stronger to blot out the weaker. Russia in particular-which is even more proud of her Panslavism than England and Germany are of the diffusion of their Teutonic energy-may, through internal social and religious changes, undergo a transformation which will completely alter her relations to the countries which her armies now overspread and to the races which she seems so eager to absorb.

Art. XIII.-MR KIDD ON CIVILISATION.

Principles of Western Civilisation. By Benjamin Kidd. London: Macmillan, 1902.

MR KIDD is a writer who, for many reasons, deserves to be treated with respect. He has a genuine propensity for philosophic thinking, and for tracing, through a mass of diverse and seemingly disconnected facts, the unifying operation of a common cause or principle. In certain of his hypotheses there is a breadth, we might almost say a grandeur, of conception; and many of his incidental criticisms are just, penetrating, and original. We are anxious, at starting, to pay a just tribute to his merits, because part of our duty in dealing with him will be to call attention to his defects.

Both sets of qualities-his merits and defects alike— were exhibited in the volume which first introduced him to the world. Social Evolution,' the volume to which we refer, was an attempt to find a proof of the truth of religious doctrine, not in an analysis of the human mind, or in the origin or constitution of the universe, but in the functions performed by religion as an element in the life of societies. The idea that the truth of religion may be tested by its social functions was certainly, in itself, no discovery of Mr Kidd's; but he may justly claim the merit of having exhibited it under a new aspect, and boldly attempted to affiliate it to the doctrine of evolution in history.

The manner, however, in which he developed his argument was in singular contrast to the coherency of its general outline. As soon as he attempted to descend from the general to the particular, his clearness of thought and his grasp of facts deserted him. None of his ideas and definitions were clear to his own mind, and one part of his argument altogether contradicted the other. Reduced to its simplest elements, his main contention was as follows. The inter-racial struggle for existence incidentally conserves those races whose internal social organisation renders them more efficient; and those races are most efficient in the external and interracial struggle in which the acutest struggle takes place