If it is not a geographic unit, it tries to become one by
reaching out to a mountain chain or to the sea--to something which will
serve as a real dividing line between it and its next neighbors.
"The accuracy of this definition can hardly be denied, and we all know
what the violations of this principle have been in Europe. It is
unnecessary for me to point them out.
"Races rarely have been successfully mixed by conquest. The military
winner of a war is not always the real conqueror in the long run. The
Normans conquered Saxon England, but Saxon law and Saxon institutions
worked up through the new power and have dominated England's later
history. The Teutonic tribes conquered Rome, but Roman civilization, by
a sort of capillary attraction, went up into the mass above and
presently dominated the Teutons.
"The persistency of a civilization may well be superior in tenacity to
mere military conquest and control.
"The smallness of the number of instances in which conquering nations
have been able successfully to deal with alien peoples is extraordinary.
The Romans were unusually successful, and England has been successful
with all but the Irish, but perhaps no other peoples have been
successful in high degree in an effort to hold alien populations as
vassals and to make them really happy and comfortable as such.
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