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Theological Essays and Other Papers v1

T >> Thomas de Quincey >> Theological Essays and Other Papers v1




_First_. That, in spite of the assurances from economists, no
progress whatever had been made by England or by any state which
lent any sanction to the hope of ever eradicating poverty from
society.

_Secondly_. That, in absolute contradiction of the whole
hypothesis relied on by M--- and his brethren, in its most fundamental
doctrine, a legal provision for poverty did not act as a bounty on
marriage. The experience of England, where the trial had been made
on the largest scale, was decisive on this point; and the opposite
experience of Ireland, under the opposite circumstances, was equally
decisive. And this result had made itself so clear by 1820, that
even M--- (as we have already noticed by anticipation) was compelled
to publish a recantation as to this particular error, which in
effect was a recantation of his entire theory.

_Thirdly_. That, according to the concurring experience of
all the most enlightened states of Christendom, the public suffered
least (not merely in molestation but in money), pauperism benefited
most, and the growth of pauperism was retarded most, precisely as
the provision for the poor had been legalized as to its obligation,
and fixed as to its amount. Left to individual discretion, the
burden was found to press most unequally; and, on the other hand,
the evil itself of pauperism, whilst much less effectually relieved,
nevertheless through the irregular action of this relief was much
more powerfully stimulated.

Such is the abstract of our latest public warfare on this great
question through a period of nearly fifty years. And the issue is
this--starting from the contemptuous defiance of the scriptural
doctrine upon the necessity of making provision for poverty as an
indispensable element in civil communities, the economy of the age
has lowered its tone by graduated descents, in each one successively
of the four last _decennia_. The philosophy of the day as to
this point at least is at length in coincidence with Scripture. And
thus the very extensive researches of this nineteenth century, as
to pauperism, have re-acted with the effect of a full justification
upon Constantine's attempt to connect the foundation of his empire
with that new theory of Christianity upon the imperishableness of
poverty, and upon the duties corresponding to it.

Meantime, Mr. Finlay denies that Christianity had been raised by
Constantine into the religion of the state; and others have denied
that, in the extensive money privileges conceded to Constantinople,
he contemplated any but political principles. As to the first point,
we apprehend that Constantine will be found not so much to have
shrunk back from fear of installing Christianity in the seat of
supremacy, as to have diverged in policy from our modern _methods_
of such an installation. Our belief is, that according to _his_
notion of a state religion, he supposed himself to have conferred
that distinction upon Christianity. With respect to the endowments
and privileges of Constantinople, they were various; some lay
in positive donations, others in immunities and exemptions; some
again were designed to attract strangers, others to attract nobles
from old Rome. But, with fuller opportunities for pursuing that
discussion, we think it would be easy to show, that in more than
one of his institutions and his decrees he had contemplated the
special advantage of the poor as such; and that, next after the
august distinction of having founded the first Christian throne, he
had meant to challenge and fix the gaze of future ages upon this
glorious pretension--that he first had executed the scriptural
injunction to make a provision for the poor, as an order of society
that by laws immutable should 'never cease out of the land.'

II. Let us advert to the value and functions of Constantinople as
the tutelary genius of western or dawning Christianity.

The history of Constantinople, or more generally of the Eastern Roman
empire, wears a peculiar interest to the children of Christendom;
and for two separate reasons--_first_, as being the narrow
isthmus or bridge which connects the two continents of ancient
and modern history, and _that_ is a philosophic interest; but
_secondly_, which in the very highest degree is a practical
interest, as the record of our earthly salvation from Mahometanism.
On two horns was Europe assaulted by the Moslems; first, last, and
through the largest tract of time, on the horn of Constantinople;
there the contest raged for more than eight hundred years, and
by the time that the mighty bulwark fell (1453), Vienna and other
cities upon or near the Danube had found leisure for growing up;
so that, if one range of Alps had slowly been surmounted, another
had now slowly reared and embattled itself against the westward
progress of the Crescent. On the western horn, _in_ France,
but _by_ Germans, once for all Charles Martel had arrested
the progress of the fanatical Moslem almost in a single battle;
certainly a single generation saw the whole danger dispersed,
inasmuch as within that space the Saracens were effectually forced
back into their original Spanish lair. This demonstrates pretty
forcibly the difference of the Mahometan resources as applied to
the western and the eastern struggle. To throw the whole weight
of that difference, a difference in the result as between eight
centuries and thirty years, upon the mere difference of energy in
German and Byzantine forces, as though the first did, by a rapturous
fervor, in a few revolutions of summer what the other had protracted
through nearly a millennium, is a representation which defeats itself
by its own extravagance. To prove too much is more dangerous than
to prove too little. The fact is, that vast armies and mighty
nations were continually disposable for the war upon the city of
Constantine; nations had time to arise in juvenile vigor, to grow
old and superannuated, to melt away, and totally to disappear,
in that long struggle on the Hellespont and Propontis. It was a
struggle which might often intermit and slumber; armistices there
might be, truces, or unproclaimed suspensions of war out of mutual
exhaustion, but peace there could _not_ be, because any resting
from the duty of hatred towards those who reciprocally seemed to
lay the foundations of their creed in a dishonoring of God, was
impossible to aspiring human nature. Malice and mutual hatred,
we repeat, became a duty in those circumstances. Why had they
_begun_ to fight? Personal feuds there had been none between
the parties. For the early caliphs did not conquer Syria and other
vast provinces of the Roman empire, because they had a quarrel with
the Caesars who represented Christendom; but, on the contrary, they
had a quarrel with the Caesars because they had conquered Syria,
or, at the most, the conquest and the feud (if not always lying
in that exact succession as cause and effect) were joint effects
from a common cause, which cause was imperishable as death, or the
ocean, and as deep as are the fountains of animal life. Could the
ocean be altered by a sea-fight? Or the atmosphere be tainted for
ever by an earthquake? As little could any single reign or its
events affect the feud of the Moslem and the Christian; a feud which
could not cease unless God could change, or unless man (becoming
careless of spiritual things) should sink to the level of a brute.

These are considerations of great importance in weighing the value
of the Eastern Empire. If the cause and interest of Islamism, as
against Christianity, were undying--then we may be assured that the
Moorish infidels of Spain did not reiterate their trans-Pyrenean
expeditions after one generation--simply because they _could_
not. But we know that on the south-eastern horn of Europe they
_could_, upon the plain argument that for many centuries they
_did._ Over and above this, we are of opinion that the Saracens
were unequal to the sort of hardships bred by cold climates; and
there lay another repulsion for Saracens from France, &c., and not
merely the Carlovingian sword. We children of Christendom show our
innate superiority to the children of the Orient upon this scale
or tariff of acclimatizing powers. We travel as wheat travels
through all reasonable ranges of temperature; they, like rice, can
migrate only to warm latitudes. They cannot support our cold, but
we _can_ support the countervailing hardships of their heat.
This cause alone would have weatherbound the Mussulmans for ever
within the Pyrenean cloisters. Mussulmans in cold latitudes look
as blue and as absurd as sailors on horseback. Apart from which
cause, we see that the fine old Visigothic races in Spain found
them full employment up to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,
which reign first created a kingdom of Spain; in that reign the
whole fabric of their power thawed away, and was confounded with
forgotten things. Columbus, according to a local tradition, was
personally present at some of the latter campaigns in Grenada: he
saw the last of them. So that the discovery of America may be used
as a convertible date with that of extinction for the Saracen power
in western Europe. True that the overthrow of Constantinople had
forerun this event by nearly half a century. But then we insist
upon the different proportions of the struggle. Whilst in Spain
a province had fought against a province, all Asia militant had
fought against the eastern Roman empire. Amongst the many races
whom dimly we decry in those shadowy hosts, tilting for ages in the
vast plains of Angora, are seen latterly pressing on to the van,
two mighty powers, the children of Persia and the Ottoman family
of the Turks. Upon these nations, both now rapidly decaying, the
faith of Mahomet has ever leaned as upon her eldest sons; and these
powers the Byzantine Cæsars had to face in every phasis of their
energy, as it revolved from perfect barbarism, through semi-barbarism,
to that crude form of civilization which Mahometans can support. And
through all these transmigrations of their power we must remember
that they were under a martial training and discipline, never
suffered to become effeminate. One set of warriors after another
_did_, it is true, become effeminate in Persia: but upon that
advantage opening, always another set stepped in from Torkistan or
from the Imaus. The nation, the individuals melted away; the Moslem
armies were immortal.

Here, therefore, it is, and standing at this point of our review,
that we complain of Mr. Finlay's too facile compliance with historians
far beneath himself. He has a fine understanding: oftentimes his
commentaries on the past are ebullient with subtlety; and his fault
strikes us as lying even in the excess of his sagacity applying itself
too often to a basis of facts, quite insufficient for supporting
the superincumbent weight of his speculations. But in this instance
he surrenders himself too readily to the ordinary current of history.
How would _he_ like it, if he happened to be a Turk himself,
finding his nation thus implicitly undervalued? For clearly, in
undervaluing the Byzantine resistance, he _does_ undervalue
the Mahometan assault. Advantages of local situation cannot
_eternally_ make good the deficiencies of man. If the Byzantines
(being as weak as historians would represent them) yet for ages
resisted the whole impetus of Mahometan Asia, then it follows,
either that the Crescent was correspondingly weak, or that, not being
weak, she must have found the Cross pretty strong. The _facit_
of history does not here correspond with the numerical items.

Nothing has ever surprised us more, we will frankly own, than this
coincidence of authors in treating the Byzantine empire as feeble
and crazy. On the contrary, to us it is clear that some secret
and preternatural strength it must have had, lurking where the eye
of man did not in those days penetrate, or by what miracle did it
undertake our universal Christian cause, fight for us all, keep
the waters open from freezing us up, and through nine centuries
prevent the ice of Mahometanism from closing over our heads for ever?
Yet does Mr. Finlay (p. 424) describe this empire as laboring, in
A. D. 623, equally with Persia, under 'internal weakness,' and as
'equally incapable of offering any popular or national resistance
to an active or enterprising enemy.' In this Mr. Finlay does but agree
with other able writers; but he and they should have recollected,
that hardly had that very year 623 departed, even yet the knell
of its last hour was sounding upon the winds, when this effeminate
empire had occasion to show that she could clothe herself with
consuming terrors, as a belligerent both defensive and aggressive.
In the absence of her great emperor, and of the main imperial
forces, the golden capital herself, by her own resources, routed
and persecuted into wrecks a Persian army that had come down upon
her by stealth and a fraudulent circuit. Even at that same period,
she advanced into Persia more than a thousand miles from her
own metropolis in Europe, under the blazing ensigns of the cross,
kicked the crown of Persia to and fro like a tennis-ball, upset
the throne of Artaxerxes, countersigned haughtily the elevation of
a new _Basileus_ more friendly to herself, and then recrossed
the Tigris homewards, after having torn forcibly out of the heart
and palpitating entrails of Persia, whatever trophies that idolatrous
empire had formerly wrested from herself. These were not the acts
of an effeminate kingdom. In the language of Wordsworth we may
say--


'All power was giv'n her in the dreadful trance;
Infidel kings she wither'd like a flame.'


Indeed, no image that we remember can do justice to the first of
these acts, except that Spanish legend of the Cid, which assures
us that, long after the death of the mighty cavalier, when the
children of those Moors who had fled from his face whilst living,
were insulting the marble statue above his grave, suddenly the statue
raised its right arm, stretched out its marble lance, and drifted
the heathen dogs like snow. The mere sanctity of the Christian
champion's sepulchre was its own protection; and so we must suppose,
that, when the Persian hosts came by surprise upon Constantinople--her
natural protector being absent by three months' march--simply the
golden statues of the mighty Caesars, half rising on their thrones,
must have caused that sudden panic which dissipated the danger.
Hardly fifty years later, Mr. Finlay well knows that Constantinople
again stood an assault--not from a Persian hourrah, or tempestuous
surprise, but from a vast expedition, armaments by land and sea,
fitted out elaborately in the early noontide of Mahometan vigor--and
that assault, also, in the presence of the caliph and the crescent,
was gloriously discomfited. Now if, in the moment of triumph, some
voice in the innumerable crowd had cried out, 'How long shall this
great Christian breakwater, against which are shattered into surge
and foam all the mountainous billows of idolators and misbelievers,
stand up on behalf of infant Christendom?' and if from the clouds
some trumpet of prophecy had replied, 'Even yet for eight hundred
years!' could any man have persuaded himself that such a fortress
against such antogonists--such a monument against a millennium
of fury--was to be classed amongst the weak things of this earth?
This oriental Rome, it is true, equally with Persia, was liable to
sudden inroads and incursions. But the difference was this--Persia
was strongly protected in all ages by the wilderness on her main
western frontier; if this were passed, and a hand-to-hand conflict
succeeded, where light cavalry or fugitive archers could be of little
value, the essential weakness of the Persian empire then betrayed
itself. Her sovereign was assassinated, and peace was obtained from
the condescension of the invader. But the enemies of Constantinople,
Goths, Avars, Bulgarians, or even Persians, were strong only
by their weakness. Being contemptible, they were neglected; being
chased, they made no stand; and _thus_ only they escaped. They
entered like thieves by means of darkness, and escaped like sheep
by means of dispersion. But, if caught, they were annihilated.
No; we resume our thesis; we close this head by reiterating our
correction of history; we re-affirm our position--that in Eastern
Rome lay the salvation of Western and Central Europe; in Constantinople
and the Propontis lay the _sine qua non_ condition of any future
Christendom. Emperor and people _must_ have done their duty;
the result, the vast extent of generations surmounted, furnish the
triumphant argument. Finally, indeed, they fell, king and people,
shepherd and flock; but by that time their mission was fulfilled.
And doubtless, as the noble Palaeologus lay on heaps of carnage,
with his noble people, as life was ebbing away, a voice from heaven
sounded in his ears the great words of the Hebrew prophet, 'Behold!
YOUR WORK IS DONE; your warfare is accomplished.'

III. Such, then, being the unmerited disparagement of the Byzantine
government, and so great the ingratitude of later Christendom to
that sheltering power under which themselves enjoyed the leisure of
a thousand years for knitting and expanding into strong nations; on
the other hand, what is to be thought of the Saracen revolutionists?
Everywhere it has passed for a lawful postulate, that the Saracen
conquests prevailed, half by the feebleness of the Roman government
at Constantinople, and half by the preternatural energy infused
into the Arabs by their false prophet and legislator. In either of
its faces, this theory is falsified by a steady review of facts.
With regard to the Saracens, Mr. Finlay thinks as we do, and
argues that they prevailed through the _local_, or sometimes
the _casual_, weakness of their immediate enemies, and rarely
through any strength of their own. We must remember one fatal
weakness of the Imperial administration in those days, not due to
men or to principles, but entirely to nature and the slow growth
of scientific improvements--viz.: the difficulties of locomotion.
As respected Syria, Egypt, Cyrenaica, and so on to the most western
provinces of Africa, the Saracens had advantages for moving rapidly
which the Caesar had not. But is not a water movement speedier than
a land movement, which for an army never has much exceeded fourteen
miles a-day? Certainly it is; but in this case there were two desperate
defects in the imperial control over that water service. To use a
fleet, you must have a fleet; but their whole naval interest had
been starved by the intolerable costs of the Persian war. Immense
had been the expenses of Heraclius, and annually decaying had been
his Asiatic revenues. Secondly, the original position of the Arabs
had been better than that of the emperor, in every stage of the
warfare which so suddenly arose. In Arabia they stood nearest to
Syria, in Syria nearest to Egypt, in Egypt nearest to Cyrenaica.
What reason had there been for expecting a martial legislator at that
moment in Arabia, who should fuse and sternly combine her distracted
tribes? What blame, therefore, to Heraclius, that Syria--the first
object of assault, being also by much the weakest part of the
empire, and immediately after the close of a desolating war--should
in four campaigns be found indefensible? We must remember the
unexampled abruptness of the Arabian revolution. The year sixteen
hundred and twenty-two, by its very name of Hegira, does not record a
triumph but a humiliation. In that year, therefore, and at the very
moment when Heraclius was entering upon his long Persian struggle,
Mahomet was yet prostrate, and his destiny was doubtful. Eleven
years after, viz. in six hundred and thirty-three, the prophet was
dead and gone; but his first successor was already in Syria as a
conqueror. Such had been the velocity of events. The Persian war
had then been finished by three years, but the exhaustion of the
empire had perhaps, at that moment, reached its maximum. We are
satisfied, that ten years' repose from this extreme state of collapse
would have shown us another result. Even as it was, and caught at
this enormous disadvantage, Heraclius taught the robbers to tremble,
and would have exterminated them, if not baffled by two irremediable
calamities, neither of them due to any act or neglect of his own.
The first lay in the treason of his lieutenants. The governors of
Damascus, of Aleppo, of Emesa, of Bostra, of Kinnisrin, all proved
traitors. The root of this evil lay, probably, in the disorders
following the Persian invasion, which had made it the perilous
interest of the emperor to appoint great officers from amongst
those who had a local influence. Such persons it might have been
ruinous too suddenly to set aside, as, in the event, it proved
ruinous to employ them. A dilemma of this kind, offering but
a choice of evils, belonged to the nature of any Persian war; and
that particular war was bequeathed to Heraclius by the management
of his predecesors. But the second calamity was even more fatal; it
lay in the composition of the Syrian population, and its original
want of vital cohesion. For no purpose could this population be
united: they formed a rope of sand. There was the distraction of
religion (Jacobites, Nestorians, &c.); there was the distraction
of races--slaves and masters, conquered and conquerors, modern
intruders mixed, but not blended with, aboriginal mountaineers.
Property became the one principle of choice between the two governments.
Where was protection to be had for _that_? Barbarous as were
the Arabs, they saw their present advantage. Often it would happen
from the position of the armies, that they could, whilst the emperor
could not, guarantee the instant security of land or of personal
treasures; the Arabs could also promise, sometimes, a total immunity
from taxes, very often a diminished scale of taxation, always a
remission of arrears; none of which demands could be listened to
by the emperor, partly on account of the public necessities, partly
from jealousy of establishing operative precedents. For religion,
again, protection was more easily obtained in that day from the
Arab, who made war on Christianity, than from the Byzantine emperor,
who was its champion. What were the different sects and subdivisions
of Christianity to the barbarian? Monophysite, Monothelite, Eutychian,
or Jacobite, all were to him as the scholastic disputes of noble
and intellectual Europe to the camps of gypsies. The Arab felt
himself to be the depository of one sublime truth, the unity of
God. His mission, therefore, was principally against idolaters. Yet
even to _them_ his policy was to sell toleration for tribute.
Clearly, as Mr. Finlay hints, this was merely a provisional moderation,
meant to be laid aside when sufficient power was obtained; and it
_was_ laid aside, in after ages, by many a wretch like Timor
or Nadir Shah. Religion, therefore, and property once secured, what
more had the Syrians to seek? And if to these advantages for the
Saracens we add the fact, that a considerable Arab population was
dispersed through Syria, who became so many emissaries, spies, and
decoys for their countrymen, it does great honor to the emperor,
that through so many campaigns he should at all have maintained
his ground, which at last he resigned only under the despondency
caused by almost universal treachery.

The Saracens, therefore, had no great merit even in their earliest
exploits; and the _impetus_ of their movement forwards, that
principle of proselytism which carried them so strongly 'ahead'
through a few generations, was very soon brought to a stop.
Mr. Finlay, in our mind, does right to class these barbarians as
'socially and politically little better than the Gothic, Hunnish,
and Avar monarchies.' But, on consideration, the Gothic monarchy
embosomed the germs of a noble civilization; whereas the Saracens
have never propagated great principles of any kind, nor attained
even a momentary grandeur in their institutions, except where
coalescing with a higher or more ancient civilization.

Meantime, ascending from the earliest Mahometans to their prophet,
what are we to think of _him_? Was Mahomet a great man? We
think not. The case was thus: the Arabian tribes had long stood
ready, like dogs held in a leash, for a start after distant game.
It was not Mahomet who gave them that impulse. But next, what
was it that had hindered the Arab tribes from obeying the impulse?
Simply this, that they were always in feud with each other; so
that their expeditions, beginning in. harmony, were sure to break
up in anger on the road. What they needed was, some one grand
compressing and unifying principle, such as the Roman found in the
destinies of his city. True; but this, you say, they found in the
sublime principle that God was one, and had appointed them to be
the scourges of all who denied it. Their mission was to cleanse
the earth from Polytheism; and, as ambassadors from God, to tell
the nations--'Ye shall have no other Gods but me.' That was grand;
and _that_ surely they had _from_ Mahomet? Perhaps so; but where
did he get it? He stole it from the Jewish Scriptures, and from the
Scriptures no less than from the traditions of the Christians.
Assuredly, then, the first projecting impetus was not impressed
upon Islamism by Mahomet. This lay in a revealed truth; and by
Mahomet it was furtively translated to his own use from those
oracles which held it in keeping. But possibly, if not the
_principle_ of motion, yet at least the steady conservation
of this motion was secured to Islamism by Mahomet. Granting (you
will say) that the launch of this religion might be due to an alien
inspiration, yet still the steady movement onwards of this religion
through some centuries, might be due exclusively to the code of laws
bequeathed by Mahomet in the Koran. And this has been the opinion
of many European scholars. They fancy that Mahomet, however worldly
and sensual as the founder of a pretended revelation, was wise in
the wisdom of this world; and that, if ridiculous as a prophet,
he was worthy of veneration as a statesman. He legislated well and
presciently, they imagine, for the interests of a remote posterity.
Now, upon that question let us hear Mr. Finlay. He, when commenting
upon the steady resistance offered to the Saracens by the African
Christians of the seventh and eighth centuries--a resistance which
terminated disastrously for both sides--the poor Christians being
exterminated, and the Moslem invaders being robbed of an indigenous
working population, naturally inquires what it was that led to so
tragical a result. The Christian natives of these provinces were,
in a political condition, little favorable to belligerent efforts;
and there cannot be much doubt, that, with any wisdom or any
forbearance on the part of the intruders, both parties might soon
have settled down into a pacific compromise of their feuds. Instead of
this, the cimeter was invoked and worshipped as the sole possible
arbitrator; and truce there was none until the silence of
desolation brooded over those once fertile fields. How savage was
the fanaticism, and how blind the worldly wisdom, which could have
co-operated to such a result! The cause must have lain in the
unaccommodating nature of the Mahometan institutions, in the bigotry
of the Mahometan leaders, and in the defect of expansive views on
the part of their legislator. He had not provided even for other
elimates than that of his own sweltering sty in the Hedjas, or
for manners more polished, or for institutions more philosophic,
than those of his own sunbaked Ishmaelites. 'The construction of
the political government of the Saracen empire'--says Mr. Finlay
(p. 462-3)--'was imperfect, and shows that Mahomet had neither
contemplated extensive foreign conquests, nor devoted the energies
of his powerful mind to the consideration of the questions
of administration which would arise out of the difficult task of
ruling a numerous and wealthy population, possessed of property,
but deprived of equal rights.' He then shows how the whole power of
the state settled into the hands of a chief priest--systematically
irresponsible. When, therefore, that momentary state of
responsibility had passed away, which was created (like the state
of martial law) 'by national feelings, military companionship, and
exalted enthusiasm,' the administration of the caliphs became 'far
more oppressive than that of the Roman empire.' It is in fact an
insult to the majestic Romans, if we should place them seriously
in the balance with savages like the Saracens. The Romans were
essentially the leaders of civilization, according to the possibilities
then existing; for their earliest usages and social forms involved
a high civilization, whilst promising a higher: whereas all Moslem
nations have described a petty arch of national civility--soon
reaching its apex, and rapidly barbarizing backwards. This fatal
gravitation towards decay and decomposition in Mahometan institutions,
which, at this day, exhibits to the gaze of mankind one uniform
spectacle of Mahometan ruins, all the great Moslem nations being
already in a _Strulbrug_ state, and held erect only by the colossal
support of Christian powers, could not, as a _reversionary_
evil, have been healed by the Arabian prophet. His own religious
principles would have prevented _that_, for they offer a permanent
bounty on sensuality; so that every man who serves a Mahometan
state faithfully and brilliantly at twenty-five, is incapacitated
at thirty-five for any further service, by the very nature of the
rewards which he receives from the state. Within a very few years,
every public servant is usually emasculated by that unlimited
voluptuousness which equally the Moslem princes and the common
Prophet of all Moslems countenance as the proper object of
human pursuit. Here is the mortal ulcer of Islamism, which can
never cleanse itself from death and the odor of death. A political
ulcer would or might have found restoration for itself; but this
ulcer is higher and deeper:--it lies in the religion, which is
incapable of reform: it is an ulcer reaching as high as the paradise
which Islamism promises, and deep as the hell which it creates.
We repeat, that Mahomet could not effectually have neutralized
a poison which he himself had introduced into the circulation and
life-blood of his Moslem economy. The false prophet was forced to
reap as he had sown. But an evil which is certain, may be retarded;
and ravages which tend finally to confusion, may be limited for
many generations. Now, in the case of the African provincials which
we have noticed, we see an original incapacity of Islamism, even
in its palmy condition, for amalgamating with any _superior_
culture. And the specific action of Mahometan ism in the African
case, as contrasted with the Roman economy which it supplanted,
is thus exhibited by Mr. Finlay in a most instructive passage,
where every negation on the Mahometan side is made to suggest
the countervailing usage positively on the side of the Romans. O
children of Romulus! how noble do you appear when thus fiercely
contrasted with the wild boars who desolated your vineyards! 'No
local magistrates elected by the people, and no parish priests
connected by their feelings and interests both with their superiors
and inferiors, bound society together by common ties; and no system
of legal administration, independent of the military and financial
authorities, preserved the property of the people from the rapacity
of the government.'

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