DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32079#0018
situde. No habitable hill-country diversifies the
surface of the land, introducing variety of occupa-
tions and habits of independence, and offering means
of resistance to a central power.
The Greeks, on the contrary, divided from each
other by mountain-ranges, became small autono-
mous communities, not only independent but repel-
lent of each other, each developing with splendid
energy its own characteristic political life, its own
social and legal system. In each of those communi-
ties patriotism was narrow, but it was made strong
by the continuous pressure of danger from with-
out and the constant ambition of expansion from
within.
These elements of rivalry, strengthening the in-
telligence and the manly virtues, were wanting in
the early Egyptians, just as they are wanting in the
Egyptians of to-day. An inherent disinclination to
military life has always been theirs, and though they
have had periods of military activity thrust upon
them, yetby nature they are not soldiers.
Not only in war, but in every department of life
and thought, the Egyptians were wanting in the
force of initiative, in the variety of life and thought
and in the capacity for growth so resplendent in the
Greeks. Nature ran them in a mould: neither pros-
perity nor adversity could change it; neither foreign
conqueror nor impulse from withincould break it.
To-day the traveler in Greece is continually struck
by the ruins of ancient fortresses, many of them dat-
ing from prehistoric times, which crown mountain
and hill, governing important valleys or passes, thus
making evident to the eye the character of conflict
and aggression which marks the history of that
country. In Egypt a fortified position is a rarity
and a surprise.
In the history of Gauls, Greeks, Assyrians, Chi-
nese, of all peoples which have established them-
selves as powerful nations and have been motors of
civilization in the world, we have evidence of con-
quest and migration in the earliest times; of a sub-
2
surface of the land, introducing variety of occupa-
tions and habits of independence, and offering means
of resistance to a central power.
The Greeks, on the contrary, divided from each
other by mountain-ranges, became small autono-
mous communities, not only independent but repel-
lent of each other, each developing with splendid
energy its own characteristic political life, its own
social and legal system. In each of those communi-
ties patriotism was narrow, but it was made strong
by the continuous pressure of danger from with-
out and the constant ambition of expansion from
within.
These elements of rivalry, strengthening the in-
telligence and the manly virtues, were wanting in
the early Egyptians, just as they are wanting in the
Egyptians of to-day. An inherent disinclination to
military life has always been theirs, and though they
have had periods of military activity thrust upon
them, yetby nature they are not soldiers.
Not only in war, but in every department of life
and thought, the Egyptians were wanting in the
force of initiative, in the variety of life and thought
and in the capacity for growth so resplendent in the
Greeks. Nature ran them in a mould: neither pros-
perity nor adversity could change it; neither foreign
conqueror nor impulse from withincould break it.
To-day the traveler in Greece is continually struck
by the ruins of ancient fortresses, many of them dat-
ing from prehistoric times, which crown mountain
and hill, governing important valleys or passes, thus
making evident to the eye the character of conflict
and aggression which marks the history of that
country. In Egypt a fortified position is a rarity
and a surprise.
In the history of Gauls, Greeks, Assyrians, Chi-
nese, of all peoples which have established them-
selves as powerful nations and have been motors of
civilization in the world, we have evidence of con-
quest and migration in the earliest times; of a sub-
2