But to understand them, one must do much
more than merely catalogue the facts of political history; one must
acquire a knowledge of the drifts and tendencies of human thought and
feeling and action from the earliest ages to the times in which we
live. In covering so wide a field we cannot of course expect to obtain
anything like complete results. In order to make a statement simple
enough to be generally intelligible, it is necessary to pass over many
circumstances and many considerations that might in one way and another
qualify what we have to say. Nevertheless it is quite possible for us to
discern, in their bold general outlines, some historic truths of supreme
importance. In contemplating the salient features of the change which
has now for a long time been making the world more English and less
Roman, we shall find not only intellectual pleasure and profit but
practical guidance. For in order to understand this slow but mighty
change, we must look a little into that process of nation-making which
has been going on since prehistoric ages and is going on here among us
to-day, and from the recorded experience of men in times long past
we may gather lessons of infinite value for ourselves and for our
children's children. As in all the achievements of mankind it is only
after much weary experiment and many a heart-sickening failure that
success is attained, so has it been especially with nation-making.
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