European influence

“ But which, under the influence of European genius, have reached a degree of excellence, that has wrought an important change in the constitution of society.
Far from looking back, and forming itself slavishly on the past, it is characteristic of the European intellect to be ever on the advance. Old discoveries become the basis of new ones. ”

“ There are of course many grades between these different types of influence, but the net outcome of what has occurred during the last four centuries is that civilization of the European type now exercises a more or less profound effect over practically the entire world. ”

“ In contrast with these giant empires, the nation-states of Europe felt themselves out of scale, just as the Italian cities in the sixteenth century must have felt themselves out of scale in comparison with the new nation-states of Spain and France. To achieve the standard of the world-state, to make their own nations the controlling factors in wide dominions which should include territories and populations of varied types, became the ambition of the most powerful European states. A new political ideal had captivated the mind of Europe. ”

“ And the European, proud in his might, in his strength, in his civilization and his humanity, rules arrogantly, blindly, selfishly, egoistically, amidst all the intricate cog-wheels of [151] his authority, which he slips into gear with the certainty of clockwork, controlling its every movement, till to the foreigner, the outside observer, this overlordship of tangible things, this colonizing of territory alien in race and mind, appears a masterpiece, a very world created. ”

“ The forces of regionalism, nationalism, and separatism still dominate European life. But the ideology and techniques of Europeanization are widely recognized, accepted and put into practice. The development of worldism seems to be following a parallel course. ”

“ If, then, European triumphs in culture have been greater, so, too, may her failures have been greater. How great a failure and a failure in what does the World War betoken? Was it national jealousy of the sort of the seventeenth century? But Europe has done more to break down national barriers than any preceding culture. ”

“ To be thus vivid and convincing about any phase of life is not easy; to make intimate to the European a life in the world’s remotest outskirts, of whose terms the European has no conception, in which he has no natural interest, whose actors are of a different race, color, and psychology from his own, is a feat bristling [94] with difficulties. ”

“ What the Europeans shared with each other, which in their own eyes distinguished them from everyone else and made them capable of ‘discovering’ and ‘civilising’ the rest of the world, was a distinctive kind of consciousness or conscience. ”

“ One of the most amazing spectacles in history is the expansion of Europe since the sixteenth century. Not resting content with discovering the rest of the world, the European nations with sublime confidence pressed on to divide the new continents among them, to conquer, Christianize, and civilize the natives, and to send out millions of new emigrants to establish beyond the seas a New England, a New France, a New Spain, and a New Netherland. ”

“ It was the Commercial Revolution that started Europe on her career of world conquest. The petty, quarrelsome feudal states of the smallest of five continents have become the Powers of to-day, dividing up Africa, Asia, and America, founding empires greater and more lasting than that of Alexander. The colonists of Europe imparted their language to South America and made of North America a second Europe with a common cultural heritage. The explorers, missionaries, and merchants of Europe have penetrated all lands, bringing in their train European manners, dress, and institutions. ”

“ Europe sends her millions hither, and they in turn send back by every ship to those they left behind, the wonderful record of what they see here; and these inspiring testimonies are read at the firesides of ten thousand hamlets by kindred men whose awakening intelligence and energies are stirring the foundations of European society and shaking all thrones to inevitable ruin, unless they speedily plant themselves on more solid ground than the divine right of kings. ”

“ If in 1878, when the European nations suddenly awoke to the importance of the non-European world, they had been able to agree upon some simple principle which would have secured equal treatment to all, how different would have been the fate of Europe and the world! ”

“ In coming to understand a mood which so fully reflects an unknown world, the European mind will discover principles which will make it rise superior to itself. May this broad comprehension of human thought lead Europe to estimate with greater justice a civilization numbering its years by thousands, and to refrain from thwarting the fulfillment of its destiny. ”

“ Sundry sturdy European ideas, transplanted into this western soil, have triumphed over all competitors and thriven so mightily as to react upon all parts of the Old World, some more, some less, and thus to modify the whole course of civilization. ”

“ This immense continent being peopled with elements of European civilization, could not remain a mere appendix to Europe. But when it is connected with Europe by a thousand social, moral, and material ties, by blood, religion, language, science, civilization, and commerce, to believe that it can rest isolated in politics from Europe, would be just such a fault as it was that England did not believe in time the necessity of America's independence. ”

“ If we were to endeavour, by a similar test, to ascertain which European nation has contributed the most to the progress of European civilization, we should find Italy, Germany, England, and Spain, each claiming the first degree, but each also naming France as clearly next in merit. ”

“ But, aside from the fact that in Europe this political and social evolution had taken centuries, there was also the working of the law of the survival of the fittest. In European nations it had been the element, always composite, which deserved to live, that formed the nucleus of a nationality. ”

“ Distinctions of class, profession, or nationality, entering so largely into European life, separating man from man, lose their hold upon Europeans meeting in the distant East. The great [Pg 288] West, seen at that distance, becomes their common country; they are drawn together by the bond of common views, feelings and modes of thought which obliterate the artificial lines of nationality—nay, they feel for, and treat each other as only blood relations and brothers would in Europe. ”

“ We must bear in mind the one decisive contrast between Europe and America, that there society is cut adrift from the traditions and influence of an ancient civilisation. The nations of Western Europe are so bound to each other by their origin, by their close intercourse, and the similarity of social interests and character, that a comprehensive public opinion extends over their boundaries, and sustains in each the habits, ideas, and constitutions which are common to all. ”

“ There is no section of the history of European imperialism more interesting than the story of the growth and organisation of the heterogeneous and disparate empire with which Britain entered upon the new age. ”

“ But the chief impression was of that unity of existence, so opposite to the European, and, for a change, so pleasant, from its repose and gilded lightness. Their imperial majesties do really seem so "perfectly serene," that we fancy we might become so under their sway, if not "thoroughly virtuous," as they profess to be. ”

“ What has made the European family of nations an improving, instead of a stationary portion of mankind? Not any superior excellence in them, which, when it exists, exists as the effect, not as the cause; but their remarkable diversity of character and culture. Individuals, classes, nations, have been extremely unlike one another: they have struck out a great variety of paths, each leading to something valuable ”

“ The cause of the European war is economic; and, by the same token, Europe kept the peace for forty years for economic reasons. She was busy skimming the cream of the resources of other countries. Hers was the capital, the skill, the energy, the morale, the culture, for exploiting the others. All modern invention originated with her or with the offspring of her races beyond seas. ”

“ The European, with his larger leisure, and generations of leisure in his brain, his interest in everything, and knowledge of many things,—above all of the world,—has reduced gallantry to a fine art. He may give his fancy, his sentiment, his passion, even his leisure, to one woman at a time, but his heart—well, unless he is very young—that remains quite intact. ”

“ Nor yet is it Europe only that feels the tread of their feet and the might of their presence and their influence. They have gone out in commerce, in trades, in corporations, and in missions;—streaming along the banks of both sides of the North American continent, and leaving, as their footprints, on those mighty shores, cities, and states, and commonwealths, and empires; filling the archipelagoes of both the eastern and western hemispheres with their offspring, their laws, their letters, and religion ”

“ On the other hand, the benefits of the movement to European civilization were varied and positive. The classical revival gave to Europe, not only faultless literary models, but large stores of valuable knowledge. ”

“ They were to produce an intense and active civilization of their own; a civilization which was undoubtedly the highest and the best our race has known, conformable to the instincts of the European, fulfilling his nature, giving him that happiness which is the end of men.
As we also know, Europe on this great experiment of the Middle Ages, after four hundred years of high vitality, was rising to still greater heights when it suffered shipwreck. ”

“ The Europeans now imagine themselves as representing, in the main, the highest types of men on earth.
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A characteristic of Europeans: inconsistency between word and deed; the Oriental is true to himself in daily life. How the European has established colonies is explained by his nature, which resembles that of a beast of prey. ”

“ At home and abroad they have exploited nature, men and other animals in their interest and for their profit. The trading cities of medieval Europe, the emerging nations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the colonizing empires of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the industrial European empires of the nineteenth century devoted their energies increasingly to expanding into new territory, occupying and exploiting it, and fighting the wars which pock-marked the ceaseless struggle for pelf and power. ”

“ We see Europe's greatest sin precisely where we found Africa's and Asia's,—in human hatred, the despising of men; with this difference, however: Europe has the awful lesson of the past before her, has the splendid results of widened areas of tolerance, sympathy, and love among men, and she faces a greater, an infinitely greater, world of men than any preceding civilization ever faced. ”

“ They built, planted, cultivated Europe; all the while saving the treasures of learning, knowledge, human justice, politics, and art. We shall ever recognize in Europe the places where those radiant centres once were. ”

“ I’ve got Europe off my back. You’ve no idea how it simplifies things and how jolly it makes me feel. Now I can live, now I can talk. If we wretched Americans could only say once for all “Oh Europe be hanged!” we should attend much better to our proper business. We’ve simply to mind that business and the rest will look after itself. ”

“ The troubles of the European Continent are an old, intricate story, and I believe the attitude ascribed here to the American Centre and West, the attitude of "let Europe solve her own international problems and not bother us with them," is a thoroughly sound and wise one. ”

“ The environment of a modern European will add to the physical surroundings an enormously enlarged mass of social traditions and customs, an extensive literature, contact with numerous other societies in various stages of culture, and relations, more or less obscure, to a vast literary and social past. The environment thus includes not merely the living, but also the dead. Roman law, Greek philosophy, Eastern religious ideas, etc., all affect the twentieth century European. ”

“ European by descent and education, many of them allied to the oldest and proudest families of the Old World, every idea of culture, of art, and magnificence had come to them as part of their European inheritance, and we see its result in every thing that they did or proposed to do for the new Capital which they so zealously began to build in the woods. ”

“ For a long time there had existed in the centre of Europe a celebrated nation, mistress of an extensive and fruitful country, brilliant with the double glory of war and arts, protecting for ages, with an unwearied arm, the barriers of Europe against the barbarians who raged around its frontiers. ”

“ The second period of European imperialism was filled with the rivalries of the three nations which had in different degrees contributed to the breakdown of the Spanish monopoly, the Dutch, the French, and the English; and we have next to inquire how far, and why, these peoples were more successful than the Spaniards in planting in the non-European world the essentials of European civilisation. ”

“ Europe, which merits the highest rank for philanthropy, has hitherto strangely neglected this country; nor have the attempts of individuals and benevolent Societies been productive in endeavouring to diffuse the influence of civilization, and to desseminate the seeds of science throughout these extensive regions. ”