LECTURE VIII - RECAPITULATION

Summary

We have now dwelt for a long time on that extraordinary expansion which has had the effect that, considered as a state, England has left Europe altogether behind it and become a world-state, while, considered purely as a nation, that is, as speaking a certain language, she has furnished out two world-states, which vie with each other in vigour, influence and rapidity of growth. We have inquired into the causes, traced the process, and considered some of the results of this expansion. It remains then in this closing lecture to gather up the impressions we have received into a general conclusion.

There are two schools of opinion among us with respect to our Empire, of which schools the one may be called the bombastic and the other the pessimistic. The one is lost in wonder and ecstasy at its immense dimensions, and at the energy and heroism which presumably have gone to the making of it; this school therefore advocates the maintenance of it as a point of honour or sentiment. The other is in the opposite extreme, regards it as founded in aggression and rapacity, as useless and burdensome, a kind of excrescence upon England, as depriving us of the advantages of our insularity and exposing us to wars and quarrels in every part of the globe; this school therefore advocates a policy which may lead at the earliest possible opportunity to the abandonment of it.