What could civilization hope to do with such a swarm of sensuous, bloodthirsty vipers? Assimilation was horrible to contemplate. They will drag us to their level, quoth the culture of the times. Deportation was out of the question; and there was no need to talk of their emigrating. The fact is, the barbarians were in no hurry about moving. They didn’t even care to colonize. They had come to stay. And Europe had to grapple with her race problem till time and God should solve it.
And how was it solved, and what kind of civilization resulted?
Once more let us go to Guizot. “Take ever so rapid a glance,” says he, “at modern Europe and it strikes you at once as diversified, confused, and stormy. All the principles of social organization are found existing together within it; powers temporal, and powers spiritual, the theocratic, monarchic, aristocratic, and democratic elements, all classes of society _in a state of continual struggle_ without any one having sufficient force to master the others and take sole possession of society.” Then as to the result of this conflict of forces: “Incomparably more rich and diversified than the ancient, European civilization has within it the promise of _perpetual progress_. It has now endured more than fifteen centuries and in all that time has been in a state of progression, not so rapidly as the Greek nor yet so ephemeral. While in other civilizations the exclusive domination of a principle (_or race_) led to tyranny, in Europe the diversity of social elements (_growing out of the contact of different races_) the incapability of any one to exclude the rest, gave birth to the LIBERTY which now prevails. This inability of the various principles to exterminate one another compelled each to endure the others and made it necessary for them in order to live in common to enter into a sort of mutual understanding. Each consented to have only that part of civilization which equitably fell to its share. Thus, while everywhere else the predominance of one principle produced tyranny, the variety and warfare of the elements of European civilization gave birth to _reciprocity and liberty_.”
There is no need to quote further. This is enough to show that the law holds good in sociology as in the world of matter, _that equilibrium, not repression among conflicting forces is the condition of natural harmony, of permanent progress, and of universal freedom_. That exclusiveness and selfishness in a family, in a community, or in a nation is suicidal to progress. Caste and prejudice mean immobility. One race predominance means death. The community that closes its gates against foreign talent can never hope to advance beyond a certain point. Resolve to keep out foreigners and you keep out progress. Home talent develops its one idea and then dies. Like the century plant it produces its one flower, brilliant and beautiful it may be, but it lasts only for a night. Its forces have exhausted themselves in that one effort. Nothing remains but to wither and to rot.