WORLD POLITICS AND THE PANSION OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZA TION. I. Introductory.-- The modern :oar who is able, through the aid of the receritt provided mechanism for the communication and dissemination of information, to familiar ize himself with the more important events which have taken place throughout the world in the previous 24 hours, finds it very difficult to comprehend that during the greater part of recorded history the chief successive centres of civilization have occupied an extremely limited field of activity and have had only the most im perfect and tardy knowledge of what was con temporaneously taking place within even this small area. Oriental history developed and passed chiefly within the confines of what Pro fessor Breasted has called the 'fertile cres cent' of the valleys of the Nile and the Tigris and Euphrates. Classical history added to this area of historic activity the coast of the Medi terranean Sea, with a varying depth of hinter land. Mediaval civilization, driven on primar ily by the expansive power of Christianity work ing on the basis of the ruins of the Roman im perial system, brought within the realm of chronicled human endeavor northern and west ern Europe. While one should not forget the flourishing north European civilization of pre historic or proto-histonc times, which has been revealed by Dechelette, Montelius, Peet, Munro and others, or the advanced and extremely old civilizations of India and China, it is fairly ac curate to maintain that up to the opening of the 16th century the great historic civilizations had arisen and had declined, all of them within an area not greater than that of the present United States of America. The subsequent his tory of the world in its larger aspects has been a process, based upon exploration, colonization and mechanical invention, of extending the area of historical interaction between peoples, of breaking down the earlier localism, isolation, provincialism and stability, and of utilizing the reactions of these changes upon the original Eurokean centres of world-wide expansion. See H !STORY, ITS RISE AND DEVELOPMENT ( V 01. X I , pp. 226-232, 253)' HISTORY, ANCIENT.
The Dynamic Forces Behind the Ex pansion of European Civilization.— Of all the forces producing the general process of Euro pean expansion in modern times, the oldest and most permanent, if not the most important, has been the ,missionary impulse of Christianity. This has not only been widening the field of European civilization during the period from the fall of the Roman empire to the height of the Middle Ages, but ever since that time it has maintained its energy and activity. As Pro
fessors Robinson and Beard have well expressed the matter: 'The way for imperialism has been smoothed by the missionaries. There have always been ardent Christians ready to obey the command. 'Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.' No sooner was a new country brought to the attention of Eu ropeans than missionaries flocked thither with traders and soldiers.' The Crusades (1095 [291) constitute the first notable religious move Meat which possesses great significance for the subsequent expansion of Europe While the in tellectual and economic results of the Crusades, centring in the appropriation of Arabian culture Lod the development of trading relations be tween East and Vs'est by the Italian city-states, were much more significant for posterity than the temporary triumph of the Cross over the Crescent, it is certain that without the initial religious impulse there would have been no pos sibility for the development of the subsequent significant intellectual and economic interaction between Europe and the East which followed the Crusades. In the period of European explora tion which ushered in the Commercial Revolu tion the Catholic missionaries, Franciscans, Do minicans and Jesuits, were in the vanguard of expansion. About the beginning of the 19th ctntur' the Protestant missions entered into the campaign of conversion, which has since been in a process of ever greater expansion and more perfect organization. Profoundly impressed with the semi-fanatical conviction as to the uniqueness and the superiority of Christianity over all other forms of world religions, these missionaries have often cut sharply across the theology and the 'mores' of the native or Ori ental peoples. This has frequently been fol lowed by the persecution or the extermination of the missionaries, which has in turn opened the way for the military intervention of mod ern governments, driven on by eager capitalists anxiously awaiting the opportunity for invest ment in these undeveloped areas. As Dr. Dennis, Mr. Macdonald and Prof. E. C. Moore have shown, the missionary movement has ever been closely linked up with the expansion of Euro pean civilization and the growth of modern im perialism. Sec MISSIONS, INOTLSTANT MISSIONS, ROMAN CATHOLIC.