8 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. [lect. 
called liberty, but not so correctly. We may, if we like, 
call it democracy; and I suppose the current opinion is 
that if any large tendency is discernible in the more recent 
part of English history, it is this tendency, by which 
first the middle class and then gradually the lower classes 
have been admitted to a share of influence in public 
affairs. 
Discernible enough no doubt this tendency is, at least 
in the nineteenth century, for in the eighteenth century 
only the first beginnings of it can be traced. It strikes 
our attention most, because it has made for a long time 
past the staple of political talk and controversy. But 
history ought to look at things from a greater distance and 
more comprehensively. If we stand aloof a little and 
follow with our eyes the progress of the English State, the 
great governed society of English people, in recent cen 
turies, we shall be much more struck by another change, 
which is not only far greater but even more conspicuous, 
though it has always been less discussed, partly because it 
proceeded more gradually, partly because it excited less 
opposition. I mean the simple obvious fact of the 
extension of the English name into other countries of the 
globe, the foundation of Greater Britain. 
There is something very characteristic in the indif 
ference which we show towards this mighty phenomenon 
of the diffusion of our race and the expansion of our state. 
We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half 
the world in a fit of absence of mind. While we were doing 
it, that is in the eighteenth century, we did not allow it 
to affect our imaginations or in any degree to change our 
ways of thinking ; nor have we even now ceased to think of 
ourselves as simply a race inhabiting an island off the 
northern coast of the Continent of Europe. We constantly