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