The imperial policy of Charles V. and Philip II., the conquest of a continent by the Spaniards, Portuguese, and French, the glorious festival of the Renaissance, the triumph of Lepanto, the splendid empire of Venice, the political activity of Richelieu, {396} the great century of French classicism, the Revolution which proclaimed the Rights of Man, and the Napoleonic epic, the liberation of Spanish America: this is the hymn of glory of the Latin race. To-day Belgium, Italy, and the Argentine give signs of a renaissance of that race, which men have supposed to be exhausted. Heirs of the Latin spirit in the moral, religious, and political domain, the Ibero-American peoples are seeking to conserve their glorious heritage. The idea of race, in the sense of traditions and culture, is predominant in modern politics. Flourishing on every hand, we see Pan-Slavism, Pan-Islamism, Pan-Asianism, Pan-Germanism, Pan-Latinism--barbarous words which give an indication as to the struggles of the future. The Slavs of Dalmatia, Germany, Servia, and Bosnia would reconstitute, with the fragments of many divided nations, a State which would also be a race. Islam unites divers peoples by the ardour of a new fanaticism, under the inspiration of popular Khalifs or marabouts, from Soudan to Fez, from Bombay to Stamboul. Vast unions of scattered peoples are thus springing into formation, in the name of a religion or a common origin. Slavs, Saxons, Latins, and Mongols are contending for the possession of the world. It is thus that the drama of history becomes simplified; above the quarrels of precarious nations are rising the profound antagonisms of millennial races. Onésime Reclus, in an excellent volume, the _Partage du monde_, has gone into the respective positions of each of these powerful groups. The conclusions of his analysis are full of hope; in spite of the Saxons and Slavs the Latins still hold vast territories, which they must people. Their geographical position, despite Anglo-Saxon imperialism and the immense surface of all the Russias of Europe and Asia, is certainly not inferior. {397}