Life as experienced by primitive and by fellaheen peoples is just the zoölogical up-and-down, a planless happening without goal or cadenced march in time, wherein occurrences are many, but, in the last analysis, devoid of significance. The only historical peoples, the peoples whose existence _is world-history_, are the nations. Let us be perfectly clear as to what is meant by this. The Ostrogoths suffered a great destiny, and therefore, inwardly, they have no history. Their battles and settlements were not necessary and therefore were episodic; their end was insignificant. In 1500 B.C. that which lived about Mycenæ and Tiryns was not _as yet_ a nation, and that which lived in Minoan Crete was _no longer_ a nation. Tiberius was the last ruler who tried to lead a Roman nation further on the road of history, who sought to _retrieve_ it for history. By Marcus Aurelius there was only a Romanic population to be defended--a field for occurrences, but no longer for history. How many free pre-generations of Mede or Achæan or Hun folk there were, in what sort of social groups their predecessors and their descendants lived, cannot be determined and depends upon no rule. But of a nation the life-period _is_ determinate, and so are the pace and the rhythm in which its history moves to fulfilment. From the beginning of the Chóu period to the rulership of Shih-Hwang-ti, from the events on which the Troy legend was founded to Augustus, and from Thinite times to the XVIII Dynasty, the numbers of generations are more or less the same. The “Late” period of the Culture, from Solon to Alexander, from Luther to Napoleon, embraces no more than about ten generations. Within such limits the destiny of the genuine Culture-people, and with it that of world-history in general, reach fulfilment. The Romans, the Arabs, the Prussians, are late-born nations. How many generations of Fabii and Junii had already come and gone _as Romans_ by the time Cannæ was fought?