This is a vain saying; and it is no less vain to go on to ask, as Professor Whitney does, what has become of Egypt, of the Phoenicians and Hebrews, of the Persians, of Greece and Rome, and of Spain. The answer is easy. Egypt was conquered, and the old race still reproduces itself, in vassalage. The "Pelasgic" civilisation of ancient Greece was absorbed by the Greek invaders. The "Mycenæan" and "Minoan" civilisations, as seen in ancient Troy and "Minoan" Crete, were conquered and partly absorbed. The Phoenicians and Hebrews were destroyed or absorbed. The Persians are at present retrograde, but may rise again.[143] Rome and Greece were successively overrun by barbarism. Spain, like Italy, retrograded, but, like Italy, is on the path of regeneration. In all these cases the process of causation is obvious. No nation dies or disappears save by violence; and, given the proper conditions, all races are capable of progress indefinitely. China, though unprogressive in comparison with a European State, has changed in many respects within two thousand years--nay, within twenty.[144] Professor Whitney adopts an empirical convention, and accordingly misses any real elucidation of the problem of Chinese sociology, which he assumes to solve (p. 87) by saying we must look for our explanations "deep in the foundations of the national character itself." That is to say, the national character is determined by the national character.