Bagehot, in considering more particularly the progress of political institutions, put the problem in much the same way. He pointed out that the first age of the life of nations is always an age dominated by custom resting on unquestioned religious sanctions; an age in which there is often a vast amount of discussion of detail, as, for example, discussion of the details of military expeditions, but never discussion of principles; and he maintained that an age marked by the discussion of principles, involving the questioning of traditions, moral and intellectual, initiates and characterises every period of progress. There is much to be said for the view that the most important condition of progress in its earlier stages was in most cases, perhaps in all, the conquest of a more primitive people by one more advanced in culture or of superior racial type, who remained to settle in the conquered territory, and, not driving out or exterminating the conquered inhabitants, established themselves as a governing class. History and archaeology show that this occurred at least once in most of the areas where nations have developed spontaneously to any considerable degree; the earliest known instances being those of Egypt and Chaldea as long as ten thousand years ago. The same thing occurred again in India, and later still in Greece; and throughout early European history the process was frequently repeated in various areas. Every one of the modern peoples of Europe has been formed through such fusion by conquest of two peoples, in some instances several times repeated; and, though none of these modern European peoples originated their own civilisations, but largely took over by imitation the civilisation ready made for them by the more precocious peoples of Asia and by Greece and Rome, these fusions and the resultant composite character of the European peoples no doubt have tended greatly to promote progress. And it is easy to see how in several ways such a fusion by conquest of two peoples must have tended to set free the spirit of inquiry, that prime condition of progress. Three of these seem to have been of chief importance.