But the latter show no constructive powers in time of peace, and have very rarely assimilated the conquered races.

Putting the matter baldly, we may say that it is a question of the survival of the fittest between beavers and bears.

And in the Nineteenth Century the advantage has been increasingly with the former.
These facts will appear if we take a brief glance at the salient features of the European history of Turkey.

After capturing Constantinople, the capital of the old Eastern Empire, in the year 1453, the Turks for a time rapidly extended their power over the neighbouring Christian States, Bulgaria, Servia, and Hungary.

In the year 1683 they laid siege to Vienna; but after being beaten back from that city by the valiant Sobieski, King of Poland, they gradually lost ground.