REFORM IMPOSSIBLE.

83

equally out of the question; and, even setting purely theological feelings aside, it is a solution which no one in Western Europe could wish for. The only means of putting an end to the state of things which necessarily follows on Mahometan rule is to put an end to the Mahometan rule itself. Schemes of reform lie as much out of the range of practical politics as any general conversion either way. A Mahometan government cannot really reform; it cannot get rid of the inherent evils of Mahometan society; nor can it get rid of the unjust relations in which in every Mahometan country Mahometans must stand towards men of other religions. Christianity has got rid of the two great evils of polygamy and slavery. Mahometanism cannot get rid of them, because they are allowed and consecrated by the Mahometan law. So too a Mahometan government cannot really reform the relations between its Mahometan and non-Mahometan subjects. It cannot give its non-Mahometan subjects the benefits which they have a right to demand. It cannot put them on a level with its Mahometan subjects: it cannot put them on a level with the inhabitants of countries where the government is not Mahometan. For it is the first principle of the Mahometan religion not to do any of these things. One Mahometan government may be, as we have seen, very much better than another; but none can be really good. The utmost that any Mahometan government can do is to protect its non-Mahometan subjects from actual persecution, from actual personal oppression. It cannot do more than this. Do what it will, it cannot, as long as it remains Mahometan, make its non-Mahometan subjects other than a subject class in their own land. It therefore cannot reform, in the sense in which reform

is understood in Western Europe. It cannot give the people of Eastern Europe what they seek for and what they have a right to demand, namely a condition equal to that of the people of Western Europe. Any scheme which expects that which is impossible lies without the range of practical politics. The expectation of reforms from the Turk, as expecting what is beyond all things impossible, lies preeminently without that range. The only solution which comes within that range is the transfer of the power of the Turk to other hands.

We have thus seen who the Turk is, and what he is. We have seen in what he differs from the nations of Europe, and why he can never really enter into the fellowship of the nations of Europe. We have seen that the Turks are a people alien to the blood, language, civilization, and religion of Western Europe. They have made conquests; but they have never legitimated their conquests in the way that other conquerors have. They have never either assimilated the conquered nor yet been themselves assimilated by them. They have always remained a distinct race, holding the people of the land in bondage. The people under their rule have no national government; what calls itself a government is simply a dominion of strangers ruling by force. Their Sultan gives no protection to his Christian subjects; therefore his Christian subjects owe him no allegiance. And this state of things is one which cannot be mended, because it is a state of things which the religion of the Turks enforces as a religious duty. They are Mahometans, and a Mahometan government is bound to treat its subjects of other religions as a conquered race, and not to put

them on a level with Mahometans. As long therefore as that Mahometan government lasts, there can be no real reform. If the people of South-eastern Europe are to be made really free, if they are to be raised to the level of the people of Western Europe, the great hindrance which keeps them from so doing must be taken out of the way. That hindrance is the power of the Turk. The power of the Turk must therefore pass away.

We have thus, in these three chapters, traced in a general way, the nature of the Ottoman power in Europe. We will now go on in the following chapters to trace out somewhat more fully what the Ottoman Turks have done in the European lands in which they are encamped. That is, we will go on to trace out the leading features in the history of the Ottoman power in Europe, how it began, how it rose to greatness, how it sank to the state of utter corruption and degradation in which we see it now.

NOTES.

(1, p. 58.) After the Castilian Conquest of Granada, the nations of Western Europe had nothing to do with any Mahometan people in Western Europe itself. But, besides the Ottoman Turks, they had a good deal to do with the Mahometan powers of Africa, that is they suffered a good deal at their hands in the way of piracy, but most of these African powers were at least nominally under the supremacy of the Ottoman Sultan. Their history therefore of some centuries back is rather a part of that Ottoman history than a part of the history of the European power of the Saracens.

(2, p. 61.) All that can be said on Mahometanism as a missionary religion will be found in the introductory lecture of Mr. R. B. Smith's "Mohammed and Mohammedanism." Mr. Smith seems to have got up very carefully all that can be said on the Mahometan side; unluckily he does not seem to have bestowed the same care on any part of the history of Christendom. Like most panegyrists of Mahometanism, especially of Saracenic art and learning, he forgets that whatever the Saracens knew they learned from the abiding home of civilization at New Rome. (3, p. 68.) On Akbar see History and Conquests of the Saracens, P. 114.

(4, p. 69.) History and Conquests of the Saracens, p. 155–159.

(5, p. 69.) I am not called on to inquire whether South-eastern Europe or Persia has at this moment the worst government. In Persia the Mahometans are the nation; Christians and Fire-worshippers-if any Fire-worshippers be left-are small minorities. The main question there lies between Mahometan and Mahometan. As regards Mahometans, the Persian government may possibly be worse than the Turkish. So may the Egyptian government. But, as regards Mahometans, the Persian government is not inherently incapable of reform; it may conceivably be brought to the best Mahometan standard. The great feature of Ottoman rule in Europe is that it is primarily and essentially a rule of Mussulman over non-Mussulman. So to be is the nature of its whole being. This the government of Persia is only to a very small extent, and, as regards Christians, we might say quite incidentally.

(6, p. 82.) On the possibility of reconversion in Bosnia and the Mahometan parts of Albania I shall find something to say further on.

CHAPTER IV.

THE RISE AND GROWTH OF THE OTTOMAN

POWER.

WE have thus traced out the distinguishing characteristics of Eastern and of Western Europe. We have seen what are the great races which have from the beginning inhabited the South-eastern peninsula. We have shown the special position of the Turks among them, and the points in which they stand aloof from the European nations. We have seen also what is the nature of their rule over those European nations which they have brought into bondage, and how impossible it is that their rule can ever be mended. Thus far we have done this only in a general way; we have seen what, according to the laws of cause and effect, could hardly have failed to happen. We have now to see more fully how the working of those causes and effects has been carried out in fact. We have seen what the Turks, being what they were, could not fail to do. We must now see more minutely, by the help of history, what the Turks have really done.

Our immediate subject is not the history of all the Mahometan nations, not even the history of all the Turkish dynasties, but more specially the history of the Ottoman Turks, and mainly the