What adoption is at the
hands of the family, naturalization is at the hands of the state. And
the same process extends itself from adopted or naturalized individuals
to large classes of men, indeed to whole nations. When the process takes
place on this scale, we may best call it assimilation. Thus Rome
assimilated the continental nations of Western Europe to that degree
that, allowing for a few survivals here and there, not only Italy, but
Gaul and Spain, became Roman. The people of those lands, admitted step
by step to the Roman franchise, adopted the name and tongue of Romans.
It must soon have been hard to distinguish the Roman colonist in Gaul or
Spain from the native Gaul or Spaniard who had, as far as in him lay,
put on the guise of a Roman. This process of assimilation has gone on
everywhere and at all times. When two nations come in this way into
close contact with one another, it depends on a crowd of circumstances
which shall assimilate the other, or whether they shall remain distinct
without assimilation either way. Sometimes the conquerors assimilate
their subjects; sometimes they are assimilated by their subjects;
sometimes conquerors and subjects remain distinct forever.
Pages:
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106