The evidence, however, seems to point to the conclusion that, when a highly centralized society disintegrates, under the pressure of economic competition, it is because the energy of the race has been exhausted. Consequently, the survivors of such a community lack the power necessary for renewed concentration, and must probably remain inert until supplied with fresh energetic material by the infusion of barbarian blood.

BROOKS ADAMS.

Quincy, August 20, 1896.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE
The Romans[1]
CHAPTER II
The Middle Age[48]
CHAPTER III
The First Crusade[79]
CHAPTER IV
The Second Crusade[103]
CHAPTER V
The Fall of Constantinople[124]
CHAPTER VI
The Suppression of the Temple[152]
CHAPTER VII
The English Reformation[186]
CHAPTER VIII
The Suppression of the Convents[220]
CHAPTER IX
The Eviction of the Yeomen[243]
CHAPTER X
Spain and India[286]
CHAPTER XI
Modern Centralization[313]
CHAPTER XII
Conclusion[352]
Index[385]

CIVILIZATION AND DECAY

CHAPTER I
THE ROMANS

When the Romans first emerged from the mist of fable, they were already a race of land-owners who held their property in severalty, and, as the right of alienation was established, the formation of relatively large estates had begun. The ordinary family, however, held, perhaps, twelve acres, and, as the land was arable, and the staple grain, it supported a dense rural population. The husbandmen who tilled this land were of the martial type, and, probably for that reason, though supremely gifted as administrators and soldiers, were ill-fitted to endure the strain of the unrestricted economic competition of a centralized society. Consequently their conquests had hardly consolidated before decay set in, a decay whose causes may be traced back until they are lost in the dawn of history.