412 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. tinued its straggle, and that the Turks, with Chengiz Khan on one side and the imperial troops on the other, would have been annihilated. The continual attacks of the Seljuks, while they had weak- ened the empire, yet enable us to see how great had been its strength. The marches of Pizarro in the Xew World, of the Ten Thousand of Alexander, and at this very time of Chengiz Khan into China and subsequently into Transoxiana, were all easy, since they were through states which had become de- moralized. No such demoralization existed, and consequent- ly no such march was possible under the rule of the New Home. The Turks had to fight their way inch by inch, to hold what they captured against continual harassment, and, as I have so often repeated, were only able to maintain a set- tlement in Asia Minor because their numbers were continual- ly recruited by fresh bands of immigrants into the country they had captured. The results of the Fourth Crusade upon European civiliza- tion wxre altogether disastrous. The light of Greek civilization, which Byzantium had kept burning for nearly nine centuries after Constantino had chosen it as his capital, was suddenly extinguished. The hardness, the narrowness, and the Hebrai- cism of Western civilization were left to develop themselves with little admixture from the joyousness and the beauty of Greek life. Every one knows that the Turkish conquest of Constantinople dispersed throughout the West a knowledge of Greek literature, and that such knowledge contributed largely to the bringing about of the Reformation and of mod- ern ways of thought. One cannot but regret that the knowl- edge of Greek literature was so dearly bought. If the dis- persion of a few Greeks, members of a conquered and there- fore despised race, but yet carrying their precious manuscripts and knowledge among hostile peoples, could produce so im- portant a result, what effect might not reasonably have been hoped for if the great crime against which Innocent protested had not been committed ? Western Europe saw the sparks of learning dispersed among its people. The light which had been continuously burning in a never-forgotten and, among
