ABSTRACT
The opening of new routes to the long-sought riches of Asia, the discovery of unknown continents and the overthrow of great empires gave Europeans an immense pride in their achievements. National epics were composed. Patriots urged the pre-eminence of their fellow countrymen in these astounding events. Idealists dreamed of the dawn of universal empire and the conversion of all mankind to Christianity. Such pride, however, slid easily into arrogance or worse, like the rabid intolerance of seventeenth-century Iberia, inflamed by the Catholic Counter Reformation and imperial commitments which brought prolonged conflict with pagans, infidels and heretics. Protagonists of overseas ventures might urge the merits of alien peoples to further their schemes, just as compatriots, obliged to seek indigenous assistance, might tacitly admit alien virtues. But Europeans, who saw themselves as at last equalling those heroes of Antiquity who had for so long overshadowed them, needed little convincing of the inferiority of the rest of mankind. True, there were some charitable opinions, chiefly among a handful of men of learning, and the Japanese and Chinese at least were treated more respectfully. But the general European view, expressed in a rich vocabulary of abuse and manifested in gratuitous insult and brutality, was one of disapproval and contempt.
