“The ancients had no conception of progress; they did not so much as reject the idea; they did not even entertain the idea. Asian nations are just the same now. Since history began they have always been what they are. Savages again, do not improve; they hardly seem to have the basis on which to build, much less the material to put up anything worth having. Only a few nations, and those of European origin, advance.

The strongest nation has always been conquering the weaker; sometimes even subduing it, but always prevailing over it. Every intellectual gain, so to speak, that a nation possessed was in the earliest times made use of—was invested and taken out—in war; all else perished. Each nation tried constantly to be the stronger, and so made or copied the best weapons; by conscious and unconscious imitation each nation formed a type of character suitable to war and conquest. Conquest improved mankind by the intermixture of strengths; the armed truce, which was then called peace, improved them by the competition of training and the consequent creation of new power. . . . All European history has been the history of the superposition of the more military races over the less military—of the efforts, sometimes successful, sometimes unsuccessful, of each race to get more military; and so the art of war has constantly improved.”

Walter Bagehot, British journalist, 1873

Which of the following is a major limitation of Bagehot’s argument?
A. His assumption that non-European nations are incapable of progress
B. His assumption that warfare has been a frequent occurrence in European history
C. His assumption that warfare led to technological progress
D. His assumption that military capacities differed among nations