Well, gotta like that you're reading de Tocqueville. Started it once, never finished, but keep coming across passages by him. Smart guy.

Anyway . . .

The conquering of Rome by the barbarians (and their damned elephants :-p) didn't destroy Rome--

Actually, Hannibal and his elephants invaded the Italian peninsula in the 2nd Punic War, as Rome was rising to power.

When the Barbarians actually did sack Rome, in 410 and 455, the (Western) Empire did not last much longer (476). The city itself gradually became depopulated, until it was rediscovered and renewed in the Renaissance (literally "rebirth").

it changed its structure and make-up, somewhat for the better and somewhat for the worse. But the essential Roman values of democracy, appreciation of the arts, philosophy, etc.

Actually, those values were more Greek in origin. Rome began as a republic, not a democracy, with a limited electorate. Roman values were more militaristic in nature - fortitude, order, etc.

are now the norm throuout most the world.

That statement seems just a bit premature. . . .

the conquering of empires has now become largely a thing of the past,

History is full of premature judgements. Ever hear of the War to End All Wars? And if so, which one?

and even where conquering does take place (e.g. the U.S. invasion of Iraq), the goals have mostly shifted. Our intention wasn't to enslave Iraq and make it part of the U.S. but "simply" to democratize it. Perhaps the ends do not justify the means, but that goal (if it was the real goal) is certainly more noble than conquering to enslave and usurp.

You might be surprised to learn that many empires conquered their neighbors in order to "free" the oppressed people - and perhaps you will be even more surprised to learn that in a fair number of cases they actually accomplished this.

Otherwise, your statements about Evolution sound almost like the Creationist idea of Evolution: that it is a process that leads to better and better results. (One reason some Christians hate the theory of evolution so much is that they believe it describes a movement towards perfection, which they do not believe is possible apart from God.) However, Evolution is better understood by the phrase, "Survivor, Survive!" - that is, the survivors pass on their genes - regardless of whether they survived by being so nice to all their neighbors that when hard times came all their neighbors returned the favor, or whether they survived by killing and eating their neighbors.

Now, as "values" derive ultimately from "what is good for life", the process of evolution might be said to inherently select for good values, but such values are not necessarily what we would hope for.

Fortunately, cooperation has proven to be an evolutionarily useful trait, so things work out after all - for the most part.

Otherwise, you make more good points.