Comparative Morality of the Provinces. 247 freemen betrayed their patrons, and he who had lived without an enemy died by the treachery of a friend." the pro trade. But, though these were the consequences of the concentra- Effects in tion of power and wealth in the city of Rome, it was other- vinces. Free wise in the expanse of the empire. The effect of Roman domination was the cessation of all the little wars that had heretofore been waged between adjacent people. They exchanged independence for peace. Moreover, and this in the end was of the utmost importance to them all, unrestricted commerce ensued, direct trade arising between all parts of the empire. The Mediterranean nations were brought closer to each other, and became common inheritors of such knowledge as was then in the world. Arts, sciences, improved agriculture, spread among them; the most distant countries could boast of noble roads, aqueducts, bridges, and great works of engineering. In barbarous places, the legions that were intended as garrisons proved to be foci of civilization. For the provinces, even the wickedness of Rome was not without some good. From one quarter corn had to be brought; from another, clothing; from another, luxuries; and Italy had to pay for it all in eoin. She had nothing to export in return. By this there was a tendency to equalization of wealth in all parts of the empire, and a perpetual movement of money. Nor was the advantage altogether material; there were conjoined intellectual results of no little value. Superstition and the Intellectual amazing credulity of the old times disappeared. In the first ment. Punic War, Africa was looked upon as a land of monsters; it had serpents large enough to stop armies, and headless men. Sicily had its Cyclops, giants, enchantresses; golden apples grew in Spain; the mouth of Hell was on the shores of the Euxine. The marches of the legions and the voyages of merchants made all these phantasms vanish. advance. ance of the ethnical It was the necessary consequence of her military aggran- Disappeardizement that the ethnical element which really constituted Roman Rome should expire. A small nucleus of men had undertaken element. to conquer the Mediterranean world, and had succeeded. In doing this they had diffused themselves over an immense geographical surface, and necessarily became lost in the mass with Roman conquest produces homoge neous thought, 248 Production of Homogeneous Thought. which they mingled. On the other hand, the deterioration of Italy was ensured by the slave system, and the ruin of Rome was accomplished before the barbarians touched it. Whoever inquires the cause of the fall of the Roman empire will find his answer in ascertaining what had become of the Romans. The extinction of prodigies and superstitious legends was occasioned by increased travel through the merging of many separate nations into one great empire. Intellectual communication attends material communication. The spread of Roman influence around the borders of the Mediterranean produced a tendency to homogeneous thought eminently dangerous to the many forms of faith professed by so many different people. After Tarquin was expelled the sacerdotal class became altogether subordinate to the military, whose whole history shows that they regarded religion as a mere state institution, without any kind of philosophical significance, and chiefly to be valued for the control it furnished over vulgar minds. It presented itself to them in the light of a branch of industry, from which profit might be made by those who practised it. They thought no more of concerning themselves individually about it than in taking an interest in any other branch of lucrative trade. And revolu- As to any examination of its intellectual basis, they were not ligious sophists, but soldiers, blindly following the prescribed institutions of their country with as little question as its military commands. For these reasons, throughout the time of the Republic, and also under the early emperors, there never was much reluctance to the domestication of any kind of worship in Rome. Indeed, the gods of the conquered countries were established there, to the gratification of the national vanity. From this commingling of worship in the city, and intercommunication of ideas in the provinces, the most important events tionizes re ideas. Imperialism pre pares the way for Monotheism, arose. For it very soon was apparent that the political unity which had been established over so great a geographical surface was the forerunner of intellectual, and therefore religious unity. Polytheism became practically inconsistent with the Roman empire, and a tendency arose for the introduction of some form Imperialism Precedes Monotheism. 249 of monotheism. Apart from the operations of Reason, it is clear that the recognition by so many nations of one emperor must soon be followed by the acknowledgment of one God. There is a disposition for uniformity, among people who are associated by a common political bond. Moreover, the rivalries of a hundred priesthoods imparted to polytheism an intrinsic weakness; but monotheism implies centralization, an organized hierarchy, and therefore a concentration of power. The different interests and collisions of multitudinous forms of religion sapped individual faith; a diffusion of practical atheism, manifested by a total indifference to all ceremonies, except so far as they were shows, was the result, the whole community falling into an unbelieving and godless state. The form of superstition through which the national mind had passed was essentially founded upon the recognition of an incessant intervention of many divinities determining human affairs; but such a faith became extinct by degrees among the educated. How was it possible that human reason should deal otherwise with all the contradictions and absurdities of a thousand indigenous and imported deities, each asserting his inconsistent pretensions? A god who in his native grove or temple has been paramount and unquestioned, sinks into insignificance when he is brought into a crowd of compeers. In this respect there is no difference between gods and men. Great cities are great levellers of both. He who has stood forth in undue proportions in the solitude of the country, sinks out of observation in the solitude of a crowd. The most superficial statement of philosophy among the Ro-Roman philosophy. mans, if philosophy it can be called, shows us how completely religious sentiment was effaced. The presence of sceptical thought is seen in the explanations of Terentius Varro, B.C. Varro. 110, that the anthropomorphic gods are to be received as mere emblems of the forces of matter; and the general tendency of the times may be gathered from the poem of Lucretius: his Lucretius. recommendations that the mind should be emancipated from the fear of the gods; his insinuations against the immortality of the soul; his setting forth Nature as the only God to be worshipped. In Cicero we see how feeble and wavering a guide Cicero. Sextius. to life in a period of trouble philosophy had become, and how It was the attribute of the Romans to impress upon everything a practical character. In their philosophy we continually see this displayed, along with a striking inferiority in Quintus original thought. Quintus Sextius admonishes us to pursue a virtuous life, and, as an aid thereto, enjoins an abstinence from meat. In this opinion many of the Cynical school acquiesced, and some, it is said, even joined the Brahmans. In the troublous times of the first Cæsars, men had occasion to derive all the support they could from philosophy; there was no religion to sustain them. Among the Stoics there were some, as Seneca, to whom we can look back with pleasure. Through his writings he exercised a considerable influence on subsequent ages, though, when we attentively read his works, we must attribute this not so much to their intrinsic value as to their happening to coincide with the prevalent tone of religious thought. He enforces the necessity of a cultivation of good morals, and yet he writes against the religion of his country, its observances, Seneca. and requirements. Of a far higher grade was Epictetus, at Epictetus. once a slave and a philosopher, though scarcely to be classed as a true Stoic. He considers man as a mere spectator of God and his works, and teaches that every one who can no longer bear the miseries of life is, upon just deliberation, and a conscientious belief that the gods will not disapprove, free to commit suicide. His maxim is that all have a part to play, and he has done well who has done his best,-that he must look to conscience as his guide. If Seneca said that time alone is our absolute and only possession, and that nothing else belongs to man, Epictetus taught that his thoughts are all that man has any power over, everything else being beyond his control. M. Antoninus Aurelius Antoninus, the emperor, did not hesitate to acknowledge his thankfulness to Epictetus, the slave, in his attempt to guide his life according to the principles of the Stoics. He recommends every man to preserve his demon free from sin, and prefers religious devotions to the researches of physics, in this departing to some extent from the original doctrines of the sect; but the evil times on which men had fallen led them to seek support in religious consolations rather than in philosophical inquiries. In Maximus Tyrius, A.D. 146, we Maximus Tyrius. discover a corresponding sentiment, enveloped, it is true, in an air of Platonism, and countenancing an impression that the worship of images and sanctuaries are unnecessary for those who have a lively remembrance of the view they once enjoyed of the divine, though excellent for the vulgar, who have forgotten their past. Alexander of Aphrodisias exhibits Alexander of Aphrodithe tendency, which was becoming very prevalent, to com- sias. bine Plato and Aristotle. He treats upon Providence, both absolute and contingent; considers its bearings upon religion, and shows a disposition to cultivate the pious feelings of the age. Of Galen, the physician, I shall have to speak subsequently. Galen. It is sufficient to remark that he asserts experience to be the only source of knowledge; lays great stress on the culture of mathematics and logic, observing that he himself should have been a Pyrrhonist had it not been for geometry. In the teleological doctrine of physiology he considers that the founda |