HISTOKICAL EVOLUTION OF MYTH AND SCIENCE. 185 



different ranks, there was no general conception to 

 include the destinies of the whole human race, and to 

 manifest by its unity its providential and historical 

 development. Each people believed in their own 

 special destiny, which should either raise them to 

 greater glory and power or bring them to a speedy and 

 inevitable end ; but there was no common fate, no 

 common prosperity nor disaster. Eome had, as far 

 as possible, united these various peoples by the idea 

 of her power, by the inforcement of her laws, and 

 by the benefits of her citizenship, yet the Eoman 

 unity was external, and did not spring from the in- 

 timate sense of a common lineage. While the nations 

 were so closely united to Eome by brute force, the 

 subject peoples were agitated by a desire for their 

 ancient independence and self-government. Some 

 of these pagan multitudes advanced in civilization 

 through their education in the learning of the Eomans, 

 and in morality through their spontaneous activity, 

 but they did not possess any deep sense of a general 

 providence, and heaven and earth continued to be 

 under the sway of an incomprehensible fate. 



"If we now turn to consider the mental conditions 

 of educated men at that time, we shall see that they 

 transformed the Olympus of personal and concrete 

 gods into symbols of the forces of nature, and that 

 they had risen to a purer conception of the deity by 

 making it agree with the progress of reason ; but 

 this deity was so remote from earth as to have scarcely 



