106 THE NEW EEA 



that preceded it. In philosophy we cannot equal 

 Greece ; but philosophy is a mental exercise of 

 questionable value, and we will lay no stress on it. 

 The really disturbing thing is the constant discovery 

 that earlier ages were equal to us in what we may 

 broadly call moral progress. The minimum wage in 

 ancient Babylon, the emphasis on justice in the 

 Egyptian code, the same standard of personal conduct 

 everywhere, the concern of the gods for righteousness, 

 the full democracy of Athens and Rome, the beginning 

 of an enfranchisement of women, the privileges of the 

 Roman workers, the complete scheme of free educa- 

 tion, the trade-combinations It certainly looks 



as if we ought to be much more advanced than we are 

 in the year 1921. 



I have indicated the chief reason why we are not. 

 It is war, the vampire of the human race. Why, for 

 instance, you will ask, did not later ages build upon 

 or develop the promising features of the old civiliza- 

 tions — the baths and drains of Crete, the social legis- 

 lation of Hammurabi, the moral principles of Egypt, 

 the Greek and Roman trade unions, and so on ? 

 Obviously, because these things were buried in the 

 dust of the old civilizations ; and it was war that 

 put them there and robbed humanity of them. It 

 was, in every case, the recoil against military 

 imperialism. If there is any plain lesson at all in 

 history for our time, it is that ; yet we are maintaining 

 militarism and the constant possibility of war in more 

 deadly shape than ever. 



The particular reason of the great collapse of 

 civilization after the fifth century of the Christian 

 Era requires more careful study. Let us first show 

 briefly how utter the collapse was. We speak, of 



