114 THE NEW ERA 



Socially and morally the comparison is more difficult. 

 We are bound, if we have even a sound elementary 

 knowledge of the matter, to abandon the old idea that 

 we Europeans of to-day are far superior to the men 

 and women of Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, and Rome. 

 Any time up to the nineteenth century, and even in 

 the early decades of that century, such a belief on the 

 part of Europeans — who held it most strongly — was 

 ludicrous. One has only to think of the London of 

 a hundred years ago, with eighty per cent, of its people 

 illiterate, with barbarous sports and utterly rotten 

 political conditions and most unjust courts of justice 

 and foul dens for housing half its population, to see 

 the absurdity of the old idea. 



Yet when we make a comparison with great care, 

 we must conclude that we have passed the social and 

 moral high-water mark of all the old civilizations. 

 I take together the two aspects of life which are so 

 often considered very different, because to me they are 

 one. I acknowledge no moral law that is not social law ; 

 and the world will be far more " moral," and a sweeter 

 place to live in, when we teach children this instead 

 of legends about the ancient Hebrews or any other 

 disputable theories of virtue. The broad fact is that, 

 while there are richer men in the world to-day than 

 there ever were before, the mass of the people are 

 better off; apart from ancient Rome, where the con- 

 dition of the workers was artificial and impossible. 

 There is a higher average type of character in every 

 class. There is more zeal for idealist " movements " 

 than was ever seen in the world before; indeed, no 

 previous age remotely approaches ours in this respect, 

 except the Stoic period in ancient Rome, which still 

 fell short of ours. 



