ROME AND PANTHEISM. 397 



the spirit of Protestantism is one of disintegration. I 

 maintain, therefore, that it is not likely to be per- 

 manent. 



All the great powers of Europe have from numberless 

 distinct tribes become first a few kingdoms or dukedoms, 

 then two or three nations, and now homogeneous wholes, 

 so that there is no chance of their further dismember- 

 ment through internal discontent ; a process which has 

 been going on for so many hundreds of years all over 

 Europe isnot likely to be arrested without ample warning. 

 True, during the Roman Empire the world was prac- 

 tically bonded together, yet broke in pieces again ; but 

 this, I imagine, was because the bonding was prophetic 

 and superficial rather than genuine. Nature very 

 commonly makes one or two false starts, and misses 

 her aim a time or two before she hits it. She nearly 

 hit it in the time of Alexander the Great, but this was 

 a short-lived success ; in the case of the Eoman Empire 

 she succeeded better and for longer together. Where 

 Nature has once or twice hit her mark as near as this 

 she will commonly hit it outright eventually ; the dis- 

 ruption of the Roman Empire, therefore, does not mili- 

 tate against the supposition that the normal condition 

 of right-minded people is one which tends towards 

 aggregation, or, in other words, towards compromise 

 and the merging of much of one's own individuality for 

 the sake of union and concerted action. 



See, again, how Eome herself, within the limits of 

 Italy, was an aggregation, an aggregation which has 

 now within these last few years come together again 

 after centuries of disruption ; all middle-aged men have 



