212 PROBLEMS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 



help regarding as at least one of the most important. Roman 

 society rested on a basis of slavery, and in spite of occasional 

 manumissions we may consider the slave class as a separate caste, 

 between which and even the poorest of free men and women 

 intermarriage did not take place. Now it is well known that 

 the wealthy classes, whether in ancient or modern states, do not 

 succeed in keeping up their numbers ; the literature of the 

 Augustan period bears witness to the urgency of the population 

 question. Still more apparent, when an aristocracy form a 

 separate caste, is the failure of energy. The only means of 

 reinvigoration is the influx of new blood from below. But this 

 process is greatly limited by the institution of slavery, under 

 which a very large class is separated off as not belonging to the 

 nation. The course of her history was well calculated to leave 

 Rome more than most states at the mercy of this undermining 

 influence. The long-protracted Punic wars told very heavily on 

 the small farmer class, and the franchise was extended tardily 

 and with reluctance to the Italians. Indeed it was only after 

 wars which still further reduced the small number of her free 

 population, and which left Samnium almost a desert, that Rome 

 consented to give them her citizenship. Thus the evil of slavery 

 as the basis of society was all the more acutely felt. 



If we turn our eyes towards Greece we shall see reason to 

 believe that the same cause was in operation there. Nowhere has 

 progress been so short-lived and meteor-like a phenomenon as in 

 Greece ; nowhere has the parcelling of the slave-holding nation 

 into minute states aggravated so much the ill-effects of slavery. 



Unconsciously modern civilisation has found a means of check- 

 ing the disease that led to the decline of the classical civilisations. 

 Mr Bagehot maintained stoutly, and gave evidence in proof of 

 his assertion, that the European of our day has become human- 

 ised, without losing the toughness of the barbarian. He offered 

 no explanation, but merely adduced direct evidence to establish 

 his contention.' It is impossible to doubt that the absence of 

 slavery puts modern civilisation in a stronger position. Freedom 

 of intermarriage among all classes has caused a slowing down of 

 the process of deterioration. The upper classes are perpetually 



