CH. XVIII,] THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 807 



(n the older days of Eome — and which owes so much of its 

 permanent character to the labours of the great Catholic and 

 Imperial statesmen of the Middle Ages — we shall find that 

 the process here described has been continually going on. 

 For the primitive normal state of warfare there has been 

 gradually substituted a normal state of peace. While in 

 primitive times the interests of men were supposed to coin- 

 cide only throughout the limited area of a petty clan, they 

 are now seen to coincide throughout vast areas, and the 

 railway, the steamship, and the telegraph are daily bringing 

 communities into closer union, and, as George Eliot well 

 expresses it, "making self-interest a duct for sympathy." 

 The spirit of Christianity, first rendered possible by Eoman 

 cosmopolitanism, has made, and is ever making, wider and 

 deeper conquests as civilization advances. By the primitive 

 savage moral duties were imperfectly recognized, but only 

 within the limits of the clan. By the Greek the ethical 

 code was enlarged, but it was a code not applicable to bar- 

 barians. The mediaeval Christian had a still longer list of 

 duties owed by him to all mankind, his brethren in the 

 sight of God ; and to the ancient conception of justice thus 

 materially widened, he added, in elementary shape, the con- 

 ception of benevolence or the " enthusiasm of humanity ; " 

 but the familiar maxim that " no faith need be kept with 

 heretics " shows that even to his conception of duty there 

 were practical limits narrower than would now be admitted. 

 The modern, on the other hand, recognizes that he owes cer- 

 tain duties to all men with whom he may be brought into 

 contact, not because they are his kindred, or his neighbours, 

 T nis countrymen, or his fellow-Christians, but because they 

 are his fellow-men. Such is our ethical standard, however 

 imperfectly conformed to ; and neither ancient nor mediasval 

 had such an ethical standard. Compare also the ideal types of 

 perfect manhood at the two extremes of civilization within our 

 ken. The primitive type is the man of intense personality, 



