THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF PROGRESS 1S9 



less constantly been trying to exert his own person- 

 ality, trying to raise himself above the condition of 

 slavery, trying to lift himself out of jDoverty, trying 

 to obtain his share of the good things of the world. 

 But in spite of this opposition, perhaps because of it, 

 the two princiiDles have developed simultaneously. 

 Throughout all history there has been a constant see- 

 saw between these two forces, now one and now the 

 other getting the upper hand. 



The Persistent Demands of the Individual. — Let us illus- 

 trate this fact by a brief reference to the important 

 events of the last two thousand years. Everywhere 

 kings have built their thrones by the might of the 

 centralizing power, and just as universally have the 

 kings found their thrones undermined by the rising 

 and restless spirits of the individuals whom they 

 rule. In the Roman republic the individual reigned 

 supreme. In the Roman empire centralization almost 

 crushed him out of existence. Rome fell because the 

 individual was crushed, and Rome was conquered by 

 a race of people in which the individual reigned 

 supreme. There was hardly ever a people where 

 there was less centralization than among the bar- 

 barians who camped down on the land that formerly 

 composed the Roman empire. But although origi- 

 nally free and equal, it required only a few centuries 

 after the fall of Rome to bring the masses under as 

 crushing a despotism as ever the Romans had expe- 

 rienced. 



The new conditions were, however, very different 

 from the old. Feudalism was, in one sense, an ex- 

 treme of decentralization, but nevertheless, so far as 

 concerned the individual, it was a complete loss of 

 freedom. The value of the man wholly disappeared, 



