EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



of the individual distinctly acknowledged, and 

 his duties and obligations largely determined 

 by contract, as is the case in modern society. 

 Manifestly, the relations sustained by the indi- 

 vidual toward so great a whole as the Empire 

 could not be like the relations sustained by the 

 individual toward so small a whole as the tribe. 

 Through the sheer breaking up of tribal ideas 

 of obligation which the Empire everywhere 

 effected, the ideas of individual obligation char- 

 acteristic of modern society began to emerge 

 into the foreground. The most fundamental 

 and far-reaching effect of Roman conquest was 

 the decomposition of primitive ideas, political 

 and social, legal and religious. The world of 

 separate tribes and separate cities, each with its 

 peculiar laws, and each with its local deities and 

 rites, came to an end, and was replaced by an 

 organized European world, with its Roman law, 

 based on ethical principles acknowledged by vast 

 masses of men, and with its Christian religion, 

 based on the assertion of the universal brother- 

 hood of men and the universal fatherhood of 

 God. 



As in the Roman law, so also in Christianity, 

 the innumerable new relations into which men 

 were thrown resulted in a great deal of abstrac- 

 tion and generalization concerning the scope of 

 men's rights and duties. In the one case as in 

 the other, the liberation of the individual from 

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