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did they influence the course of philosophic thought. 

 Their great characteristic was their religion and the 

 lofty moral precepts which were closely interwoven 

 therewith. In spite of a tendency slavishly to adhere 

 to minute ceremonial observances, their moral atmo- 

 sphere was a healthy one indeed compared with that of 

 the Greeks. Their ethical precepts were not confined to 

 speculative exceptional minds the disciples of some 

 philosophic school but were disseminated far and wide 

 throughout all classes of the people. In their firm 

 determination rather to undergo persecution than violate 

 their conscience as regards their religious duties, the 

 Jews set a great and novel example to the world. Many 

 were the martyrs who thus suffered under Antiochus 

 Epiphanes and subsequently under the Roman emperors. 

 Torture and death were not seldom their portion as a 

 consequence of their refusal to perform what in their 

 eyes were acts of detestable idolatry. 



In speaking of the Jews it has been necessary to refer 

 to the Romans. We will conclude this chapter with an 

 elementary notice of Roman history, which will bring us 

 to the dawn of the modern world, and enable us to see 

 those factors from the interaction of which our present 

 civilisation has arisen as a necessary consequence. 



The Aryans who entered the peninsula of Italy, 

 found it already inhabited, probably by a race akin to 

 the existing Basques. The first Aryan swarm seem to 

 have been the Celts, who, besides appropriating what is 

 now France and the British Isles, occupied all the north 

 of Italy down to where now stand Milan and Bologna. 

 This latter was known as Cisalpine Gaul, the Celtic 

 continental dominion north of the Alps constituting 

 Transalpine Gaul. 



The Teutons (the ancestors of the English, the Germans, 



