SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL 



predicted was the peculiar character impressed 

 upon these movements by the gigantic person- 

 alities of such men as Mohammed and Omar, 

 Sakyamuni, Jesus, and Paul. What could have 

 been predicted was the general character and 

 direction of the movements. For example, as I 

 shall show in the following chapter, Christianity 

 as a universal religion was not possible until 

 Rome had united in a single commonwealth the 

 progressive nations of the world. And when 

 Rome had accomplished this task, it might well 

 have been predicted that before long a religion 

 would arise which should substitute monothe- 

 ism for polytheism, proclaiming the universal 

 fatherhood of God, and the universal brother- 

 hood of men. I admit that such a prediction 

 could have been made only by a person familiar 

 with scientific modes of thought not then in 

 existence ; but could such a person have been 

 present to contemplate the phenomena, he might 

 have foreseen such a revolution in its main fea- 

 tures, as being an inevitable result of the inter- 

 action of Jewish, Hellenic, and Roman ideas. 

 I am inclined to think he might have foreseen 

 that it would arise in Palestine, that its spread 

 would be confined to the area covered by Ro- 

 man civilization, and that its work would for a 

 long time be most thorough in the most thor- 

 oughly Romanized regions. 



We do not need, however, to insist upon this 

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