THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 



empire. If Christianity had appeared four cen- 

 turies earlier than it did, it would, like Bud- 

 dhism, have assumed the garb of a local religious 

 reformation. Or if it could have aimed at any- 

 thing higher and more comprehensive than this, 

 its preaching would have fallen upon ears not 

 ready to receive it. All the Oriental enthusi- 

 asm, all the Hellenic subtlety of Paul could 

 have effected nothing, had he visited Athens in 

 the days of Plato and Diogenes. But the cos- 

 mopolitan element in Roman civilization was 

 just that which Christianity most readily assimi- 

 lated, and which it intensified by setting up a 

 new principle of common action in place of the 

 primeval principle of community of race. From 

 this happy concurrence of circumstances there 

 was formed, upon the ruins of Paganism, that re- 

 ligious organization which alone, of all churches 

 that have existed, has earned the glorious name 

 of Catholic. Disgusted at some of her high- 

 handed proceedings in later times, Protestant 

 historians have too generally forgotten that the 

 Roman Church, by coordinating the most vig- 

 orous and progressive elements of ancient life, 

 prepared the way both for the ubiquity and for 

 the permanence of modern civilization. Had 

 the ecclesiastical system of the Empire perished, 

 along with the breaking up of its political sys- 

 tem ; had there been really that wreck of an- 

 cient institutions in the fifth century which was 

 VOL. Ill 321 



