COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



cret of the success of all statesmen of the highest 

 order — of Charles the Great and Hildebrand, 

 as well as of William the Silent, Edward I. of 

 England, Henry IV. of France, and Richelieu. 

 By a sagacious instinct these great men felt, 

 though they could not scientifically explain, the 

 direction in which human affairs were naturally 

 tending ; and it was because they shaped their 

 efforts with a view to assist, and not to check 

 or warp, the resistless tendencies of society, that 

 they succeeded in stamping their individuaUties 

 so powerfully upon history. It is from the lack 

 of this sagacity that the ablest retrograde states- 

 men have either failed utterly, or at best suc- 

 ceeded only in working wanton mischief. Ju- 

 lian, and Philip II. of Spain, occupied positions 

 which enabled them to wield enormous power, 

 and the former was a man of signal ability and 

 undoubtedly good intentions. Yet Julian wholly 

 failed to see that Platonic Paganism, however 

 well adapted it may have been to the sporadic, 

 municipal civilization of antiquity, was no longer 

 adapted to the intellectual and moral needs of 

 men living under the Roman Empire. Hence 

 his insensate attempt to destroy the only re- 

 ligious organization capable of holding society 

 together during the perilous times that were 

 coming ; an attempt which his early death for- 

 tunately frustrated before it had been persisted 

 in long enough to work much social disturb- 

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