27a COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. ii. 



need for protection from the threatening barbarian began to 

 bring about a retrogression, in which for a time uniformity 

 seemed likely to flourish at the expense of individuality. It 

 is instructive, from this point of view, to observe the gradual 

 change toward an Oriental type of government which went 

 on from the time of Augustus to that of Diocletian. In the 

 eastern half of the Empire, after its final political severance 

 from the western half at the end of the eighth century, this 

 change became really consummated, and after a while de- 

 feated itself by culminating in a social stagnation and mili- 

 tary feebleness which invited the sharp scimitar of the 

 Mussulman. But in the West this fatal growth of patri- 

 archal despotism was early checked by the rise of Chris- 

 tianity as an independent spiritual power, by the immigration 

 of the German tribes, and by the union of these two circum- 

 stances. Europe was in no immediate danger of lapsing into 

 an Oriental condition when an Ambrose could say to a 

 Theodosius, " Thus far shalt thou go and no farther." The 

 German tribes, by their direct coalescence into national 

 aggregates, without passing through the civic stage of organi- 

 zation, furnished, in various degrees of completeness, the 

 principles of representation and federation, thus adding im- 

 portant elements of new life to the Empire. While finally 

 the Christianization of these tribes, leading to the famous 

 compact by which the Head of the Church transferred the 

 lordship of the western world from the degenerate B\zantine 

 to the strong-armed iraiik, inaugurated a balance of powers 

 which preserved Europe henceforth from any danger of be- 

 coming either a sultanate or a caliphate. In this twofold 

 supremacy of Church and Empire during the Middle Ages, 

 we have one of the most remarkable compromises be- 

 tween antagonist forces known to history ; for while the ten- 

 dency of either set of forces acting alone would have been 

 toward absolute despotism, either in the spiritual or in the 

 temporal form, on the other hand their joint action and 



