OF THE UNIVERSE. ROMAN EMPIRE. 1 99 



Hesperia, " where/' according to a dogma of the older 

 Pythagoreans,, "the soft and temperate climate had early 

 hastened the escape of mankind from barbarism." 



The influence of the Eoman dominion, as a constant 

 element of union and fusion, deserves to be brought forward, 

 in a history of the contemplation of the universe, with the 

 more detail and force, because we can recognise its conse- 

 quences even at a period- when the union of the empire had 

 been loosened, and in part destroyed, by the assaults and 

 irruptions of the barbarians. Claudian, who, in a late and 

 troubled age, under Theodosius the Great and his sons, 

 came forward with new poetic productiveness in the decline 

 of literature, still sings, in too laudatorv strains, of the Eoman 

 sovereignty ( 311 ) : 



" Hsec est, in gremium victos quse sola recepit, 

 Humatmmque genus communi nomine fovit 

 Matris, non dominse, ritu ; civesqne vocavit 

 duos domuit, nexuque pio longinqua revinxit. 

 Hujus pacificis debemus moribus omnes 

 Quod veluti patriis regionibus utitur hospes" . . . . . 



Outward means of constraint, skilfully disposed civil in- 

 stitutions, and long-continued habits of servitude, may 

 indeed produce union, by taking away separate national 

 existence ; but the feeling of the unity of mankind, of their 

 common humanity, and of the equal rights of all portions 

 of the human race, has a nobler origin : it is in the inmost 

 impulses of the human mind, and in religious convictions, 

 that it& foundations are to be sought. Christianity has pre- 

 eminently contributed to call forth the idea of the unity of 

 mankind, and has thereby acted beneficently on the " human- 

 izing" of nations, in their manners and institutions. Deeply 



