398 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



Cliristianity, as we know it from the time of Constantine 

 onwards, as it lias saturated Europe, is entirely the work of the 

 white races. It was the Pope who sent forth the Crusades 

 against the Turk ; it was under the auspices of the Holy See that 

 the invasion of the Arabs was checked ; it was at the bidding of 

 the Vicar of Christ that the invader from Africa was beaten back 

 from the shores of Europe, and Iberia reconquered ; it was, again, 

 under the auspices of Papal Christianity that Columbus sailed 

 in search of new lands and discovered the New World ; it was 

 Christianity, as represented by the Roman See, which conquered 

 the whole southern portion of the continent, from Panama to 

 Cape Horn, and which divided this new continent between 

 Portugal and Spain. And, further, it was in the sanctuaries of 

 the Church that the flame of learning was kept alight throughout 

 the darkness of the Middle Ages ; it was the Church which, exer- 

 cising her right of universal spiritual dominion, divided up 

 Europe into States, and laid the foundation of the, modem world 

 as we know it. But it is not only from the political point of view, 

 but more especially from the social point of view, that the Church 

 must be regarded as having laid the foundations of modem 

 civilisation ; and as having brought about those essential con- 

 ditions without which the latter could not have been realised, 

 or would have been indefinitely retarded. The ages in which 

 Papal Christianity dominated Europe are often regarded as the 

 ages of ignorance and darkness ; but it is remarkable to note the 

 high tribute paid by Auguste Comte, the founder of a system of 

 philosophy destined, in the mind of its author, to be entirely 

 divested of all CathoUc and metaphysical conceptions, to the 

 work of the Church as a social factor during the Middle Ages ; 

 it is remarkable to find the founder of the Positivist School 

 seeking the origin of all our present social developments in 

 the work of the Church. It is well to remember with regard 

 precisely to that theological philosophy of the Middle Ages which 

 modem scientists, regarding it from a modem standpoint,. 



