Principles of western civilisation

206 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

that there is sometimes expressed in it the views of a class of writers who, perplexed with the modern outlook, carry the mind back with a kind of halfformed longing to the days of that humanitarian philosophy which influenced some of the best minds in the first centuries of the Roman empire. The lofty moral earnestness of Seneca and Epictetus, the noble disciplined humanity of Marcus Aurelius, even nowadays makes so distinct an impression on the mind that there are some who are inclined to regard the intervening period of history as a kind of retrogression. What they seem almost to think is that if the world had only been allowed to develop the inheritance won for the race by the intellect of Greece and the political genius of Rome, it might have ripened down to the present time, in view of a broader humanitarian ideal; and with an outlook which would have equalled, if not surpassed in promise that which the most optimistic minds amongst us are now able to look forward to.

In support of this view much plausible reasoning is often adduced. Nevertheless it represents a conception entirely superficial. It involves a misunderstanding not only of the distinctive principle which is shaping the development of the modern world, but of the very life-principle of the ancient world itself.

On more than one occasion in his life Freeman referred with great emphasis to a crisis in the development of his view of ancient history which had evidently left a deep impression on his mind. In his Oxford lectures for the year 1884-85, the subject was referred to with much earnestness. He well remembered, he said, how startled he was when