Principles of western civilisation

258 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

outset. It is as the spirit, which lies behind these purely subjective phenomena, moves towards its objective realisation in the outward organisation of the world that there becomes visible the ideal which was latent therein, and towards the realisation of which all the events of Western history now begin to slowly gravitate.

The first question as regards the outward world to suggest itself under the influence of the new concept must have sprung almost spontaneously to the mind. If now, indeed, spiritual welfare is of more importance than temporal interests, what then, it must have been asked, is to be the meaning of this world with which men are occupied? what is to be the character of the ends to which men are collectively to direct it by their activities therein ? When such a question was asked in the days when the new belief was as yet struggling for its life, for a foothold, for bare tolerance in the world, men were satisfied to turn inward rather than outward for an answer. But as the new belief gradually extended its sway over the State; as it gratefully accepted, at first the countenance, and then the support of the civil power; as it at last, through the help of the latter, gradually extended its conquest, not simply over the Roman world, but over the minds of the incoming peoples of Western, of Northern, and of Eastern Europe ;—a new answer began to silently shape itself behind the events of history.

For now, men must have argued, if the State was indeed no longer pagan, but converted to the doctrines and ideals of the new belief, then surely it must become the highest object of the State to have its powers and interests directed to fulfil the greater