hile there was a more
important part played by Jerusalem, I think, in all that great
progress and reaction which has left us the problem of modern Europe.
And the suggestion of it is bound up with the former suggestion,
about the difference between the goal and the right road that
might have led to it. It is bound up with that quality of the
civilisation in question, that it was potential rather than perfect;
and there is no need to idealise it in order to regret it.
This peculiar part played by Jerusalem I mention merely as a suggestion;
I might almost say a suspicion. Anyhow, it is something of a guess;
but I for one have found it a guide.

Medievalism died, but it died young. It was at once energetic
and incomplete when it died, or very shortly before it died.
This is not a matter of sympathy or antipathy, but of appreciation
of an interesting historic comparison with other historic cases.
When the Roman Empire finally failed we cannot of course say
that it had done all it was meant to do, for that is dogmatism.
We cannot even say it had done all that it might have done,
for that is guesswork. But we can say that it had done
certain definite things and was conscious of having done them;
that it had long and even literally rested on its laurels.
But suppose that Rome had fallen when she had only half defeated Carthage,
or when she had only half conquered Gaul, or even when the city was
Christian but most of the provinces still heathen. Then we should
have said, not merely that Rome had not done what she might have done,
but that she had not done what she was actually doing. And that is
very much the truth in the matter of the medieval civilisation.
It was not merely that the medievals left undone what they might
have done, but they left undone what they were doing. This potential
promise is proved not only in their successes but in their failures.
It is shown, for instance, in the very defects of their art.
All the crafts of which Gothic architecture formed the frame-work
were developed, not only less than they should have been,
but less than they would have been. There is no sort of reason
why their sculpture should not have become as perfect as
their architecture; there is no sort of reason why their sense
of form should not have been as finished as their sense of colour.
A statue like the St. George of Donatello would have stood
more appropriately under a Gothic than under a Classic arch.
The niches were