were others of even more
daring and original temper, a philosopher like Democritus, a poet like
Lucretius, whose minds leaped ahead through the centuries and saw what
none of their contemporaries saw, but who were so hampered by their
surroundings that it was physically impossible for them to leave to
the later world much concrete addition to knowledge. The civilization
was one of comparatively rapid change, viewed by the standard of
Babylon and Memphis. There was incessant movement; and, moreover, the
whole system went down with a crash to seeming destruction after a
period short compared with that covered by the reigns of a score of
Egyptian dynasties, or with the time that elapsed between a Babylonian
defeat by Elam and a war sixteen centuries later which fully avenged
it.

This civilization flourished with brilliant splendor. Then it fell. In
its northern seats it was overwhelmed by a wave of barbarism from
among those half-savage peoples from whom you and I, my hearers, trace
our descent. In the south and east it was destroyed later, but far
more thoroughly, by invaders of an utterly different type. Both
conquests were of great importance; but it was the northern conquest
which in its ultimate effects was of by far the greatest importance.

With the advent of the Dark Ages the movement of course ceased, and it
did not begin anew for many centuries; while a thousand years passed
before it was once more in full swing, so far as European
civilization, so far as the world civilization of to-day, is
concerned. During all those centuries the civilized world, in our
acceptation of the term, was occupied, as its chief task, in slowly
climbing back to the position from which it had fallen after the age
of the Antonines. Of course a general statement like this must be
accepted with qualifications. There is no hard and fast line between
one age or period and another, and in no age is either progress or
retrogression universal in all things. There were many points in which
the Middle Ages, because of the simple fact that they were Christian,
surpassed the brilliant pagan civilization of the past; and there are
some points in which the civilization that succeeded them has sunk
below the level of the ages which saw such mighty masterpieces of
poetry, of architecture--especially cathedral architecture--and of
serene spiritual and forceful lay leadership. But they were centuries
of violence, rapine, and cruel injustice; and trut