was this
order which kept things in their places, assigned to each its proper
sphere and function, and drew a definite line, for instance, between
men and gods. Human progress towards perfection--towards an ideal of
omniscience, or an ideal of happiness, would have been a breaking down
of the bars which divide the human from the divine. Human nature does
not alter; it is fixed by Moira.

5.

We can see now how it was that speculative Greek minds never hit on
the idea of Progress. In the first place, their limited historical
experience did not easily suggest such a synthesis; and in the second
place, the axioms of their thought, their suspiciousness of change,
their theories of Moira, of degeneration and cycles, suggested a view
of the world which was the very antithesis of progressive development.
Epicurean, philosophers made indeed what might have been an important
step in the direction of the doctrine of Progress, by discarding the
theory of degeneration, and recognising that civilisation had been
created by a series of successive improvements achieved by the effort of
man alone. But here they stopped short. For they had their eyes fixed on
the lot of the individual here and now, and their study of the history
of humanity was strictly subordinate to this personal interest. The
value of their recognition of human progress in the past is conditioned
by the general tenor and purpose of their theory of life. It was simply
one item in their demonstration that man owed nothing to supernatural
intervention and had nothing to fear from supernatural powers. It is
however no accident that the school of thought which struck on a path
that might have led to the idea of Progress was the most uncompromising
enemy of superstition that Greece produced.

It might be thought that the establishment of Roman rule and order in a
large part of the known world, and the civilising of barbarian peoples,
could not fail to have opened to the imagination of some of those who
reflected on it in the days of Virgil or of Seneca, a vista into the
future. But there was no change in the conditions of life likely to
suggest a brighter view of human existence. With the loss of freedom
pessimism increased, and the Greek philosophies of resignation were
needed more than ever. Those whom they could not satisfy turned their
thoughts to new mystical philosophies and religions, which were little
interested in the earthly destinies of human society.

II