ioned; his works, still remaining,
indicate to us the tendency of this school to materialism.

[Sidenote: Philosophical atheism among the educated.]

Such was the tone of thought among the cultivated Romans; and to this
philosophical atheism among them was added an atheism of indifference
among the vulgar. But, since man is so constituted that he cannot live
for any length of time without a form of worship, it is evident that
there was great danger, whenever events should be ripe for the
appearance of some monotheistic idea, that it might come in a base
aspect. At a much later period than that we are here considering, one of
the emperors expressed himself to the effect that it would be necessary
to give liberty for the exercise of a sound philosophy among the higher
classes, and provide a gorgeous ceremonial for the lower; he saw how
difficult it is, by mere statesmanship to co-ordinate two such
requirements, in their very nature contradictory. Though polytheism had
lost all intellectual strength, the nations who had so recently parted
with it could not be expected to have ceased from all disposition to an
animalization of religion and corporealization of God. In a certain
sense the emperor was only a more remote and more majestic form of the
conquered and vanished kings, but, like them, he was a man. There was
danger that the theological system, thus changing with the political,
would yield only expanded anthropomorphic conceptions.

[Sidenote: Principles, to be effective, must coincide with existing
tendencies.]

History perpetually demonstrates that nations cannot be permanently
modified except by principles or actions conspiring with their existing
tendency. Violence perpetrated upon them may pass away, leaving, perhaps
in a few generations, no vestige of itself. Even Victory is conquered by
Time. Profound changes only ensue when the operating force is in unison
with the temper of the age. International peace among so many people
once in conflict--peace under the auspices of a great overshadowing
power; the unity of sentiment and brotherhood of feeling fast finding
its way around the Mediterranean shores; the interests of a vast growing
commerce, unfettered through the absorption of so many little kingdoms
into one great republic, were silently bringing things to a condition
that political force could be given to any religious dogma founded upon
sentiments of mutual regard and interest. Nor could it be otherwise