zation of civilized Europe on the model of the Roman Empire
or of an Empire at all, and the more definitely formulated hope of
salvation by the erection or re-erection of an international system of
law in any real sense seems to me an unsubstantial dream--the
administration of a belated nostrum for our disease, not a panacea. Not
that way do the lessons of history point. The Roman ideal must be
transformed, must be reborn, if it is not to lead our anticipations and
our actions wholly astray. No more in the political or secular sphere
than in the spiritual or ecclesiastical is 'Romanism' a possible guide
to the reconstruction of modern European civilization. For that far too
much water (and blood) has run under the bridge. Yet the spirit which
gave it life and efficacy is immortal, and the study of the secret of
its vitality and power is a necessity for us. In the work of
reconstruction we must learn from the Romans the value of System and
Order, of Justice and Law, as from Greece we have ever afresh to learn
the love of Freedom and Truth.

The Greeks have given us the idea of a life worth living which
civilization renders possible, but does not directly produce. This life
in its essential features they rightly conceived, but its content they
failed to articulate, and whether because of that or not, they failed to
realize its indispensable conditions, material, economic, political, &c.
The Romans did more effectively realize this, but they lost sight of the
ends in the means, securing a peace, a comfort, an ease, a leisure of
which they made no particularly valuable use. It has been said that at
no time in the world's history were civilized men so happy as under the
Roman Empire. It might be said with greater truth that at no time were
civilized men so unhappy, for the happiness that was theirs was empty,
mere dead-sea fruit, dust and ashes in the mouth; a very Death in Life.
Life was without savour, and they turned away from it in weariness and
disgust and despair, seeking and finding in Philosophy--the fruits of
reflection upon life--nothing better than consolation for the wounds and
disillusions of life. Thus those who gave their lives to Rome lost
heart, and retreating into themselves found nothing there but solitude
and emptiness. Civilization was but the husk of a life that had fled.

Nevertheless, as it is necessary for the living body to deposit a bony
skeleton and for the living soul to harden its impulses into