rability,
the possession of which, from the vulgar moralistic point of view, robs
his exploits of any merit whatever.

As to Caesar's sense of humor, there is no more reason to assume that he
lacked it than to assume that he was deaf or blind. It is said that on
the occasion of his assassination by a conspiracy of moralists (it is
always your moralist who makes assassination a duty, on the scaffold or
off it), he defended himself until the good Brutes struck him, when he
exclaimed "What! you too, Brutes!" and disdained further fight. If this
be true, he must have been an incorrigible comedian. But even if we
waive this story, or accept the traditional sentimental interpretation
of it, there is still abundant evidence of his lightheartedness and
adventurousness. Indeed it is clear from his whole history that what has
been called his ambition was an instinct for exploration. He had much
more of Columbus and Franklin in him than of Henry V.

However, nobody need deny Caesar a share, at least, of the qualities I
have attributed to him. All men, much more Julius Caesars, possess all
qualities in some degree. The really interesting question is whether I
am right in assuming that the way to produce an impression of greatness
is by exhibiting a man, not as mortifying his nature by doing his
duty, in the manner which our system of putting little men into great
positions (not having enough great men in our influential families to
go round) forces us to inculcate, but by simply doing what he naturally
wants to do. For this raises the question whether our world has not been
wrong in its moral theory for the last 2,500 years or so. It must be a
constant puzzle to many of us that the Christian era, so excellent in
its intentions, should have been practically such a very discreditable
episode in the history of the race. I doubt if this is altogether due to
the vulgar and sanguinary sensationalism of our religious legends, with
their substitution of gross physical torments and public executions for
the passion of humanity. Islam, substituting voluptuousness for torment
(a merely superficial difference, it is true) has done no better. It
may have been the failure of Christianity to emancipate itself from
expiatory theories of moral responsibility, guilt, innocence, reward,
punishment, and the rest of it, that baffled its intention of changing
the world. But these are bound up in all philosophies of creation as
opposed to cosmism. They