the Republic, was never more than a partial and insincere
solution of the problem of popular government. The ancient politicians
aimed no higher than to diffuse power among a numerous class. Their
liberty was bound up with slavery. They never attempted to found a free
State on the thrift and energy of free labour. They never divined the
harder but more grateful task that constitutes the political life of
Christian nations.

By humbling the supremacy of rank and wealth; by forbidding the State to
encroach on the domain which belongs to God; by teaching man to love his
neighbour as himself; by promoting the sense of equality; by condemning
the pride of race, which was a stimulus of conquest, and the doctrine of
separate descent, which formed the philosopher's defence of slavery; and
by addressing not the rulers but the masses of mankind, and making
opinion superior to authority, the Church that preached the Gospel to
the poor had visible points of contact with democracy. And yet
Christianity did not directly influence political progress. The ancient
watchword of the Republic was translated by Papinian into the language
of the Church: "Summa est ratio quae pro religione fiat:" and for eleven
hundred years, from the first to the last of the Constantines, the
Christian Empire was as despotic as the pagan.

Meanwhile Western Europe was overrun by men who in their early home had
been Republicans. The primitive constitution of the German communities
was based on association rather than on subordination. They were
accustomed to govern their affairs by common deliberation, and to obey
authorities that were temporary and defined. It is one of the desperate
enterprises of historical science to trace the free institutions of
Europe and America, and Australia, to the life that was led in the
forests of Germany. But the new States were founded on conquest, and in
war the Germans were commanded by kings. The doctrine of
self-government, applied to Gaul and Spain, would have made Frank and
Goth disappear in the mass of the conquered people. It needed all the
resources of a vigorous monarchy, of a military aristocracy, and of a
territorial clergy, to construct States that were able to last. The
result was the feudal system, the most absolute contradiction of
democracy that has coexisted with civilisation.

The revival of democracy was due neither to the Christian Church nor to
the Teutonic State, but to the quarrel between them. The ef