a settlement for training persons for social work in a religious spirit, suggested to more than one of those who took part in the course, how similar is the task which now lies before us in international affairs to that which Canon Barnett initiated thirty years ago for the treatment of the social question at home. We need in both cases to associate ourselves mentally with others in order to realize the common elements which underlie the seeming diversity in the civilization of the West. The method of the course was primarily historical, though certain essays have been added of a more idealist type. It is hoped that the point of view suggested, though prompted by current events, may be found to have some permanent value. It could obviously be applied to many other aspects of European life, e. g. morality and politics, to which conditions of space have only permitted indirect reference to be made in this volume. F. S. M. By J. A. SMITH, Waynflete Professor of 122 By W. M. GELDART, Vinerian Professor of VI. THE COMMON ELEMENTS IN EURO- By the Rev. Dr. A. J. CARLYLE, University 162 By L. T. HOBHOUSE, White Professor of PAGE X. INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIAL LEGIS- By CONSTANCE SMITH, Sometime British XIII. RELIGION AS A UNIFYING INFLUENCE By H. G. WOOD, late Fellow of Jesus College, ANALYSIS CHAPTER I. THE GROUNDS OF UNITY The appeal to history. Previous great schisms in Europe which have been surmounted give hope for the present. The Reformation. The Napoleonic Wars. The two points of view. (1) Man's nature itself tending to unity through conflict. (2) The stages in the process developed in history. In pre-history conflict and diversity are predominant, though the necessities of life prescribe certain uniformities. Consolidation comes in favoured physical conditions, especially great riverbasins like the Nile and the Euphrates. The possibility of a world-unity first consciously envisaged in the Greco-Roman world. Greece gives unity in thought, Rome in practice. Order with a solid intellectual foundation established with the Roman Empire. In the mediaeval world a unity mainly spiritual is reached in the same framework. The position of Germany in this development. The break-up of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. The enlargement of the known world and the growth of wealth and knowledge. This crisis still continues and has been recently accentuated by the birth-throes of nationalities. The supreme problem for international unity is now the reconciliation of national units with the interests of the whole. Underneath the superficial turmoil the great unifying forces of science and of common sentiments continue to grow and will ultimately prevail. CHAPTER II. UNITY IN PREHISTORIC TIMES Retrospect of the search for unity in man's affairs, in its political and scientific bearings. The Unity of Man as an Animal Species. Ancient beliefs, doubts suggested by the practice of slavery, their solution, and the modern conception of a 'Human Family '. The unity of man as a rational animal struggling against nature for subsistence. Archaeological evidence as to the reasonableness of primitive culture on its material side; doubts raised by man's irrational' barbarities' on the social plane. Lévy Bruhl's hypothesis of a 'savage logic' and the Greek analysis of wrongdoing as rooted in ignorance. Man's struggle with Nature in the N.W. Quadrant of the Old World. Unity here not to be found in the Food Quest. Prehistoric Europe shows variety of regimens, hoe-agriculture, pastoral nomadism. The wheel and the plough and the composite bread and cheese culture. Race, Language, and Culture as Factors of Unity. The spread of the European Bread Culture is earlier than that of IndoEuropean Speech and probably than that of the Alpine' type of man. Race in Europe has led not to unity but to discord, and linguistic affinity does not ensure mutual intelligibility. CHAPTER III. THE CONTRIBUTION OF GREECE AND ROME Contemporary history is the only genuine and important history, the present is the only object of historical knowledge; what the present is and how, properly conceived, it gives history its unity and justifies the study of what is past (ancient history); all history is our history, and otherwise without meaning or value to us. The history of classical antiquity is the history of the youth of the modern world, of the formation of the now latent but still potent hopes, fears, designs, and thoughts which constitute the substratum of the European mind; how this still unites a divided Europe and affords a ground of hope for a restored and deepened union. Our debt to the Greeks: (a) the very notion of civilization, (b) the idea of its realization through knowledge, (c) the ideal of freedom as the inner spirit of true civilization. How the Greeks failed to work all this out in both theory and practice, and how nevertheless they taught their lesson to the world; the services of Greece to the world in the creation of Art, the Sciences, and Philosophy; the Greek ideal of a life beyond 'civilized' life, but rendered possible by it, and thus giving to civilized life a new and higher value; defects and merits of this ideal. The Romans are inheritors of all this; how, while making it more prosaic, they rendered it more practical and more effectually realized it. All this most visible in the Imperial period. The |