phasized the feminine virtues, and insisted upon the moral equality of the sexes. For the first time in the history of humanity it became possible for woman to take her place as the equal of man. But, although Christianity thus proclaimed principles necessary for the permanent advancement of woman, its first effect was unfortunately to lower her condition.1 Pagan legislation had gradually removed most of the disabilities under which she labored. Under that legislation her personal liberty, and proprietary rights, were greater than they ever were before, or ever have been since.2 This position was maintained as long as the Roman Law retained its vigor. Unfortunately for civilization, in the struggle between the secular and the ecclesiastical laws, the latter prevailed, and woman fell from her position of equality with man to one of abject inferiority. This was largely due to the spirit of asceticism.3 The Church by regarding celibacy as the perfect state, and marriage as simply the least objectionable deviation from it, introduced into all the holiest relations of domestic life an element of debasing sensualism. Woman was the temptress luring man from perfection. Concupiscence was the original sin. Through woman sin entered into the world, and she was, in the eyes of the patristic writers, an inferior being, who, in the language of Lecky, ought to be ashamed that she was woman. The necessary reaction from this unnatural and degrading position resulted in that improvement in the status of woman which everywhere accompanied, and was almost the vital principle of, the institution of chivalry. But the chivalric conception of woman, while lofty and elevating, was largely idealistic, and it is only in recent years that women have, in any material degree, recovered the social and civil liberties and rights lost in the decadence of the Roman Law.

With Plato and Aristotle, the strict conception of Justice was confined to the relations of citizens. Between the citizen

1 Lecky, History of European Morals.

2 Maine, Ancient Law.

3 Lecky, History of European Morals, II, p. 337.

and the alien, Justice could only be spoken of metaphorically.1 But the growth of commerce, the triumphs of Alexander, and the decay of Grecian civil life, tended to produce a more cosmopolitan spirit. That spirit found expression in the Stoical philosophy. The Stoics emphasizing the existence of a rational order, or law, in the universe, and holding morality to consist in a life in conformity with that law, taught that all duties to others, and the State itself, are the products of man's social or political nature. Further, they were unable to see in human nature any justification for the separation of mankind into hostile communities. They believed that all mankind should constitute one vast commonwealth, in which perfect equality should prevail. For the first time, the brotherhood and natural equality of men were distinctly enunciated. Thus, Stoicism was the expression of that Hellenic cosmopolitanism which, through the medium of the Roman Law, was to influence the whole future course of civilization.

In a cosmopolitan age, the sympathies of men are, of necessity, projected beyond the narrow bounds of a religious community. Social unity must then depend upon some other basis than religious unity. To that extent, the spirit of universalism has a tendency to weaken the religious feelings of men. The growth of classic atheism and scepticism was simultaneous with the growth of cosmopolitanism. But there were many causes operating to preserve the religious foundation of the State, and to prevent the complete rationalization of society. In the first place, the universalism of the age was an abstract one,2 a philosophic conception, chiefly confined to one class, with whom it was largely a matter of words. In the same way classic scepticism was almost completely limited to the cultured classes; the mass of the people continued devout believers in, or, at least, regular attendants on, the national and local religious rites; while even the atheistical regarded

1 Nic. Ethics, V, 6. 4.

2 Uhlhorn, Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism, bk. I, chap. I, § I.

those rites as useful to the State, and expedient for the commonalty.1 But especially powerful in this direction was the deification of the Caesars, which, by the creation of a great imperial cult, embracing all the people of the Empire, and in the formal observances of which every citizen, learned and ignorant alike, might join, was amply sufficient for all the needs of the age. It supplied, side by side with the greatest diversity of local cults, a species of religious unity for the entire civilized world, and the Jews, the only people who refused adhesion to it, were also the only people who remained a perfectly separate and distinct race, hated and hating, viewed with suspicion and distrust, and visited with violent persecutions whenever they openly refused conformity to the edicts of the Emperors.

The era of the Renaissance was also an age of cosmopolitanism. Among the many causes which contributed to bind the European peoples in a closer union, may be enumerated a common origin; similar languages, especially the common Latin tongue of the clergy and the literati everywhere; the long religious union under the authority of the Papacy; the growth of international trade, and the increased refinement of manners and character due to a higher culture, greater intercourse, the institution of chivalry, and a religion of peace. The intellectual activity which always accompanies a period of sudden growth, permeated all classes, and turned with special force to the investigation of theological questions. The schism of the

1 Uhlhorn, Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism, bk. I, chap. I, § 2; Lecky, History of European Morals, vol. I, p. 167: "The atheistic enthusiasm of Lucretius, and the sceptical enthusiasm of some of the disciples of Carneades, were isolated phenomena, and the great majority of ancient philosophers, while speculating with the utmost freedom in private, or in writings that were only read by the few, countenanced, practiced, and even defended the religious rites that they despised. . . . Varro openly professed that there are religious truths which it is expedient that the people should not know, and falsehoods which they should believe to be true. The Academic Cicero and the Epicurean Caesar were both high officers of religion. The Stoics taught that every man should duly perform the religious ceremonies of his country."

...

Reformation divided Europe into hostile camps; nation was separated from nation, town from town, brother from brother, on points of religious belief; the religious unity of Christendom was destroyed; but the spirit of universalism, no longer a mere abstract sentiment, was too firmly established to be easily extinguished. For a time, indeed, chaos reigned; all sense of moral responsibility seemed to vanish from public affairs; the speculative opinions of Machiavelli found their counterpart in the daily practices of statesmen; but, little by little, men were compelled to recognize that they are united by other bonds than religion alone, that it is possible for them to associate together even when sundered by matters of belief, while the granting of religious toleration showed that States may continue to exist even when divided upon questions of faith.

To the Jurists is due the recognition of a rational foundation for all human association. This they found in the revived Roman Law and the Stoic conception of a common humanity and a Law of Nature. Hobbes and Spinoza first elaborated the Law of Nature into a complete social theory. Seeing clearly that natural rights and natural powers are identical, perceiving also that, in primitive ages, a state of war is the normal condition of mankind, and that, in such ages, peace is the exception established by positive convention, they posited, as the original state of the human race, a pre-social period of absolute anarchy, and regarded society as an association of forbearance, originating in a mutual agreement wherein individuals, for the sake of peace, covenanted to abstain from the exercise of certain of their natural rights on condition that others would do likewise. This idea of a social contract was the dominant theory of the last century and was in perfect accord with the rationalistic tendencies of the Age of Enlightenment; but it is wholly foreign to the scientific attitude of the present century. From the point of view of science, society is not an accidental or artificial thing; it is not a mere mass of individuals; it is an organism possessing life, energy, and growth. This conception of society, as an organism, has

been extremely useful in checking crude and unwise attempts at reform, but it seems to have already reached the limit of its usefulness; its services have been negative, and all attempts. to push it further, and to obtain from it positive results, have only led to absurdities and ridiculous analogies. After all, society is not an organism in the same sense that an oyster, or even a man, is one; it is an organism only in the sense that it is a necessary and natural growth, an organism served by subsidiary organisms, apart from which it has no powers whatever; to say that it thinks, wills, and acts, is absolutely meaningless, except as an expression for the sum of the thoughts, volitions, and actions of its individual members. Society is an organism by analogy, as an intellectual aid to our fuller understanding of its nature; but idle attempts to determine its head and its hands, its brain and its nervous system, can scarcely be expected to advance our knowledge of social conditions. Before any further advance can be made, some other and higher conception must be reached, some conception more adequate to all social problems, and by the aid of which we can more fully understand the nature of society.1

2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL.

The social group, whether city, or clan, or family, and not the individual, was the chief object of concern in the ancient

1 Ritchie, Principles of State Interference, p. 49: "The truth is that society (or the State) is not an organism because we may compare it to a beast or a man ; but because it cannot be understood by the help of any lower, i.e., less complex conceptions than that of organism. In it as in an organism every part is conditioned by the whole. In a mere aggregate or heap the units are prior to the whole; in an organism the whole is prior to the parts-i.e., they can only be understood in reference to the whole; but because the conception of an organism is more adequate to society than the conception of an artificial compound, it does not follow that it is fully adequate. We have just seen that a one-sided application of organic growth leads to difficulties as well as the conception of artificial making. These we can only escape by recognizing a truth which includes them both. We must pass from organism' to 'consciousness,' from Nature to the spirit of man."