EUROPEAN MORALS.
VOL. I.'








HISTORY
OF
EUROPEAN MORALS
FROM
A UG USTUS TO CHARLEMAGNE.
B3Y,
WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY, M.A.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
NEW YORK:,D. APPLETON  AND COMPANY,
549 & 551 BROADWAY.
1873.








PREFACE.
THE QUESTIONS with which an historian of Morals is
chiefly concerned, are the changes that have taken place
in the moral standard and in the moral type. By the
first, I understand the degrees in which, in different ages,
recognised virtues have been enjoined and practised.
By the second, I understand the relative importance that
in different ages has been attached to different virtues.
Thus, for example, a Roman of the age of Pliny, an
Englishman of the age of Henry VIII., and an Englishman of our own day, would all agree in regarding
humanity as a virtue, and its opposite as a vice; but
their judgments of the acts which are compatible with a
humane disposition would be widely different. A humane man of the first period might derive a keen enjoyment from those gladiatorial games, whiclh an Englishman, even in the days of the Tudors, would regard as
atrociously barbarous; and this last would, in his turn,
acquiesce in many sports which would now  be emphatically condemned. And, in addition to this clhange
of standard, there is a continual change in the order
of precedence which is given to virtues.  Patriotism,
chastity, charity, and humlility are examples of virtues
each of which has in some ages been brought forward
as of the most supreme and transcendent importance,
and the very basis of a virtuous character; and, in other




PREFACE.
ages, been thrown into the background, and reckoned
among the minor graces of a noble life. The heroic
virtues, the amiable virtues, and what are called more
especially the religious virtues, form distinct groups, to
which, in different periods, different degrees of prominence have been assigned; and the nature, causes, and
consequences of these changes in the moral type are
among the most important branches of history.
In estimating, however, the moral condition of an age,
it is not sufficient to examine the ideal of moralists.  It
is necessary also to enquire how far that ideal has been
realised among the people. The corruption of a nation
is often reflected in the indulgent and selfish ethics of
its teachers; but it sometimes produces a reaction, and
impels the moralist to an asceticism which is the extreme
opposite of the prevailing spirit of society. The means
which moral teachers possess of acting upon their fellows
vary greatly in their nature and efficacy, and the age of
the highest moral teaching is often not that of the highest
general level of practice. Sometimes we find a kind of
aristocracy of virtue, exhibiting the most refined excellence in their teaching and in their actions, but
exercising scarcely any.appreciable influence upon the
mass of the community.  Sometimes we find moralists
of a much less heroic order, whose influence has per.
meated every section of society.  In addition, therefore, to the type and standard of morals inculcated by
the teachers, an historian must investigate the realised
morals of the people.
The three questions I have now briefly indicated are
those which I have especially regarded in examining the
moral history of Europe between Augustus and Charlemagna.  As a preliminary to this enquiry, I have discussed at some length the rival theories concerning the




PREFACE.                      vii
nature and obligation of morals, and have also endeavoured
to show what virtues are especially appropriate to each
successive stage of civilisation, in order that we may
afterwards ascertain to what extent the natural evolution
has been affected by special agencies. I have then followed the moral history of the Pagan Empire, reviewing
the Stoical, the Eclectic, and the Egyptian philosophies,
that in turn flourished, showing in what respects they
were the products or expressions of the general condition
of society, tracing their influence in many departments of
legislation and literature, and investigating the causes of
the deep-seated corruption which baffled all the efforts
of emperors and philosophers.  The triumph of the
Christian religion in Europe next demands our attention.
In treating this subject, I have endeavoured, for the
most part, to exclude all consideatons ofj a purely thleological or controversial shiaracter, all discussions concerning the origin of the faith in Palestine, and concerning
the first type of its doctrine, and to regard the Church
simply in its aspect as a moral agent, exercising its influence in Europe.  Confining myself within these limits,
I have examined the manner in which the circumstances
of the Pagan Empire impeded or assisted its growth, the
nature of the opposition it had to encounter, the transformations it underwent under the influence of prosperity,
of the ascetic enthusiasm, and of the barbarian invasions,
and the many ways in which it determined the moral
condition of society.  The growing sense of the sanctity
of human life, the history of charity, the formation of the
legends of the hagiology, the effects of asceticism upon
civic and domestic virtues, the moral influence of monasteries, the ethics of the intellect, the virtues and vices of
the decaying Christian empire, and of the barbarian
kingdoms that replaced it, the gradual apotheosis of




viii                  PREFACE.
secular rank, and the first stages of that military Christianity which attained its climax at the Crusades, have
been all discussed with more or less detail; and I have
concluded my work by reviewing the changes that have
taken place in the position of women, and in the moral
questions connected with the relations of the sexes.
In investigating these numerous subjects, it has occasionally, though rarely, happened that my path- has
intersected that which I had pursued in a former work,
and in two or three instances I have not hesitated to
repeat facts to which I had there briefly referred. I have
thought that such a course was preferable to presenting
the subject shorn of some material incident, or to falling
into what has always the appearance of an unpleasing
egotism, by appealing unnecessarily to my own writings.
Although the history of the period I have traced has
never, so far as I am aware, been written from exactly
the point of view which I have adopted, I have, of
course, been for the most part moving over familiar
ground, which has been often and ably investigated; and
any small originality that may be found in this work
must lie, not so much in the facts which have been exhumed, as in the manner in which they have been grouped,
and in the significance that has been ascribed to them.
I have endeavoured to acknowledge the more important
works from which I have derived assistance; and if I
have not always done so, I trust the reader will ascribe
it to the great multitude of the special histories relating
to the subjects I have treated, to my unwillingness to
overload my pages with too numerous references, and
perhaps, in some cases, to the difficulty which all who
have been much occupied with a single department of
history must sometimes hasve, in distinguishing the ideas




PREFACE.                    ix
which have sprung from their own reflections, from those
which have been derived from books.
There is one writer, however, whom I must especially
mention, for his name occurs continually in the following
pages, and his memory has been more frequently, and in
these later months more sadly, present to my mind than
any other. Brilliant and numerous as are the works of
the late Dean Mlilman, it was those only wvho had the
great privilege of his friendship who could fully realise
the amazing extent and variety of his knowledge; the
calm, luminous, and delicate judgment which he carried
into so many spheres; the inimitable grace and tact of his
conversation, coruscating with the happiest anecdotes,
and the brightest and yet the gentlest humour; and what
was perhaps more remarkable than any single faculty,
the admirable harmony and symmetry of his mind and
character, so free from all the disproportion, and eccentricity, and exaggeration, that sometimes make even
genius assume the form of a splendid disease. They can
never forget those yet higher attributes, which rendered
him so unspeakably reverent to all who knew him wellhis fervent love of truth, his wide tolerance, his large,
generous, and masculine judgments of men and things;
his almost instinctive perception of the good that is latent
in each opposing party, his disdain for the noisy triumphs
and the fleeting popularity of mere sectarian strife, the
fond and touching affection with which he dwelt upon,the images of the past, combining, even in extreme old
age, with the keenest and most hopeful insight into the
progressive movements of his time, and with a rare power
of winning the confidence and reading the thoughts of
the youngest about him. That such a writer should have
devoted himself to the department of history, which more
than any other has been distorted by ignorance, puerility,




X                  - PREFACE.
and dishonesty, I conceive to be one of the happiest facts
in English literature, and (though sometimes diverging
from his views) in many parts of the following work I
have largely availed myself of his researches.
I cannot conceal from myself that this book, if it should
have the fortune to find readers, may encounter much,
and probably angry, contradiction from different quarters
and on different grounds.  It is strongly opposed to a
school of moral philosophy which is at present extremely
influential in England, and in addition to the many faults
that may be found in its execution, its very plan must
nmake it displeasing to many.  Its subject necessarily
includes questions on which it is exceedingly difficult for
an English writer to touch, and the portion of history
with which it is concerned has been obscured by no
common measure of misrepresentation and passion. I
have endeavoured to carry into it a judicial impartiality,
and I trust that the attempt, however imperfect, may not
be wholly useless to my readers.
LONDON: Mar-ch 1869.




CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.
PAGE
Fundamental division of moral theories                          1
Necessity of imputing immoral consequences to false theories.    2
The Utilitarian Schlool
Mandeville....                                    6
Hobbes and his followers.......    7
Theological Utilitarians.                        14
Enlargement of the school by the recognition of benevolence  21
And by Hartley's doctrine of association.              23
How far selfish.....                       31
Objections to the School
From the common language and feelings of men...      34
From the impossibility of virtue bringing pleasure if practised
only with that end.....             36
From the separation of morals from all other means to enjoyment.......             38
Intuitive moralists do not deny the utility of virtue        40
The degrees of virtue and vice do not correspond to the degrees
of utility or the reverse......      41
Consequence of Acting on Utilitarian Princzples
Weakness of the doctrine of remote consequences..   43
Secret sins....                                       44
Sins of imagination.......  46
Infanticide.........   46
Cruelty to animals..   *.                   47




>ii                      CONTENTS OF
PAGE
Recent Utilitarian views on this subject...   48
Chastity.......      51
Love of truth..                      52
Utilitarian Sanctions
Theological Utilitarianism makes the'goodness of God' an unmeaning term....                           55
Destroys a chief argument for a future life..55
Subverts natural religion.....     55 56
How far Supreme excellence is conducive to happiness.   59
The suffering caused by vice not proportioned to its criminality   63
The rewards and punishments of conscience.. 64
Nature of obligations.                                       66
The best men seldom the happiest...           70
Summary of objections....   70
Cause of the attraction of Utilitarianism..             72
Ambiguity of the term inductive as applied to morals.       75
lntuitive School
Doctrines of Butler, Adam Smith, Cudworth, Clarke, Vollaston,
Hutcheson, Henry More, Reid, Hume, and Lord Kames   77-79
The analogies of beauty and virtue....   79
Their differences.....                   84
Illustrations of the distinction between the higher and lower
parts of our nature..                                      85
Ethical importance of this distinction...      93
Alleged Diversities of M.oral. Judgment
Are frequently due to intellectual causes.-Usury and abortion   94
Distinction between natural duties and those resting on positive law.                                                 9......   95
Ancient customs canonised by time.-On women drinking wine    95
Confused association of ideas.-Admiration for conquerors.   96
Calvinistic ethics.....   98
Persecution...                                    100
Antipathy to free inquiry..                           101
General moral principles alone revealed by intuition..  102
The moral unity of different ages is therefore a unity not of
standard, but of tendency... 103
Application of this to the history of benevolence.. 103
Utilitarian objections which it answers..                   104
Intuitive morals not unnprogressive..                      105
Sketch of the history of chastity.                          106
Answers to miscellaneous objections...        112
The standard, though not the essence, of virtue determined by
the condition of society...... 113
Occasional duty of sacrificing higher principles to lower ones   114
The difficulty of finding a fixed rule for these cases applies to
the Utilitarian as well as his opponent... 120




THE FIRST VOLUME.                         xiii
PAGE
Summary of the relations of virtue and interest..    121
Two senses of the word natural.                  123
The ethics of savages.......        125
Each of the Two Schools of l~orals related to the General Condition
of Society
Their relations to metaphysical schools.....  127
To the Baconian philosophy.-Contrast between ancient and
modern civilisation.                                     130
Practical consequences of each school...         133
Th/e Ocrder in which Moral Feelings are developed
Decline of ascetic and saintly qualities....   136
Growth of the gentler virtues.-Relation of the imagination
to benevolence..                                        137
Callous and vindictive cruelty..                     140
Indulgent judgments towards criminals.                  141
Moral enthusiasms appropriate to different stages of civilisation  142
Growth of veracity-industrial, political, and philosophical 143-146
Theological influences have retarded the last.              146
The thrifty and the speculating character.          146, 147
Forethought........ 147
Decline of reverence..... 148
Fenmale virtue..                                      150
Influenced by climate..                          1502 151
By large towns......           152
By tardy marriages... 153
Each stage of civilisation is specially appropriate to some
virtues.......                   1054
Relations of intellectual to moral progress                  156
The moral standard of most men lower in political than in
private judgments.....                     158
National vices.                                         159
Qualities of corporations..              ~.. 160
French and English types....                   160
The manner in which virtues are grouped.... 161
Rudimentary virtues.......    162
All characters cannot be moulded into one type..      163
Concluding remarks on moral types.                      163-168
CHAPTER II.
THE PAGAN EMPIRE.
Pagan religion had little influence on morals.              169
Greek scepticism........ 169
Its extension to Rome-Opinions of the philosophers.  170-175




xiv                      CONTENTS OF
PAGE
Roman religion never a source of moral enthusiasm... 176
Inroad of luxury........ 177
Growth of astrological fatalism..                        179
Philosophers the true moral teachers....  180
Epicureanism and Stoicism the expression of different types of
character                                                  181
Military and patriotic enthusiasm formed in Rome the Stoical
type........181
The predisposition strengthened by the prominence of biography in all moral teaching...                         183
Epicureanism never became a school of virtue in Rome.       184
Its function destructive....              185-186
Stoicism
Its two essentials.-The unselfish ideal, and the subjugation of
the affections to the reason.... 186
The first due to patriotism, the most unselfish of enthusiasms.  187
Four possible motives of virtue..                  187
Stoicism the best example of the perfect severance of virtue
and interest.......    190
Stoics disregarded or disbelieved a future world.    191-193
Taught men to sacrifice reputation.... 194
Distinguished the obligation from the attraction of virtue. 196
The second characteristic, the repression of the desires     197
Deliberate virtue the most estimable-impulsive virtue the
most attractive..                         198
Doctrine of Seneca concerning Pity.... 199
Evil consequences resulting from the suppression of the emotions  201
Hardness of character..                          202
Love of paradox...:....      202
Many noted Stoics whose lives were very imperfect            203
Stoicism unfitted for common characters..    204
Its high sense of the natural virtue of man and of the power
of his will..205
Recognition of Providence.....   209
The habits of public life saved Stoics from quietism. 210
Contemplation of death.-Bacon's objection to the Stoics. 213
The literature of' Consolations'.                    215
Death not regarded as penal.... 216
Pagan death-beds........ 216
Distinction between the Pagan and Christian conceptions of death  219
Suicide..... 223
Grandeur of the Stoical ideal..             23
Recapitulation....... 235
Contrast between the austerity of Roman Stoicism  and the
luxury of Roman society.....      238
Growth oJ a Gentler and more Cosmopolitan Spirit in Rome
Due first of all to the union of the Greek and Roman civilisations.-Gentleness of the Greek character...       240




THE FIRST VOLUME.                        xv
PAGE
Greek cosmopolitanism due to philosophical criticism and to
the career of Alexander                                  242
Extent of Greek influence at Rome                           243
The destruction of the power of the aristocracy also strengthened
a cosmopolitan spirit.                                   241
So did the aggrandisement of the colonies, the attraction of many
foreigners to Rome, and the increased facilities for travelling  246
Foreigners among the most prominent of Latin writers.. 247
Multitude of emancipated slaves...                  248
Roman legislators endeavoured to consolidate the Empire by
admitting the conquered to the privileges of the conquerors  251
Stoicism proved quite capable of representing the cosmopolitan
spirit                                                   252
But not equally so of representing the softening spirit of the age  255
Rise of Eclectic Moralists
Comparison of Plutarch and Seneca                           256
Influence of the new spirit on the Stoics..       258
Stoicism became more religious                              259
And more introspective. —History of the practice of selfexamination                                      2.. 61
Marcus Aurelius the best example of later Stoicism. —IIis
life and character....                    263
The People still very corrupt.-Causes of the Corritption
Decadence of all the conditions of republican virtue.   271
Effects of the Imperial system  on morals-the apotheosis of
emperors......            272
Moral consequences of slavery.-Increase of idleness and demoralising employments.                                 277
And of sensuality                                           278
Decline of public spirit                                    279
Universal empire prevented the political interaction which in
modern nations sustains national life... 280
History of the decline of agricultural pursuits and habits    281
And of military virtue                                      284
The gladiatorial shows-their origin and history..     287
Their effects upon the theatre. 293
Nature of their attraction.                              29'
Horrible excesses they attained                             297
The manner in which their influence pervaded Roman life     299
How they were regarded by moralists and historians          301
The passion for them not inconsistent with humanity in other
spheres........             3G5
Efects of Stoicism on the Corruption of Society
First, it raised up many good emperors.... 3C9
Second, it produced a noble opposition under the worst emperors......... 310




Zvi                       CONTENTS OF
PAGB
Third, it greatly extended Roman law...            312
Roman law adopted the stoical conception of a law of nature
to which it must conform.... 312
Its principles of equity derived from Stoicism.. 313
Change in the relation of Romans to provincials.. 315
Changes in domestic legislation....        315
Slavery-its three stages at Rome. Review of the condition
of slaves........ 318
Opinions of philosophers about slavery..                     324
Laws in favour of slaves..... 32
Stoics as consolers of the suffering, advisers of the young,
and popular preachers...... 327
The later Cynics an offshoot of Stoicism.... 328
Stoical Rhetoricians.                    329
Maximus of Tyr..... 331
Dion Chrysostom......      331
Aulus Gellius, the best chronicler of the Rhetoricians-comnpared with tIelvetius.....          332
Rapid decadence of Stoicism.       336
Passion for Oriental Religions
Mysticism partly a reaction against the disputations of the
Rhetoricians-Modern parallels... 337
Partly due to the increasing prominence given by moralists to
the emotions.......        338
And partly to the influx of Oriental slaves, and the increasing
importance of Alexandria.                                 338
But chiefly to a natural longing for belief... 339
The Platonic and Pythagorean schools..... 340
Plutarch's defence of the ancient creeds.... 340
Maximus of Tyr pursues the same course.... 341
Apuleius.......... 343
Contrast of the Greek and Egyptian spirits.... 344
Difference between the stoical and the Egyptian pantheism. 345
Neoplatonism
Destroys active virtue and a critical spirit.... 350
The doctrine of dsemons supersedes the stoical naturalism. 351
New doctrine concerning suicide.                             351
Increasing belief in another life......  351
Fusion of philosophy with religion....    352
Summary of the whole chapter....  352-356
CHAPTER III.
THE CONVERSION OF ROME.
Unconsciousness of the moral importance of Christianity manifested by pagan writers....... 357
Due to the separation in antiquity of religion and morals. 359,,,,  "` ""r"""'  ^~"^"T~`"J  "^"^




THE FIRST VOLUME.                         xvii
PAGE
Three popular errors concerning the conversion of Rome       360
Examiiation of the Theory which ascribes Part of the TeacGhing
of the later. Pagan Mlqforalists to Christian Influence
Two opinions in the early Church concerning the pagan
writings....... 364
The' seminal logos'                                         365
Pagan writings supposed to be plagiarisms from the Old Testament, or to be receptacles of demoniacal traditions       367
But these theories were applied only to the ancient Greek
writers, and not to contemporary moralists                368
Thleor?,/  which attributes the Conversion of the Empire to the
Evidences of iiracles
To estimate this it is necessary to review the causes of the
belief in miracles                                         368
Rapid decline of the belief.                                368
Miracles not impossible......        369
Established by much evidence                                 369
The histories of them always decline with education          370
Illustrated by the belief in fairies...            370
First conception of the universe formed by the savage —he
regards the whole world as governed by isolated acts of
intervention                                               371
Latent fetishism.                                          372
Feebleness of the imafgination a source of legends-myths     372
Miraculous stories the natural expression of a certain theory
of the universe. 373
Education destroys these stories by teaching men to exact
greater severity of proof....... 373
By strengthening their power of abstraction, and thus closing
the age of myths...    75
By physical science, which establishes the reign of law      375
Three ways in which physical science affect-s the belief in
miracles......                      376
Theological notions about rain and epidemics.                378
Sphere of inductive reasoning in theology                   379
Commnon error in reasoning about mniracles.  84
In some states of society this predisposition towards the nliraculous is so strong as to accumulate round legends more
evidence than is required to establish even improbable natural facts                                               385
Illustrations of this fronm clivination, witchcraft, and the king's
evil                                                       386
State of opinion on this subject in the Ronian Empire.. 388
Extreme credulity even in matters of natural history.. 393
Great increase of credulity through the influence of Egyptian
philosophyl-miracles of the Pythagorean school..    96
Attitude of Christians towards the pagan miracles.          397
2




xviii        CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
PAGH
Incapacity of the Christians of the third century for judging
historic miracles                                         399
Or for judging prophecies-the Sibylline books... 400
Contemporary Christian miracles-exorcism.                  401
Much despised by the pagans...                   407
On the whole, neither past nor contemporary Christian miracles
had much weight upon the pagans.                        409
The progress of Christianity due to tlhe disintegration of old
religions, and the thirst for belief which was general.. 410
Singular adaptation of Christianity to the wants of the time. 412
Heroism it inspired........ 415
The conversion of the Roman Empire easily explicable.. 418
The Persecution the Chzurch underwcent not of a N'ature to crush it
Persecution may have many causes..... 420
Review of the religious policy of Rome.... 423
Reasons why the Christians were more persecuted than the
Jews.                                              433
The religious motive of persecution was the belief that calamities were a consequence of the neglect of the gods.. 433
History of this belief........ 434
Political persecutions.                                     438
Charges of immorality brought against Christians..      440
Due in a great measure to the Jews and heretics..      442
The disturbance of domestic life caused by female conversions  444
Antipathy of the Romans to every system  which employed
religious terrorism........ 447
Christian intolerance of pagan worship.                     449
And of diversity of belief...... 454
These causes fully explain the persecution of the Christians. 455
U[istory of the Persecutions
Persecution by Nero.                            456
By Domitian.                                             459
Condition of the Christians under the Antonines.        461
After Marcus Aurelius, Christianity became a great political
power......... 470
Attitude of the rulers towards it, from M. Aurelius to Decius. 470
Condition of the Church at the eve of the Decian persecution. 477
Horrors of the persecution...                      478
The catacombs........ 481
Troubles under Gallus and Valerian-Gallienus proclaims toleration.........    483
Cyprian to Demetrianus.                              484
Almost unbroken peace till Diocletian.                     486
His character and persecution.. 487
Galerius......             488
Close of the persecutions... 492
General considerations on their history.. 493




HISTORY
OF'EUROPEAN MORALS.
CHAPTER I.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.
A BRIF INQUIRY into the nature and foundations of morals
appears an obvious, and, indeed, almost an indispensable
preliminary, to any examination of the moral progress of
Europe. UTnfortunately, however, such an inquiry is beset
with serious difficulties, arising in part from the extreme
multiplicity of detail which systems of moral philosophy
present, and in part from  a fundamental antagonism of
principles, dividing them into two opposing groups. The
great controversy, springing from the rival claims of intuition and utility to be regarded as the supreme regulator
of moral distinctions, may be dimly traced in the division
between Plato and Aristotle; it appeared more clearly in
the division between the Stoics and the Epicureans; but
it has only acquired its full distinctness of definition, and
the importance of the questions depending on it has only
been fully appreciated, in modern times, under the influence
of such writers as Cudworth, Butler and Clarke upon the
one side, and Hobbes, HIelvetius, and Bentham on the other.




2          HISTORY OF E UROPEAN MORALS.
Independently of the broad intellectual difficulties which
mlust be encountered in treating this question, there
is a difficulty of a personal kind, which it may be advisable at once to imeet. There is a disposition in some
moralists to resent, as an imputation against their own
clharacters, any charge of immoral consequences that may
be brought against the principles they advocate. Now it
is a peculiarity of this controversy that every moralist is
compelled, by the very nature of the case, to bring such
charges against the opinions of his opponents.  The business of a moral philosophy is to account for and to justify
our moral sentiments, or in other words, to show how we
come to have our notions of duty, and to supply us with a
reason for acting upon them.  If it does this adequately,
it is impregnable, and therefore a moralist, who repudiates
one system is called upon to show that, accordingo to its
principles, the notion of duty, or the motives for per16rminug it, could never have been generated.  The Utilitarian accuses his opponent of basing the entire system of
mlorals on a faculty that has no existence, of adopting
a principle that would make moral duty vary with the
latitude and the epoch, of resolving all ethics into an
idle sentiment.  The intuitive moralist, for reasons I
shall hereafter explain, believes that the Utilitarian theory
is profoundly immoral.  But to suppose that either of
these charges extends to the character of the moralist
is altogether to misconceive the position whlich moral
theories actually hold in life.  Our moral sentiments
do not flow from, but 1ong precede our ethical systems;
and it is usually only after our characters have been
fully formed that we begin to reason about them.  It
is both possible and very common for the reasoning to
be very defective, without any corresponding imperfection
in the disposition of the man.
The two rival theories of morals are known by many




THE NATrURtAL HISTORY OF MORALS.            3
names, and are subdivided into many groups.  One of
them  is generally described as the stoical, the intuitive,
the independent or the sentimental; the otler as the
epicurean, the inductive, the'utilitarian, or the selfish. The
moralists of the former school, to state their opinions in
the broadest form, believe that we have a natural power
of perceiving that some qualities, such as benevolence,
chastity, or veracity, are better than others, and tlat we
ought' to cfltivate them, and to repress their opposites.
In other words, they contend, that by the constitution of
our nature, the notion of right carries with it a feeling of
obligation; that to say a course of conduct is our duty, is
in itself, and apart froma all consequences,an intelligible and
sufficient reason for practising it; and that we derive the
first principles of our duties fronm intuition.  The moralist of the opposite school denies that we have any such
natural perception. He maintains that we have by nature
absolutely no knowledge of merit and demerit, of the comparative excellence of our feelings and lactions, and that
we derive these notions solely from an observation of the
course of life which is conducive to human happiness.
That which makes actions good is, that they increase the
happiness or diminish the pains of mankind. That which
constitutes their demerit is their opposite tendency.  To
procure' the greatest happiness for the greatest number,'
is therefore the highest aim of tle moralist, the supreme
type and expression of virtue.
It is manifest, however, that this last school, if it proceeded no further than I have stated, would have failed
to accomplish the task which every moralist must undertake.  It is easy to understand that experience may show
that certain actions are conducive to the happiness of marnkindl, and that these actions may in consequence be regarded as supremely excellent. The question still remains,




4            HISTORY  OF EUROPEAN 3{MORALS.
why we are bound to perform them. If men, who believe
that virtuous actions are those which experience shows to
be useful to society, believe also that they are under a
natural obligation to seek the happiness of others, rather
than their own, when the two interests conflict, they have
certainly no claim to the title of inductive moralists. They
recognise a moral faculty, a natural sense of moral obligation or duty as truly as Butler or as Cudworth.  And,
indeed, a position very similar to this has been adopted by
several intuitive moralists.  Thus Hutcheson, who is the
very founder in modern times of the doctrine of' a moral
sense,' and who has defended the disinterested character
of virtue more powerfully than perhaps any other moralist,
resolved all virtue into benevolence, or the pursuit of the
happiness of others; but he maintained that the excellence and  obligation of benevolence are revealed to us
by a' moral sense.'  Hume, in like manner, pronounced
utility to be the criterion and essential element of all virtue; but he asserted that our pursuit of virtue is unselfish,
and that it springs from a natural feeling of approbation or
disapprobation distinct from  reason, and produced by a
peculiar sense, or taste, which rises up within us at the
contemplation of virtue or of vice.' A similar doctrine has
1 The opinions of Hume on moral questions are grossly misrepresented by
many writers, who persist in describing them as substantially identical with
those of Bentham. How far Hume was from denying the existence of a
moral sense, the following passages will show: —' The final sentence, it is
probable, which pronounces characters and actions amiable or odious,
praiseworthy or blameable.. depends on some internal sense or feeling
which nature has made universal in the whole species.'-Enquiry Concerning Morals, ~ 1.' The hypothesis we embrace... defines virtue to be
whatever mental action or quality gives to the spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation.'-Ibid. Append. I.'The crime or immorality is no
particular fact or relation which can be the object of the understanding but
arises entirely from the sentiment of disapprobation, which, by the structure
of human nature, we unavoidably feel on the apprehension of barbarity or
treachery.'-Ibid.'Reason instructs us in the several tendencies of actions,
and humanity males a distinction in favour of those which are useful




THE NATURAL HISTORY  OF MORALS.                    5
more recently been advocated by Mackintosh.  A theory
of morals must explain not only what constitutes duty,
but also how we obtain the notion of there being such a
thing as duty.  It must tell us not merely what is the
course of conduct we ought to pursue, but also what is
the meaning of this word'ought,' and from  wlhat source
we derive the idea it expresses.
Those who have undertaken to  prove  that all our
morality is a product of experience, have not shrunk
from  this task, and have boldly entered upon the one
path that was open to them.  The notion of there being
any such feeling as an original sense of obligation distinct
from the anticipation of pleasure or pain, they treat as a:lere illusion of the imagination.  All that is meant by
saying we ought to do an action is, that if we do not do
it, we shall suffer.  A desire to obtain happiness and to
avoid pain is the only possible motive to action. The
reason, and the only reason, why we should perform  virtuous actions, or in other words, seek the good of others,
is that on the whole such a course will bring us the
greatest amolunt of happiness.
We have here then a general statement of the doctrine
which bases morals upon experience.  If we ask what
constitutes virtuous, and what vicious actions, we are told
that the first are those which increase the happiness or
diminish the pains of mankind; and the second are those
which have the opposite effect.  If we ask what is the
and beneficial.'-Ibid.   As virtue is an end, and is desirable on its own
account without fee or reward, merely for the immediate satisfaction it conveys, it is requisite that there should be some sentiment which it touches,
some internal taste or feeling, or whatever you please to call it, which distinguishes moral good and evil, and which embraces the one and rejects
the other.'-Ibid. The two writers to whom Hume was most indebted were
Hutcheson and Butler. In some interesting letters to the former (Burton's
Life of lezec, vol. i.), he discusses the points on which he differed from
them.




6            IHISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
motive to virtue, we are told that it is an enlightened
self-interest.  The words happiness, utility, and interest
include, however, many different kinds of enjoyment, and
have given rise to many different modifications of the
theory.
Perhaps the lowest and  most repulsive form  of this
theory is that which was propounded by Mandeville, in
his' Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue.' 1  According to this writer, virtue sprang in the first instance from
the cunning of rulers.  These, in  order to govern men,
found it necessary to persuade them   that it was a noble
thinlg to restrain, instead of indulging their passions, and
to devote  themselves entirely to  the good of the community.  The manner in which they attained this end was
by acting  upon  the feeling  of vanity.  They persuaded
men that human nature was something nobler than the
nature of animals, and that devotion to the community
rendered a man pre-eminently great.   By statues, and
titles, and honours; by continually extolling suchi  men as
Regulus  or Decius;  by  representing  those  who  were
addicted to useless enjoyments as a low  and despicable
class, they at last so inflamed  the vanity of men as to
kindle an intense emulation, and inspire the most heroic
1'The chief thing therefore which lawgivers and other wise men that
have laboured for the establishment of society have endeavoured, has been
to make the people they were to govern believe that it was more beneficial
for everybody to conquer than to indulge his appetites, and much better to
mind the public than what seemed his private interest... observing that
none were either so savage as not to be charmed with praise, or so despicable
as patiently to bear contempt, they justly concluded that flattery must be
the most powerful argument that could be used to human creatures.
Making use of this bewitching engine, they extolled the excellency of our
nature above other animals... by the help of which we were capable of
performing the most noble, achievements. Having, by this artful flattery,
insinuated themselves into the hearts of men, they began to instruct them
in the nations of honour and shame, &c.' — Enquiry into the Origin of Moral
ITri.tue.




TIHE NATURAL.I-IISTOTRY OF MORALS.        7
actions.  And soon new influences came into play. Men
who began by restraining their passions, in order to
acquire the pleasure of the esteem of others, found that
this restraint saved them from many painful consequences
that would have naturally ensued from  over-indulgence,
and this discovery became a new motive to virtue. Each
member of the community moreover found that he himself
derived benefit from the self-sacrifice of others, and also
that when he was seeking his own interest, without regard
to others, no persons stood so mluch in his way as those
who were similarly employed, and he had thus a double
reason for diffusing abroad the notion of the excellence of
self-sacrifice.  The result of'all this was that men agreed
to stigmatise under the termI'vice' whatever was injurious, and to eulogise as' virtue' whatever was beneficial
to society.
The opinions of Mandcleville attracted, when they were
published, an attention greatly beyond their intrinsic merit,
but they are now sinking rapidly into deserved oblivion.  The author, in a poem  called the' Fable of the
Bees,' and in comments attached to it, himself advocated
a thesis altogether inconsistent with that I have described, maintaining that'private vices were public
benefits,' and endeavouring, in a long series of very feeble
and sometimes very grotesque arguments, to prove tlat
vice was in the highest degree beneficial to mankind.  A
far greater writer had however already framed a scheme
of morals which, if somewhat less repulsive, was in no
degree less selfish than that of Mandeville; and the
opinions of Hiobbes concerning the essence and origin of
virtue, have, with no very great variations, been adopted
by what may be termed the narrower school of IUtilitarians.
According to these writers we are  governed exclu



8            HIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
sively by our own interest.1 Pleasure is the only good,>
and moral good and moral evil mean nothing  more than
our voluntary  conformity  to  a law  that will bring it to
us.3   To  love  good simply  as  good, is  an  impossi1'I conceive that when a man deliberates whether le shall do a thin"r
or not do it, he does nothing else but consider whether it be better for
himself to do it or not to do it.' —Hobbes On Liberty and Necessity.' Good
and evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions.' —Ibid. Leviathan,
part i. ch. xvi.' Obligation is the necessity of doing or omitting any action
in order to be happy.'-Gay's dissertation prefixed to King's Oriqin of Evil,
p. 36.'The only reason or motive by which individuals can possibly
be induced to the practise of virtue, must be the feeling immediate on the
prospect of future private happiness.'-Brown On the Claracteristics, p. 159.' En tout temps, en tout lieu, tant en matiere de morale qu'en matibre d'esprit,
c'est l'interet personnel qui dicte le jugement des particuliers, et l'int6ret
gne6ral qui dicte celui des nations.... Tout homme ne prend dans ses jugements conseil que de son int6ret.'-Helvetius  Le'Esprit, discours ii.' Nature
has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain
and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as
well as to determine what we shall do....  The principle of utility recognises this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system,
the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason
and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of
sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darlikness instead of light.'-Bentham's
Prin}ciples of Morals and Legislation, ch. i.  B13y the principle of utility is
meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or
diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question.'-Ibid.'Je regarde l'amour 6claire de nous-memes colllmme le principe de tout sacrifice morale.'-D'Alembert quoted by D. Stewart, Active and llJoral Powers,
vol. i. p. 220.
2'Pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from
pain, the only good; pain is in itself an evil, and, indeed, without exception,
the only evil, or else the words good and evil have no meaning.'-Bentham's
Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. x.  IIHappiness is the sole end of
human action, and the promotion of it the test by which to judge of all
human conduct.'-Mill's Utilitarianism, p. 58.
3' Good and evil are nothing but pleasure and pain, or that which occasions or procures pleasure or pain to us. Moral good and evil then is only
the conformity or disagreement of our voluntary actions to some law
whereby good or evil is drawn on us by the will and power of the law
maker, which good and evil, pleasure or pain, attending our observance or
breach of the law by the decree of the law maker, is that we call reward or
punishment.'-Locke's Essay, book ii. ch. xxviii.' Take away pleasures and
pains, not only happiness, but justice, and duty, and obligation, and virtue,




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                           9
bility.' When we speak of the goodness of God, we mean
only His goodness to us.2  Reverence is nothing more than
our conviction, that another who has power to do us both
good and harm, will only do us good.3   The pleasures of
piety arise from the belief that we are about to receive
pleasure, and  the pains of piety from  the  belief that we
are about to suffer pain from the Deity.4 Our very
affections, according to some of these writers, are all forms
of self-love.   Thus charity springs partly from  our desire
to obtain the esteem  of others, partly from  the expectation
that the favours we have bestowed will be reciprocated,
and partly, too, from the gratification of the sense of power,
by the proof that we can satisfy not only our own desires,
but also the desires of others.5   Pity is an  emotion  arisall of which have been so elaborately held up to view as independent
of them, are so many empty sounds.'- Bentham's Splrings of Action, i.
~ 15.
1'I lui est aussi impossible d'aimer le bien pour le bien, que d'aimer le
mal pour le mal.'-Helv6tius De l'Esprit, disc. ii. ch. v.
2  Even the goodness which we apprehend in God Almighty, is his goodness to us.'-HI-obbes On Human N7ature, ch. vii. ~ 3. So Waterland,' To
love God is in effect the same thing as to love happiness, eternal happiness;
and the love of happiness is still the love of ourselves.'-17tirld Sermzon on
Self-love.
3' Reverence is the conception we have concerning another, that He hath
the power to do unto us both good and hurt, but not the will to do us hurt.'
-Hobbes On Human Nature, ch. viii. ~ 7.
4' The pleasures of piety are the pleasures that accompany the belief of a
man's being in the acquisition, or in possession of the goodwill or favour of
the Supreme Being; and as a fruit of it, of his being in the way of enjoying
pleasures to be received by God's special appointment either in this life or
in a life to come.'-Benthaml's Princiiples of Morals and Legislation, ch. v.'The pains of piety are the pains that accompany the belief of a man's being
obnoxious to the displeasure of the Supreme Being, and in consequence to
certain pains to be inflicted by His especial appointment, either in this
life or in a life to come. These may be also called the pains of religion.'
-Ibid.
5'There can be no greater argument to a man of his own power, than
to find himself able not only to accomplish his own desires, but also to
assist other men in theirs; and this is that conception wherein consisteth
charity.' —IIobbes Onz  ioumn. Nat. ch. ix. ~ 17.'No man giveth but with




10            HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
ing from  a vivid realisation of sorrow  that may befall ourselves, suggestedl by the  sight of the sorrows of others.
We pity especially those who have not deserved calamity,
because we consider ourselves to belong to that category;
and  the  spectacle  of suffering against which  no  forethought could  provide, reminds us most forcibly of what
may happen to ourselves.'  Friendship is the sense of the
need of the person befriended.2
intention of goodl to himself, because gift is voluntary; and of all voluntary
acts, the object to every man is his own good.' —Iobbes' LeviatlCan, part i.
ch. xv.  I)Dream not that men will move their little finger to serve you,
unless their advantage in so doing be obvious to them. MIen never did so,
and never will while human nature is made of its present materials.'Bentham's )eonztology, vol. ii. p. 133.
1'Pity is imagination or fiction of future calamity to ourselves, proceeding
from the sense of another man's calamity. But when it lighteth on such as
we think have not deserved the same, the compassion is greater, because
there then appeareth more probability that the same lmay happen to
us; for the evil that happeneth to an innocent man may happen to every
man.'-IIobbes On Ilzult. Nat. ch. ix. ~ 10.' La piti6 est souvent un sentiment de nos propres maux dans les maux d'autrui.  C'est une habile pr6voyance des malheurs oii nous pourons tomber. Nous donnons des secours aux
antres pour les engager ia nous en donner en de semblables occasions, et ces
services que nous leur rendons sont,'i proprement parler, des biens que nous
nous faisons ia nous-melmes par avance.'-La Rochefoucauld, iiaximes, 264.
Butler has remarked that if Ilobbes' account were true, the most fearful
Nwould be the most compassionate nature; but this is perhaps not quite just,
for ETobbes' notion of pity implies the union of two not absolutely identical,
though nearly allied, influences, timidity and imagination.  The theory of
Adam Smith, though closely connected with, differs totally in consequences
fronm that of Hobbes. I-Ie says,   When I condole with you for the loss
of your son, in order to enter into your grief; I do not consider what I, a
person of such a character and profession, should suffer if I had a son, and if
that son should die-I consider what I should suffer if I was really you.
I not only change circumstances with you, but I change persons andc
characters.  My grief, therefore, is entirely upon your account... A
man may sympathise with a woman in child-bed, though it is impossible lihe
should conceive himself suffering her pains in his own proper person and
character.'- Moral Sentiments, part vii. ch. i. ~ 3.
2' Ce que les hommes ont nomm6e amiti6 n'est qn'une socie'te, qu'uu menagement r6ciproque d'int&ets et qu'un  echange de bons offices. Ce n'est
enfin qu'un commerce ou l'amour-propre se propose toujours quelque chose
ti gagler.' —La Rochefoucauld, Max. 83, See this idea developed at large in
Helv6tius.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 3iORALS.              11
From such a conception of human nature it is easy to
divine what system of morals must flow.  No character,
feeling, or action is naturally better than others, and as
long as menl are in a savage condition, morality has no.
existence. Fortunately, however, we are all dependent for
many of our pleasures upon others.  Co-operation and
organisation are essential to our happiness, and these are
impossible without some restraint being placed upon our
appetites.  Laws are enacted to secure this restraint, and
being sustained by rewards and. punishments, they make
it the interest of the individual to regard thalt of the community.  According to Hobbes, the disposition of man
is so anarchical, anc  the importance of restraining it so
transcendent, that absolute government alone is good;
the commands of the sovereign are supreme, and mllst
therefore constitute the law of morals.  The other moralists of this school, though  repudiating this notion, have
given a very great and distinguished place to legislation
in their schemes of ethics; for all our conduct being determined by our interests, virtue being simply the conformity of our own interests with those of the community,
and a judicious legislation being the chief way of securing this conformity, the functions of the moralist and of
the legislator are almost identical.l  But in addition to the
rewards and punishments of the penal code, those arising
from  public opinion-fame or infamy, the friendship or
hostility of those about us-are enlisted on the side of
virtue. The educating influence of laws, and the growingr
perception of the identity of interests of the different members of the community, create a public opinion favourable
to all the qualities which are' the means of peaceable,
1'La science de la morale n'est autre chose qclue la science me'me de la
lCgislation.'-Helv6tius De l'Esprit, ii. 17.




12           IlSTORY  OF  EURtOPEAN  3IuRALS.
sociable, and comfortable living.'l   Such are justice, gratitude, modesty, equity, and  mercy; and  such, too, are
purity and chastity, which, considered in themselves alone,
are in  no  degree more  excellent than  the coarsest and
most indiscriminate lust, but which  can be shown to  be
conducive  to  the happiness of society, and  become in
consequence virtues.2   This education  of public opiniol
grows continually stronger with civilisation, and gradually
moulds the  characters  of men, making them   more and
more  disinterested,  heroic,  and  unselfish.   A   disinterested, unselfish, and heroic man, it is explained, is one
who is strictly engrossed  in the pursuit of his own pleasure, but who pursues it in such a manner as to include
in its gratification the happiness of others.3
1 This doctrine is expounded at length in all the moral works of HIobbes
and his school. The following passage is a fair specimen of their meaning:-'Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good and evil
in the conversation and society of mankind. Good and evil are names that
signify our appetites and aversions, which in different tempers, customs, and
doctrines of men are different... from whence arise disputes, controversies, and at last war. And therefore, so long as man is in this condition of
mere nature (which is a condition of war), his private appetite is the measure of good and evil. And consequently all men agree in this, that peace
is good, and therefore also that the ways or means of peace, which (as I have
showed before) are justice, gratitude, modesty, equity, mercy, and the rest
of the laws of nature, are good... and their contrary vices evil.'-IHobbes'
Leviathan, part i. ch. xvi. See, too, a striking passage in Bentham's Deontology, vol. ii. p. 132.
2 As an ingenious writer in the Saturdaly Review (Aug. 10, 1867) expresses it:' Chastity is merely a social law created to encourage the alliances that most promote the permanent welfare of the race, and to
maintain woman in a social position which it is thought advisable she
should hold.' See, too, on this view, Hume's Inquiry concerning MIorals,
~ 4, and also note x.:'To what other purpose do all the ideas of chastity
and modesty serve'?  Nisi utile est quod facimus, frustra est gloria.'
3' All pleasure is necessarily self-regarding, for it is impossible to have
any feelings out of our own mind. [But there are modes of delight that
bring also satisfaction to others, from the round tlat they take in their
course. Such are the pleasures of benevolence. Others imply no participation by any second party, as, for example, eating, drinking, bodily warmth,
Property, and power; while a third class are fed by the pains and privations




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                           13
It is a very old  assertion, that a  man who  prudently
sought his own interest would live a life of perfect virtue.
This  opinion  is adopted  by  most of those  Utilitarians
who are least inclined to lay great stress upon religious
motives; and as they maintain that every man necessarily
pursues  exclusively  his  own  happiness,  we return  by
another path  to the old Platonic  doctrine, that all vice
is ignorance. Virtue is a judicious, and vice an injudicious, pursuit of pleasure. Virtue is a branch of prudence,
vice is nothing more than imprudence or miscalculation.l
He who seeks to improve the moral condition of mankind
has two, and  only  two, ways of accomplishing  his end.
The first is, to make it more and more the interest of each
to conform to that of the others; the second is, to dispel
the  ignorance.which prevents men from  seeing their true
interest.2   If chastity  or truth, or any other of what we
regard  as virtues, could  be  shown to  produce  on  the
of fellow-beings, as the delights of sport and tyranny.  The condemnatory
phrase, selfishness, applies with especial emphasis to the last-mentioned
class, and, in a qualified degree, to the second group; while such terms as
unselfishness, disinterestedness, self-devotion, are applied to the vicarious
position wherein we seek our own satisfaction in that of others.' —Bain,
On the Eimotions and WTill, p. 113.
1'Vice may be defined to be a miscalculation of chances, a mistake in
estimating the value of pleasures and pains. It is false moral arithmetic.'
-Bentham's ]Deontoloq/y, vol. i. p. 131.
2'La r6compense la punition, la gloire et l'infamie soumrises hi ses volontis
sont qluatre especes de divinites avec lesquelles le l6gislateur peut toujours
op6rer le bien public et cr6er des hommes illustres en tons les genres. Toute
l'6tude des moralistes consiste hi determiner l'usage qu'on doit faire de ces
r6compenses et de ces punitions et les secours qu'on pent tirer pour lier
l'intfr~t personnel a l'interet g6n6ral.'-Helv6tius Doe l'Esprit, ii. 22.   La
justice de nos jugements et de nos actions n'est jamais que la pencontre
heureuse de notre int6ret avec l'int6ret public.'-Ibid. ii. 7.' To prove that
the immoral action is a miscalculation of self-interest, to show how erroneous
an estimate the vicious man makes of pains and pleasures, is the purpose of
the intellirgent moralist. Unless he can do this he does nothing; for, as has
been stated above, for a man not to pursue what he deems likely to produce
to him the greatest sum of enjoyment, is, in the very nature of things,
impossible.' —Bentham's Deontology.




14            HISTORY OF EUROPEAN M1ORALS.
whole more pain than  they destroy, or to  deprive men
of more pleasure than  they  afford, they would not be
virtues, but vices.l  If it could be shlown that it is not
for our own interest to practise any of what are admitted
to  be virtues, all obligation  to practise them  would immediately cease.2   The whole scheme  of ethics may be
evolved from  the four canons  of Epicurus.   The pleasure which produces no pain is to be embraced. The pain
which produces no pleasure is to be avoided.  The pleasure  is  to  be  avoided  which  prevents a greater pleasure, or produces a greater pain.   The pain is to be endured which  averts a greater pain, or secures a greater
pleasure.3
So  far I  have  barely  alluded  to  any  but terrestrial
motives. These, in the opinion of many of the most illustrious of the schlool, are sufficient, but others-as we shall
see, I think, with great reason —are of a different opinion.
Their obvious resource is in the rewards and punishments
1  If the effect of virtue were to prevent or destroy more pleasure than it
produced, or to produce more pain than it prevented, its more appropriate
name would be wickedness and folly; wickedness as it affected others, folly
as respected him who practised it.']-Bentham's D)eontology, vol. i. p. 142.'TWeigh pains, weigh pleasures, and as the balance stands will stand the
question of rig'ht and wrong.' —Ibid. -vol. i. p. 137.'M3oralis philosophise
caput est, Faustine fli, ut scias quibus ad beatam vitam perveniri rationibus
possit.' —Apuleius, Ad.Doct. Platonis, ii.' Atnue ipsa utilitas, justi prope
mater et sequli.'-Horace, Sat. I. iii. 98.
2' re can be obliged to nothing but what we ourselves are to gain or
lose something by; for nothing else can be a " violent motive " to us. As
we should not be obliged to obey the laws or the magistrate unless rewvards
or punishments, pleasure or pain, somehow or other, depended upon our
obedience; so neither should we, without the same reason, be obliged to do
what is right, to practise virtue, or to obey the commands of God.'-Paley's
Moral Philosol#Ay, book ii. ch. ii.
3 See Gassendi P]ilosophlce.Epicuri Syntagna. These four canons are a
skilful condensation of the aigument of Torquatus in Cicero, Be 1in. i. 2. See,
too, a very striking letter by Epicurus himself, given in his life by Diogenes
Lairtius.




THE NATURAXL HISTORY OF MORALS.                        15
of another world, and  these  they  accordingly present as
the  motive  to  virtue.   Of all the modifications  of the
selfish theory, this alone can be said to furnish interested
motives for virtue which are invariably and incontestably
adequate.   If men  introduce  the notion of infinite punishments and  infinite  rewards distributed  by  an  omniscient Judge, they   can  undoubtedly  supply  stronger
reasons for practisingc  virtue than can ever be found for
practising vice.  While admitting  therefore  in emphatic
terms, that any sacrifice of our pleasure, without the prospect of an  equivalent reward, is  a simple act of madness, and  unworthy  of a rational being,l these  writers
maintain that we may reasonably sacrifice the enjoyments
of this life, because we shall be rewarded  by  far greater
enjoyments in  the next.   To gain heaven and avoid hell
should  be  the  spring  of all our actions,2 and  virtue is
1'Sanus igitur non est, qui nulla spe majore proposita, iis bonis quibus
cseteri utultur in vita, labores et cruciatus et miserias anteponat.
N on aliter his bonis prmcsentibus abstinendum est quam si sint aliqua majora,
propter qum tanti sit et voluptates omittere et mala omnia sustinere.'Lactantius Div. Inst., vi. 9. IMacaulay, in some youthful essays against the Utilitarian theory (which he characteristically described as'Not much more
laughable than phrenology, and immeasurably more humane than cockfighting'), maintains the theological form of selfishness in very strong terms.'What proposition is there respecting human nature which is absolutely:
and universally true?  We know of only one, and that is not only true but
identical, that men always act from self-interest.'-Review of Mill's Essay
on Governnent.'Of this we may be sure, that the words "greatest happiness"
will never in any man's mouth mean more than the greatest happiness of
others, which is consistent with what he thinks his own..... This direction (Do as you would be done by) would be utterly unmeaning, as it
actually is in Mr. Bentham's philosophy, unless it were accompanied by a
sanction. In the Christian scheme accordingly it is accompanied by a sanction of immense force. To a man whose greatest happiness in this world is
inconsistent with the greatest happiness of the greatest number, is held out
the prospect of an infinite happiness hereafter from which he excludes himself by wronging his fellow-creatures here.' —Answer to the WT;estminster)
Reviev's D)efence of Mill.
2'All virtue and piety are thus resolvable into a principle of self-love.
It is what Scripture itself resolves them into by founding them upon faith'
3




16            HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
simply prudence extending its calculations beyond the
grave.1  This  calculation  is what we mean by the'religious lotive.'2   The belief that the nobility and  excellence of virtue  could  incite us, was a mere delusion  of
the Pagans.3
Considered simply in the light of a prudential scheme,
there are only two possible objections that could be
brought against this theory. It might be said that the
amount of virtue required  for entering heaven was not
in God's promises, and hope in things unseen. In this way it may be
rightly said that there is no such thing as disinterested virtue. It is with
reference to ourselves and for our own sakes that we love even God Himself.'-Waterland, Third Sermon on Self-love.' To risk the happiness of the
whole duration of our being in any case whatever, were it possible, would
be foolish.' — Robert Hall's Sermon on Modern Infldel'ty.'In the moral
system the means are virtuous practice; the end, happiness.' —Warburton's
Diveine Legislation, book ii. Appendix.
1' There is always understood to be a difference between an act of prudence and an act of duty. Thus, if I distrusted a man who owed me a sum
of money, I should reckon it an act of prudence to get another person
bound with him; but I should hardly call it an act of duty....   Now
in what, you will ask, does the difference consist, inasmuch as, according to
our account of the matter, both in the one case and the other, in acts of duty
as well as acts of prudence, we consider solely what we ourselves shall gain
or lose by the act?  The difference, and the only difference, is this: that in
the one case we consider what we shall gain or lose in the present world;
in the other case, we consider also what we shall gain or lose in the
world to come.'-Paley's Moral Philosoplhy, ii. 3.
2'Hence we may see the weakness and mistake of those falsely religious... who-are scandalised at our being determined to the pursuit of virtue
through any degree of regard to its happy consequences in this life... For
it is evident that the religious motive is precisely of the same kind, only
stronger as the happiness expected is greater and more lasting.'-BroNwn's.Essays on the Characteristics, p. 220.
3'If a Christian, who has the view of happiness and misery in another
life, be asked why a man must keep his word, he will give this as a reason,
because God, who has the power of eternal life and death, requires it of us.
But if an IHobbist be asked why, he will answer, because the public requires
it, and the Leviathan will punish you if you do not. And if one of the old
heathen philosophers had been asked, he would have answered, because it
was dishonest, below the dignity of man, and opposite to virtue, the highest
perfection of human nature, to do otherwise.'-Locke's Essay, i. 3.




THE NATURAL HISTORY  OF MORALS.                      17
defined, and that therefore it would be possible to enjoy
some vices on earth with impunity.  To this, however, it
is answered that the very indefiniteness of the requirement renders zealous piety a matter of prudence, and
also that there is probably a graduated scale of rewards
and punishments adapted to every variety of merit and
demerit.' It might be said too that present pleasures are
at least certain, and that those of another world are not
equally so.  It is answered that the rewards and punishments offered in another world are so transcendently
great, that according to the rules of ordinary prudence,
if there were only a probability, or even a bare possibility, of their being real, a wise man should regulate his
course with a view to them.2
Among these writers, however, some have diverged to
a certain degree from  the broad stream  of utilitarianism,
declaring that the foundation of the moral law is not
utility, but the will or arbitrary  decree of God.  This
opinion, which was propounded by the schoolman Ockham,
and by several other writers of his age,3 has in modern
times found many adherents,4 and been defended through
1 Thus Paley remarks that-' The Christian religion hath not ascertained
the precise quantity of virtue necessary to salvation;' and he then proceeds to
urge the probability of graduated scales of rewards and punishments. (Moral
Philosophy, book i. ch. vii.)
2 This view was developed by Locke (Essay on the IlHtman Understanding, book ii. ch. xxi.). Pascal, in a well-known passage, applied the same
argument to Christianity, urging that the rewards and punishments it
promises are so great, that it is the part of a wise man to embrace the
creed, even though he believes it improbable, if there be but a possibility
in its favour.
3 Cudworth, in his Immutable M-orals, has collected the names of a
number of the schoolmen who held this view. See, too, an interesting note
in Miss' Cobbe's very learned Essay on Intzitive Morals, pp. 18, 19.
4 E.g. Soame Jenyns, Dr. Johnson, Crusius, Pascal, Paley, and Austin.
Warburton is generally quoted in the list, but not I think quite fairly. See
his theory, which is rather complicated (Divine Legation, i. 4). Waterland
appears to have held this view, and also Condillac. See a very remarkable




18            HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
a variety of motives.   Some have upheld it on the philosophical ground  that a law  can  be nothing  but the
sentence  of a lawgiver, others from  a desire  to place
morals in permanent subordination to theology; others
in order to answer objections to Christianity derived from
apparently immoral acts said to have been sanctioned  by
the Divinity; and others because, having adopted strong
Calvinistic sentiments, they were at once profoundly antipathetical to utilitarian morals, and at the same time too
firmly convinced of the total depravity of human  nature
to admit the existence of any trustworthy moral sense.'
In  the majority  of cases, however, these writers have
proved  substantially  utilitarians.   When  asked how  we
can know  the will of God, they  answer that in  as far
as it is not included in express revelation, it must be
discovered by the rule of utility; for nature proves that
the Deity is supremely benevolent, and desires the welfare  of men, and  therefore  any  conduct that conduces
to  that end is in  conformity  with  His will.2   To the
chapter on morals, in his TraitM des Animiaux, part ii. ch. vii. Closely
connected with this doctrine is the notion that the morality of God is
generically different from the morality of men, which having been held with
more or less distinctness by many theologians (Archbishop King being
perhaps the most prominent), has found in our own day an able defender in
Dr. Mfansel. Much information on the history of this doctrine will be
found in Dr. Mansel's Second Letter to Professor Goldwin Smith (Oxford
1862).
Leibnitz noticed the frequency with which Supralapsarian Calvinists
adopt this doctrine. (Tleodice, part ii. ~ 170.) Archbishop Whately, who
from his connection with the Irish clergy had admirable opportunities of
studying the tendencies of Calvinism, makes a similar remlarlk as the result
of his own experience.. (N7mzately's Life, vol. ii. p. 339.)
v God designs the happiness of all His sentient creatures...   Knowing
the tendencies of our actions, and knowing His benevolent purpose, we linowv
His tacit comnmands.'-Austin's Lecthres on Jurisprudence, vol. i. p. 31.'The commands which He has revealed we must gather from the terms
wherein they are promulgated. The commands which He has not revealed
we mtist construe by the principle of utility.' —Ibid. p. 96. So Paley's Mor al
Pidlosophy, book ii. ch. iv. v.




THE NATURAL HISTORY  OF MORALS.                    19
question  why the Divine will should be obeyed, there
are but two answers.  The first, which is that of the
intuitive moralist, is that we are under a natural obligation of gratitude to our Creator.  The second, which
is that of the selfish moralist, is that the Creator has infinite rewards and punishments  at His  disposal.  The
latter answer appears usually to have been adopted, and
the mlost eminent member has summed up with great succinctness the opinion of his school.'The good of mankind,'
he says,' is the subject, the will of God the rule, and
everlasting happiness the motive and end of all virtue.' 1
We have seen that the distinctive characteristic of the
inductive school of moralists is an absolute denial of the
existence of any natural or innate moral sense or faculty
enabling us to distinguish between the higher and lower
parts of our nature, revealing  to us  either the  existence of a law of duty or the conduct that it prescribes.
We have seen that the only postulate of these writers
is that happiness being universally desired is a desirable
thing, that the only merit they recognise in actions or
feelings is their tendency to promote human happiness,
and that the only motive to a virtuous act they conceive
possible is the real or supposed happiness of the agent.
The sanctions of morality thus constitute its obligation,
and  apart from  them   the word    ought' is absolutely
1 Paley's Moral Philosophly, book i. ch. vii.  The question of the disinterestedness of the loTve we should bear to God was agitated in the Catholic
Churchl, Bossuet taking the selfish, and F6nelon the unselfish side.. The
opinions of F4nelon and Molinos on the subject were authoritatively condenined. In England, the less dogmatic character of the national faith, and
also the fact that the great anti-Christian writer, Hobbes, was the advocate
of extreme selfishness in morals, had, I think, a favourable influence upon
the ethics of the church. Hobbes gave the first great impulse to moral
philosophy in England, and. his opponents were naturally impelled to an
unselfish theory. Bishop Cumberland led the way, resolving virtue (like
Hutcheson) into benevolence. The majority of divines, however, till the
present century, have, I think, been on the selfish side.




20           HISTORY OF- EUROPEAN  MlORAI,3S.
unmeaning.  Those sanctions, as we have considered them,
are of different kinds and degrees of magnitude.  Paley,
though  elsewhere acknowledging  the  others, regarded
the religious one as so immeasurably the first, that he
represented  it as the  one  motive  of virtue.1   Locke
divided them  into Divine rewards and punishments, legal
penalties and  social penalties;2 Bentham  into physical,
political, moral or popular, and religious-the first being
the bodily evils that result from  vice, the second the enactments of legislatures, the third the pleasures and pains
arising from  social intercourse, the fourth, the rewards
and punishments of another world.3
During the greater part of the sixteenth and seven
teenth centuries the controversy in England between those
who derived the moral code from  experience, and those
who derived it from  intuitions of the reason, or from  a
special faculty, or from a moral sense, or from the power
of sympathy, turned mainly upon the existence of an unselfish element in our nature. The reality of this existence
having been maintained by Shaftesbury, was established
with an unprecedented, and I believe irresistible force by
Hutcheson, and the same question occupies a considerable
place in the writings of Butler, Hume, and Adam  Smith.
The selfishness of the school of Hobbes, though in some
1 M/loral Philosfphy, ii. 3.
2 Essay on the Ihmamn Understanding, ii. 08.
3 Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. iii. Mr. Mill observes that,' Bentham's idea of the world is that of a collection of persons pursuing each
his separate interest or pleasure, and the prevention of whom from jostling
one another more than is unavoidable, may be attempted by hopes and fears
derived from three sources-the law, religion, and public opinion. To these
three powers, considered as binding human conduct, he gave the name of
sanctions; the political sanction operating by the rewards and penalties of
the law; the religious sanction by those expected from the ruler of the universe; and the popular, which he characteristically calls also the moral
sanction, operating through the pains and pleasures arising from the favour
or disfavour of our fellow-creatures.'-Dissertations, vol. i. -p. 362-363.




THE NTATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                       21
degree  mitigated, may be traced  in  every page of the
writings of Bentham; but some of his disciples have in
this respect deviated very widely from their master, and
in their hands the whole tone  and complexion  of utilitarianism  have been changed.1  The two means by which
this transformation has been effected are the recognition
of our unselfish or sympathetic feelings, and the doctrine
of the association of ideas.
That human nature is so constituted that we naturally
take a pleasure in the sight of the joy of others is one
of those  facts  which  to  an  ordinary  observer might
well appear among  the most patent that can  be  conceived.  WVe have seen, however, that it was emphatically
denied by  Hobbes, and during  the greater part of the
last century  it was  fashionable  among  writers  of the
school of  HIelvetius  to  endeavour to  prove  that  all
domestic  or  social affections were  dictated  simply  by
a need of the person  who  was beloved.   The  reality
-of the pleasures and pains of sympathy  was admitted
1 Hume on this, as on most other points, was emphatically opposed to the
school of Hobbes, and even declared that no one could honestly and in good
faith deny the reality of an unselfish element in man. Following in the
steps of Butler, he explained it in the following passage: — Hunger and thirst
have eating and drinking for their end, and from the gratification of these
primary appetites arises a pleasure which may become the object of another
species of desire or inclination that is secondary and interested. In the same
manner there are mental passions by which we are impelled immediately to
seek particular objects, such as fame or power or vengeance, without any
regard to interest, and when these objects are attained a pleasing enjoyment
ensues.... Now where is the difficulty of conceiving that this may
likewise be the case with benevolence and friendship, and that from the original frame of our temper we may feel a desire of another's happiness or
good, which by means of that affection becomes our own good, and is afterwards pursued, from the combined motives of benevolence and self-enjoyment.' —Hume's Enquiry concerning Morals, Appendix II. Compare Butler,
If there be any appetite or any inward principle besides self-love, why may
there not be an affection towards the good of our fellow-creatures, and delight
from that affection's being gratified and uneasiness from things going contrary to it.'-Sermon on Compassion.




22            HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
by Bentham; 1 but in accordance with  the whole spirit
of his philosophy, he threw  them  as much  as possible
into the background, and, as I have already noticed, gave
them  no place in his summary of the sanctions of virtue.
The tendency, however, of the later members of the school
has been  to  recognise  them  very  fully,2  though  they
differ as to the source from  which  they spring.  Accord-.
ing to  one section  our benevolent affections are derived
from our selfish feelings by an association of ideas in a
manner which I shall presently  describe.   According to
the other they  are an  original part of the constitution
of our nature.  However they be generated, their existence is admitted, their cultivation is a main object of
morals, and the pleasure derived  from  their exercise a
leading  motive  to virtue.  The differences between  the
intuitive moralists and their rivals on this point are of two
kinds.  Both acknowledge the existence in human nature
of both  benevolent and  malevolent feelings, anid  that
we have a natural power of distinguishing one from  the
other;  but  the  first maintain  and  the  second  deny'' By symnpathetic sensibility is to be understood the propensity that a man
has to derive pleasure from the happiness, and pain from the unhappiness, of
other sensitive beings.' —Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch.
vi.'The sense of sympathy is universal. Perhaps there never existed a
human being who had reached full age without the experience of pleasure
at another's pleasure, of uneasiness at another's pain.... Community
of interests, similarity of opinion, are sources from whence it springs.'Deontology, vol. i. pp. 169 —170.
2' The idea of the pain of another is naturally painful. The idea of the
pleasure of another is naturally pleasurable... In this, the  unselfish
part of our nature, lies a foundation, even independently of inculcation
from without for the generation of moral feelings.' —Mill's Dissertations,
vol. i. p. 137. See, too, Bain's Emnotions and the Will, pp. 289, 313; and
especially Austin's Lectures on Jurisprudence.  The first volume of this
brilliant work contains, I think without exception, the best modern
statement of the utilitarian theory in its most plausible form —a statement
equally remarkable for its ability, its candour, and its uniforml courtesy to
opponents.




THE NATURAL HIISTORY OF MORALS.               23
that we have a natural power of perceiving that one is
better than the other.  Both admit that we enjoy a pleasure in acts of benevolence to others, but most writers
of the first school maintain that that pleasure follows unsought for, while writers of the other school contend that
the desire of obtaining it is the motive of the action.
But by far the most ingenious and at the same time
most influential system of utilitarian morals is that which
owes its distinctive feature to the doctrine of association of
Hartley. This doctrine, which among the modern achievements of ethics occupies on the utilitarian side a position
corresponding in importance to the doctrine of innate
mnoral faculties as distinguished from innate moral ideas
on the intuitive side, was not absolutely unknown to the
ancients, though they never perceived either the extent to
which it may be carried or the important consequences
that miglht be deduced from  it.  Some traces of it may
be found in Aristotle,1 and some of the Epicureans applied
it to friendship, maintaining that, although we first of all
love our friend on account of the pleasure lie can give
us, we come soon to love him for his own sake, and apart
from  all considerations of utility.2   Among moderns
Locke has the merit of having devised the phrase,'association of ideas;'3  but hle applied it only to  some
cases of apparently eccentric sympathies or antipathies.
Hiutcheson, however, closely anticipated both the doctrine
of Hartley and the favourite illustration of the school;
observing  that we desire some things as themselves pleasurable and others only as means to obtain pleasurable
See a collection of passages from Aristotle, bearing on the subject, in
MaRclintosh's Dissertation.
2 CiC. De Finibus, i. 5. This view is adopted in Tucker's Iqight of Narctzte
(ed. 1842), vol. i. p. 167. See, too, Mill's Analysis of the Iluiman findz
vol. ii. p. 174.
a3 Essay, book ii. Clh. XXXiiL




~ 24    ~ HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
things, and that these latter, which he terms'secondary
desires,' may become as powerful as the former.'Thus,
as soon as we come to apprehendc the use of wealth
or power to gratify any of our original desires we must
also desire them.   Hence arises the universality of these
desires of wealth and power, since they are the means of
gratifying  all our desires.'l   The same principles were
carried  much  farther by a clergyman  named  Gay  in
a short dissertation which is now almost forgotten, but
to which  Hartley  ascribed  the first suggestion of his
theory,2 and in which indeed the most valuable part of
it is clearly laid down.  Differing altogether from Hutcheson as to the existence of any innate moral sense or
principle of benevolence in man, Gay admitted that the
arguments of Hutcheson to prove that the adult man
possesses a moral sense were irresistible, and he attempted
to  reconcile  this fact with  the teaching  of Locke by
the  doctrine of'secondary  desires.'  He remarks that
in our reasonings we do not always fall back upon first
principles or axiomls, but sometimes start from propositions
which thoughl  not self-evident we know  to be capable
of proof. In the same way in justifying our actions we
do not always appeal to the tendency to produce happiness
which is their one ultimate justification, but content ourselves by showing that they produce some of the known'means to happiness.' These' means to happiness' being
1 Hutcheson On the Passions, ~ 1. The C secondary desires' of Hutcheson
are closely related to the' reflex affections' of Shaftesbury.' Not only the
outward beings which offer themselves to the sense are the objects of
the affection; but the very actions themselves, and the affections of pity,
kindness, gratitude, and their contraries, being brought into the mind by
reflection, become objects. So that by means of this reflected sense, there
arises another kind of affection towards those very affections themselves.' —
Shaftesbury's Enquiry concezrning Virtue, book i. part ii. ~ 3.
2 See the preface to Hartley On Man. Gay's essay is prefixed to Law's
translation of Archbishop King On the Origin of ]'il.




THIE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                        25
continually  appealed  to- as justifying  motives come insensibly  to be regarded  as ends, possessing an  intrinsic
value irrespective of their tendency; and in this manner
it is that we love and admire virtue even when unconnected with our interests.1
The great work of Hartley expanding and elaborating
these views was published in 1747.  It was encumbered
by much  physiological speculation into which it is needJess for us now  to  enter, about the  manner in which
emotions act upon  the  nerves, and  although  accepted
enthusiastically  by  Priestley  and Belsham, and in some
degree by Tucker, I do not think  that its purely ethical
speculations  had  much  influence until they were adopted by some leading utilitarians in  the  present century 2
1'The case is this. We first perceive or imagine some real good; i.e.
fitness to promote our happiness in those things which we love or approve of
Hence those things and pleasures are so tied together and associated
in our minds, that one cannot present itself, but the other will also occur.
And the association remains even after that which at first gave them the
connection is quite forgotten, or perhaps does not exist but the contrary.' —
Gay's Essay, p. lii.'All affections whatsoever are finally resolvable into
reason, pointing out private happiness, and are conversant only about things
apprehended to be means tending to this end; and whenever this end is not
perceived, they are to be accounted for from the association of ideas, and
may properly enough be called habits.'-Ibid. p. xxxi.
2 Principally by Mr. James Mill, whose chapter on association, in his
Ainalysis of the ituman Mind, may probably rank with Paley's beautiful
chapter on happiness, at the head of all modern writings on the utilitarian
side, —either of them, I think, being far more valuable than anything Bentham ever wrote on morals.  This last writer-whose contempt for his
predecessors was only equalled by his ignorance of their works, and who
has added surprisingly little to moral science (considering the reputation he
attained), except a barbarous nomenclature and an interminable series of
classifications evincing no real subtlety of thought —mlakes, as far as I am
aware, no use of the doctrine of association. Paley states it with his usual
admirable clearness.'Having experienced in some instances a particular
conduct to be beneficial to ourselves, or observed that it would be so, a
sentiment of approbation rises up in our minds, which sentiment afterwards
accompanies the idea or mention of the same conduct, although the private
advantage which first existed no longer exist.'-Paley, MIoral PThilos. i. 5.
Paley, however, made less use of this doctrine than might have been




26           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN  31ORALS.
Whatever may  be thought of the  truth, it is impossible to withhold some admiration from  the intellectual
grandeur of a system  which starting from  a conception of
human nature as low and as base as that of Mandeville or
Hobbes professes without the introduction  of a  single
new or nobler element, by a strange process of philosophic
alchemy, to evolve out of this original selfishness the most
heroic and most sensitive virtue.  The manner in which
this achievement is effected  is commonly illustrated by
the passion of avarice.  Money in itself possesses absolutely  nothing  that is admirable  or pleasurable, but
being the means of procuring us many of the objects of
our desire, it becomes associated in our minds with the
idea of pleasure; it is therefore itself loved; and:it is
possible for the love of money so completely to eclipse
or supersede the love of all those things which money
procures, that the miser will forego them  all, rather than
part with a fraction of his gold.l
The same phenomenoe n may be traced, it is said, in a
multitude of other forms.2  Thus we seek power, because
it gives us the means of gratifying,  many desires.  It
becomes  associated with  those  desires, and  is, at last,
itself passionately loved. Praise indicates the affection of
the eulogist, and marks us out for the affection of others.
expected from so enthusiastic an admirer of Tucker. In our own day it has
been much used by Mr. J. S. Miill.
1 This illustration, which was first employed by Hutcheson, is very
happily developed by Gay (p. lii.).  It was then used by Hartley, and
finally Tucker reproduced the whole theory with the usual illustration without any acknowledgment of the works of his predecessors, employing, however, the term'translation' instead of'association' of ideas. See his
curious chapter on the subject, Light of Nature, book i. ch. xviii.
2' It is the nature of translation to throw desire from the end upon the
means, which thenceforward become an end capable of exciting an appetite
without prospect of the consequences whereto they lead. Our habits and
most of the desires that occupy human life are of this translated kind.' —
rucker's Light of Vaturew vol. ii. (ed. 1842), p.281




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                27
Valued at first as a means, it is soon desired as an end,
and to such a pitch can our enthusiasm rise, that we may
sacrifice all earthly things for posthumous praise which
can never reach our ear. And the force of the association
may extend even farther.  We love praise, because it
procures us certain advantages. We then love it more
than these advantages.  We proceed by the same process
to transfer our affections to those things which naturally
or generally procure praise. We at last love what is
praiseworthy more than praise, and will endure perpetual
obloquy rather than abandon it.'  To this process, it is
said, all our moral sentiments must be ascribed. Mran has
no natural benevolent feelings.  He is at first governed
solely by his interest, but the infant learns to associate
its pleasures with the idea of its mother, the boy with
the idea of his family, the man with those of his class,
his church, his country, and at last of all mankind, and in
each case, an independent affection is at length formled.2
The sight of suffering in others awakens in the child a
painful recollection of his own suffbrings, which parents, by
appealing to the infant imagination, still further strengthen,
and besides,'when several children are educated together, the pains, the denials of pleasure, and *the sorrows
vwhich affect one gradually extend in some degree to all;'
and thus the suffering of others becomes associated with the
idea of our own, and the feeling of compassion is engendered.3  Benevolence and justice are associated in our
minds with the esteem of our fellow-men, with reciprocity
of favours, and with the hope of future reward.  They
are loved at first for these, and finally for themselves,'Mill's Analysis of tlhe iunman Mind. The desire for posthumous fame is
usually cited by intuitive moralists as a proof of a naturally disinterested
element in man.
2 M3ill's Analysis.
3 Hartley On, lain, vol. i. pp. 474-475.




28            HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
while  opposite  trains  of  association  produce  opposite
feelings towards malevolence and injustice.' And thus
virtue, considered as a whole, becomes the supreme object
of our affections. Of all our pleasures, more are derived
from  those acts which are called virtuous, than from  any
other source.   The virtuous  acts of others procure  lus
countless advantages.   Our own virtue obtains for us the
esteem of men and a return of favours. All the epithets
of praise are appropriated to virtue, and all the epithets
of blame to vice. Religion teaches us to connect hopes of
infinite joy with the one, and fears of infinite suffering
with the other.  Virtue becomes therefore peculiarly associated  with  the idea of pleasurable things.  It is soon
loved, independently of and more than these; we feel a
glow  of pleasure in practising  it, and  an intense pain in
violating it. Conscience, which is thus generated, becomes
the ruling  principle of our lives,2 and having  learnt to
sacrifice all earthly things rather than disobey it, we rise,
by an association of ideas, into the loftiest region of
heroismll.3''Benevolence... has also a high degree of honour and esteem annexed
to it, procures us many advantages and returns of kindness, both from tlhe
person obliged and others, and is most closely connected with the hopes of
reward in a future state, and of self-approbation or the moral sense; and the
same things hold with respect to generosity in a much higher degree. It is
easy therefore to see how such associations may be formed as to engage us
to forego great pleasure, or endure great pain for the sak-e of others, how
these associations may be attended with so great a degree of pleasure as to
overrule the positive pain endured or the negative one from the foregoing
of a pleasure, and yet how there may be no direct explicit expectation of reward either from God or man, by natural consequence or express appointment, not even of the concomitant pleasure that engages the agent to undertake the benevolent and generous action; and this I take to be a proof from
the doctrine of association that there is and must be such a thing as pure
disinterested benevolence; also a just account of the origoin and nature of it.'
-Hartley On Man, vol. i. pp. 473-474. See too Mill's Analysis, vol. ii. p. 252.
2 Mill's Analysis, vol. ii. pp. 244-247.
3   With self-interest,' said Hartley,'man must begin; he may end in
self-annihilation;; or, as Coleridge happily puts it'Legality precedes




TIlE NATURAL HISTORY  OF MORALS.                     29
The influence of this ingenious, though I think in some
respects fanciful, theory depends less upon the number
than  upon the ability  of its adherents.  Though  little
known, I believe, beyond  England, it has  in England
exercised a great fascination over exceedingly dissimilar
iminds,l and it does undoubtedly evade some of the objections to the other forms of the inductive theory. Thus,
when  intuitive moralists contend that our moral judgments, being instantaneous and effected under the manifest
impulse of an emotion of sympathy or repulsion, are as
far as possible removed from that cold calculation of
interests  to  which  the  utilitarian  reduces  them, it is
answered, that the association  of ideas  is sufficient to
engender a feeling which is the proximate cause of our
decision.'2   Alone, of all the moralists of this school, the
disciple of Hartley recognises conscience  as a real and
important element of our nature,3 and maintains that it is
morality in every individual, even as the Jewish dispensation preceded the
Christiall in the world mat large.' — Notes Theological and Political, p. 340.
It might be retorted with much truth, that we begin by practising morality
as a duty-we end by practising it as a pleasure, without any reference to
duty. Coleridge, who expressed for the Benthamite theories a very cordial detestation, sometimes glided into them himself.'The happiness of
man,' he says,'is the end of virtue, and truth is the knowledge of the
means.' (The Friend, ed. 1850, vol. ii. p. 192.)'What can be the object of
human virtue but the happiness of sentient, still more of moral beings?'
(Notes Theol. and Polit. p. 351.) Leibnitz says,' Quand' on aura appris a
fairedes actions louablespar ambition, on les fera apr6s par inclination.' (Str
1'Art de connaitre les homnnes.)
1 E.g. Mackintosh and James Mill. Coleridge in his younger days was
an enthusiastic admirer of Hartley; but chiefly, I believe, on account of
his theory of vibrations. He named his son after him, and described him
in one of his poems as:-'He of mortal kind
Wisest, he first who marked the ideal tribes
Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain.'
Religious Mlusings.
2 This position is elaborated in a passage too long for quotation by Mr.
Austin. (Lectures on Jurisprudence, vol. i. p. 44.)
3 Itobbes defines conscience as'the opinion of evidence' (On Hiuman




30            HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
possible to love virtue for itself as a form of happiness
without any  thought  of ulterior  consequences.1   The
immense value this theory ascribes to education, gives it
an unusual practical importance.  W/Vhen we are balancing
between  a crime and  a virtue, our wills, it is said, are
necessarily  determined  by  the greater pleasure.  If we
find  mnore pleasure in  the  vice than  in the virtue, we
inevitably gravitate to evil. If we find more pleasure in
the virtue than in the vice, we are as irresistibly attracted
towards good. But the strength of such motives may be
immeasurably enhanced  by an early association of ideas.
If we have been accustomed from childhood to associate our
ideas of praise and pleasure  with virtue, we shall readily
yield to virtuous motives, if with vice, to vicious ones. This
readiness to yield to one or other set of motives, constitutes
disposition, which  is thus, according  to  these moralists,
altogether an  artificial thing, the product of education,
and effected by association of ideas.2
Nzatzure, ch. vi. ~ 8). Locke as'our own opinion or judgment of the moral
rectitude or pravity. of our own actions' (Essay, book i. ch. iii. ~ 8). In
Bentham there is very little on the subject; but in one place he informs us
that' conscience is a thing of fictitious existence, supposed to occupy a seat
in the mind' (Deontology, vol. i. p. 137); and in another he ranks' love of
duty' (which he describes as an'impossible motive, in so far as duty is
synonymous to obligation') as a variety of the'love of power' (Springs qf
Action, ii.). Mr. Bain says,' conscience is an imitation within ourselves of
the government without us.' (Enmotions cxand T7 ill, p. 313.)'However much they [utilitarians] may believe (as they do) that actions
and dispositions are only virtuous because they promote another end than
virtue, yet this being granted... they not only place virtue at the very
head of the things which are good as means to the ultimate erd, but they
also recognise as a psychological fact the possibility of its being to the individual a good in itself... Virtue, according to the utilitarian doctrine,
is not naturally and originally part of the end, but it is capable of becomirng
so..... What was once desired as an instrument for the attainment of
happiness has come to be desired... as part of happiness,... Human
nature is so constituted as to desire nothing which is not either a part of
happiness or a means of happiness.'-J. S. MIill's Utilitarianism, pp. 54, 55,
56, 58.
2'A man is tempted to commit adultery with the wife of his friend.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                          31
It will be  observed, however, that this theory, refined
and imposing as it may appear, is still essentially a
selfish  one.  Even  when  sacrificing  all earthly  objects
through  love of virtue, the good man  is simply seeking
his greatest enjoyment, indulging a kind of mental luxury
which  gives him  more pleasure than  what he foregoes,
just as the miser finds  more pleasure  in  accumulation
than  in  any  form   of expenditure.l    There  has  been,
indeed, one attempt to emancipate the theory from  this
condition, but it appears to me altogether futile.  It has
been said that men in the first instance indulge in baneful
The com0lposition of the motive is obvious. He does not obey the mlotive.
Wlhy?  He obeys other motives which are stronger.  Though pleasures
are associated with the immoral act, pains are associated with it also-the
pains of the injured husband, the pains of the injured wife, the moral
indignation of mankind, the future reproaches of his own mind. Some men
obey the first rather *than the second motive.  The reason is obvious. In
these the association of the act with the pleasure is from habit unduly
strong, the association of the act with pains is from want of habit unduly
weak. This is the case of a bad education... Among the different classes
of motives, there are men who are more easily and strongly operated-on by
soee, others by others.  We have also seen that this is entirely owing to
habits of association. This facility of being acted upon by motives of a
particular description, is that which we call disposition.'-M3Iill's Analysis
vol. ii. pp. 212, 213, &c. Adam Smith says, I think with much -wisdom, that'the great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.' —Moral
Sentiments, part vi. ~ 3.
1'Goodness in ourselves is the prospect of satisfaction annexed to the
welfare of others, so that we please them for the pleasure we receive ourselves in so doing, or to avoid the uneasiness we should feel in omitting it.
But God is completely happy in Iilimself, nor can HIis happiness receive
increase or diminution fiom anythin'g befalling His creatures; wherefore
HIis goodness is pure, disinterested bounty, without any return of joy or satisfaction to Himself.  Therefore it is no wonder we have imperfect notions
of a quality whereof we have no experience in our own nature.'-Tucker's
Lzrqht of Nlature, vol. i. p. 355.'It is the privilege of God alone to act
upon pure, disinterested bounty, without the least addition thereby to His
own enjoyment.'-Ibid. vol. ii. p. 279. On the other hand, Hutcheson asks,'If there be such disposition in the Deity, where is the impossibility of
some small degree of this public love in His creatures, and why must
they be supposed incapable of acting but from self-love?' —nuirt'y con-?ern)ing 3Moraal Good, ~ 2.
4




HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
excesses, on account of the pleasure they afford, but the
habit being  contracted, continue to  practise them  after
they have ceased  to  afford pleasure, and  that a similar
law  may operate in the case of the habit of virtue.'  But
the reason why men who have contracted a habit continue
to practise it after it has ceased to give them   positive
enjoyment, is because to desist, creates a restlessness and
uneasiness which  amounts  to  acute  mental pain.   To
avoid that pain is the motive of the action.
The reader who has perused the passages I have accumulated  in the notes, will be able to judge with what
degree of justice  utilitarian  writers denounce  with  indignation  the  imputation  of selfishness, as  a  calumny
against their system.  It is not, I think, a strained or unnatural use of language to describe as selfish or interested,
all actions which a man performs, in  order himself to
avoid suffering or acquire the greatest possible enjoyment.  If this be so, the term  selfish is strictly applicable
to all the branches of this system.2   At the same time it
I've graduallv, through the influence of association, come to desire the
means without thinking of the end; the action itself becomes an object of
desire, and is performed without reference to any motive beyond itself.
Thus far, it may still be objected that the action having, through association, become pleasurable, we are as much as before moved to act by the
anticipation of pleasure, namely, the pleasure of the action itself. But
granting this, the matter does not end here. As we proceed in the formation
of habits, and become accustomed to will a particular act.. because it is
pleasurable, we at last continue to will it without any reference to its being
pleasurable... In this manner it is that habits of hurtful excess continue
to be practised, although they have ceased to be pleasurable, and in this
manner also it is that the habit of willing to persevere in the course which
he has chosen, does not desert the moral hero, even when the reward.
is anything but an equivalent for the suffering he undergoes, or the wishes
he may have to renounce.'-Mill's Logic (4th edition), vol. ii. pp. 416, 417.
2'In regard to interest in the most extended, which is the original and
only strictly proper sense of the word disinterested, no human act has ever
been or ever can be disinterested..... In the only sense in which disinterestedness can with truth be predicated of human actions, it is employed...
to denote, not the absence of all interest... but only the absence of all




TIHE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                       33
mnust be acknowledged, there is a broad difference between the refined sensuality of the utilitarians we have
last noticed, and the writings of Hobbes, of Mandeville, or
of Paley.  It must be acknowledged, also, that not a few
intuitive or stoical moralists have spoken of the pleasure
to  be  derived  from  virtue  in language little  if at all
different from  these writers.1   The main  object of the
earlier members of the inductive school, was to depress
human  nature  to  their standard, by  resolving  all the
noblest actions  into  coarse and  selfish elements.  The
main object of some of the more influential of the later
members of the school, has been  to  sublimate their conceptions of happiness and  interest in  such  a manner, as
to include the highest displays of heroism.  The theory
anad principles remain unchanged, but in the hands of some
of the writers the spirit has wholly altered.
Having thus given a brief but, I trust, clear and faithinterest of the self-regarding class. Not but that it is very frequently
predicated of human action in cases in which divers interests, to no one of
which the appellation of self-regarding can with propriety be denied, have
been exercising their influence, and in particular fear of God, or hope froln
God, and fear of ill-repute, or hope of good repute. If what is above be
correct, the most disinterested of men is not less under the dominion of
interest than the most interested. The only cause of his being styled
disinterested, is its not having been observed that the sort of motive (suppose it sympathy for an individual or class) has as truly a corresponding
interest belonging to it as any other species of motive has. Of this contradiction between the truth of the case and the language employed in
speaking of it, the cause is that in the one case men have not been in the
habit of imaking —as in point of consistency they ought to have made-of
the word interest that use which in the other case they have been in the
habit of making of it.' —Bentham's Sp}rings of Action, ii. ~ 2.
1 Among others Bishop Butler, who draws some very subtle distinctibns
on the subject in his first sermon' on the love of our neighbour.' Dugald
Stewart remarks that' although we apply the epithet selfish to avarice and
to low and private sensuality, we never apply it to the desire of knowledge
or to the pursuits of virtue, which are certainly sources of more exquisite
pleasure than riches or sensuality can bestow.,'-Active and Moral Poweors
vol. i. p. 19.




84         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
ful account of the different modifications of the inductive
theory, I shall proceed to state some of the principal objections that have been and may be brought against it. I
shall then endeavour to define and defend the opinions of
those who believe that our moral feelings are an essential part of our constitution, developed by but not derived
from  education, and I shall conclude this chapter, by an
enquiry into the order of their evolution; so that having
obtained some notion of the natural history of morals, we
may be able in the ensuing chapters to judge, how far
their normal progress has been accelerated or retarded
by religious or political agencies.'Psychology,' it has been truly said,' is but developed
consciousness.9'  When moralists assert, that what we call
virtue derives its reputation solely from its utility, and that
the interest of the agent is the one motive to practise it,
our first question is naturally how far this theory agrees
with the feelings and with the language of mankind.  But
if tested by this criterion, there never was a doctrine
more emphatically condemned than utilitarianism. In all
its stages, and in all its assertions, it is in direct opposition to common language and to common sentiments.  In
all nations and in all ages, the ideas of interest and utility
on the one hand and virtue on the other, have been regarded by the multitude as perfectly distinct, and all
languages recognise the distinction. The terms honour, justice, rectitude or virtue, and their equivalents in every language, present to the mind ideas essentially and broadly
differing from the terms prudence, sagacity,  or interest.
The two lines of conduct may coincide, but they are
never confused, and we have not the slightest difficulty
in imagining them  antagonistic.  When we say a man is
1 Sir W. tIanliton.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.             35
governed by a high sense of honour, or by strong moral
feeling, we do not mean that he is prudently pursuing
either his own interests or the interests of society.  The
universal sentiment of mankind represents self-sacrifice as
an essential element of a meritorious act, and means by
self-sacrifice the deliberate adoption of the least pleasurable course without the prospect of any pleasure in
return.  A  selfish act may be innocent, but cannot be
virtuous, and to ascribe all good deeds to selfish motives,
is not the distortion but the negation of virtue.  No
Epicurean could avow before a popular audience that
the one end of his life was the pursuit of his own
happiness without an outburst of indignation and contempt.I No man could consciously make this —which according to the selfish theory is the only rational and indeed
possible motive of action —the deliberate object of all,his
undertakilngs, without his character becoming despicable
and degraded.  Whether we look within ourselves or
examline the conduct either of our enemies or of our
friends or adjudicate upon the characters in history or in
fiction, our feelings on these matters are the same.  In
exact proportion as we believe a desire for personal
enjoyment to be the motive of a good act is the merit of
the agent diminished.  If we believe the motive to be
wholly selfish the merit is altogether destroyed.  If we
believe it to be wholly disinterested the merit is altogether unalloyed.  Hence, the admiration bestowed upon
Prometheus, or suffering virtue constant beneath the blows
of Almighty malice, or on the atheist who with no
prospect of future reward suffered a fearful death, rather
than abjure an opinion which could be of no benefit
to society because he believed it to be the truth.  Selfish
1 Cic. De Finb. ii.
7 9




HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
moralists deny the possibility of that which all ages, all
nations, all popular judgments pronounce to have been
the characteristic of every noble act that has ever been
performed.  Now when a philosophy which seeks by the
light of consciousness to decypher the laws of our moral
being proves so diametrically opposed to the conclusions
arrived at by the great mass of mankind, who simply
follow their consciousness without endeavouring to frame
systems of philosophy, that it makes most of the distinctions of common ethical language absolutely unmeaning, this is, to say the least, a strong presumption
against its truth.  If Moli&re's hero had been speaking
prose all his life without knowing it, this was simply
because he did not understand what prose was. In the
present case we are asked to believe that men have been
rinder a total delusion about the leadcing principles of
their lives which they had distinguished by a whole vocabulary of terms.
It is said that the case becomes different when the
pleasure sought is not a gross or material enjoyment,
but the satisfaction of performed virtue. I suspect that
if men could persuade themselves that the one motive
of a virtuous nman was the certainty that the act he accomplished would be followed by a glow of satisfaction
so intense as more than to compensate for any sacrifice
he might have made, the difference would not be as
great as is supposed.  In fact, however —and the consciousness of this lies, I conceive, at the root of the
opinions of men upon the subject-the pleasure of virtue
is one which can only be obtained on the express condition of its not being the object sought.  Phenomena
of this kind are familiar to us all. Thus, for example,
it has often been observed that prayer, by a law of
our nature and apart from all supernatural intervention,




THE NATURAL IIISTORY OF MORALS.           37
exercises a reflex influence of a very beneficial character
upon the minds of the worshippers.  The man who
offers up his petitions with passionate earnestness, with
unfaltering fait, and with a vivid realization of the
presence of an Unseen Being has risen to a condition
of mind which is itself eminently favourable both to
his own lhappiness and to the expansion of his moral
qualities.  But he who expects nothing more will never
attain this.  To him  who neither believes nor hopes
that his petitions will receive a response such a mental
state is impossible.  No Protestant before an image of
the Virgin, no Christian before a pagan idol, could
possibly attain it.  If prayers were offered up solely
with a view to this benefit, they would be absolutely
sterile and would speedily cease.  Thus again, certain
political economists have contended that to give money in
charity is worse than useless, that it is positively noxious
to society, but they have added that the gratification
of our benevolent affections is pleasing to ourselves, and
that the pleasure we derive from this source may be so
much greater than the evil resulting from our gift, that
we may justly, according to the'greatest happiness
principle' purchase this large amount of gratification
to ourselves by a slight injury to our neiglhbours.  The
political economy involved in this very characteristic
specimen of utilitarian ethics I shall hereafter examine.
At present it is sufficient to observe that no one who
consciously practised benevolence solely from this motive
could obtain the pleasure in question.  We receive enjoyment from the thought that we have done good.  We
never could receive that enjoyment if our motive were
selfish or if we believed and realised that we were doing
harm. The same thing is pre-eminently true of the satisfaction of conscience.  A feeling of satisfaction follows




j8       HIIISTORY OF ETUROPEAN MIORALS.
the accomplislhment of duty for itself, but if the duty be
performed solely through the expectation of a mental
pleasure conscience refuses to ratify the bargain.
There is no fact more conspicuous in human nature
than the broad distinction, both in kind and degree,
drawn between the moral and the other parts of our
nature. But this on utilitarian principles is altogether unaccountable.  If the excellence of virtue consists solely in.
its utility or tendency to promote the lhappiness of men,
a machine, a fertile field, or a navigable river would
all possess in a very high degree the element of virtue.
If we restrict the term  to human actions which are
useful to society, we should still be compelled to canonise
a crowd of acts which are utterly remote from  all our
ordinary notions of morality.  The whole tendency of
political economy and philosophical history which reveal
the physiology of societies, is to show that the happiness
and welfare of mankind are evolved much more from our
selfish than froml  what are termed our virtuous acts. The
prosperity of nations and the progress of civilisation are
nmainly due to the exertions of men who while pursuing
strictly their own interests, were unconsciously promoting
the interests of the community.  The selfish instinct that
leads men to accumulate, confers ultimately more advantage upon the world than the generous instinct that leads
men to give.  A great historian has contended with some
force that intellectual development is more important to
societies than moral development.  Yet who ever seriously questioned the reality of the distinction that separates these tlings?  The reader will probably exclaim
that tle key to that distinction is to be foundcl in the
motive; but it is one of the paradoxes of the utilitarian
school that the motive of the agent has absolutely no
influence on the morality of the act.  According to




TIHE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                         89
Benthlam, there is but one motive possible, the pursuit of
our own enjoyment.  The most virtuous, the most vicious,
and the most indifferent of actions, if measured by this
test, would be exactly the same, and. an  investigation  of
motives should  therefore  be  altogether  excluded  from
our moral judgments.1   Whatever test we  adopt, the
difficulty  of accounting for the unique and pre-eminent
position  mankind  have  assigned to  virtue  will remain.
If we judge by tendencies, a crowd of objects and of acts
to  which  no  mortal ever dreamed  of ascribing virtue,
contribute largely to the happiness of man.  If we judge
by motives, the moralists we are reviewing  rhave denied
all generic  difference  between  prudential and  virtuous
motives. If we judge by intentions, it is certain that
however much  truth  or chastity  may contribute to  the
1' As there is not any sort of pleasure thatis not itself a good, nor any sort
of pain the exemption from  which is not a good, and as nothing but the
expectation of the eventual enjoyment of pleasure in some shape, or of exemption from pain in some shape, can operate in the character of a motive,
a necessary consequence is that if by motive be meant sort of motive, there
is not any such thing' as a bad motive.'-Benthaml's Spr8ings of Action, ii. ~ 4.
The first clauses of the following passage I have already quoted:' Pleasure is
itself a good, nay, setting aside immunity from pain, the only good. Pain is in
itself an evil. and indeed, without exception, the only evil, or else the words
good and evil have no meaning. Alnd this is alike true of every sort of
pain, and of every sort of pleasure. It follows therefore immediately and
incontestably that there is no such thing as any sort of motive that is in
itself a bad one.'-P-rinc1iples of of orals and Legislation, ch. ix.' The search
after motive is one of the prominent causes of men's bewilderment in the
investigation of questions of morals...  But this is a pursuit in which
every moment employed is a moment wasted. All motives are abstractedly
good. No man has ever had, can, or could have a motive different from the
pursuit of pleasure or of shunning pain.'-Deontology, vol. i. p. 126. Mr.
Mill's doctrine appears somewhat different from this, but the difference is
I think only apparent. He says:'The motive has nothing to do with the
morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent,' and he
afterwards explains this last statement by saying that the' motive makes a
great difference in our moral estimation of the agent, especially if it indicates
a good or a bad habitual disposition, a bent of character from which useful
or from which hurtful actions are likely to arise.'- Utilitarianism, 2nd ed.
pp. 26-27.




40        HI1STORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
happiness of mankind, it is not with philanthropic intentions that those virtues are cultivated.
It is often said that intuitive moralists in their reasonings are guilty of continually abandoning their principles
by themselves appealing to the tendency of certain acts
to promote human happiness as a justification, and the
charge is usually accompanied by a challenge to show
any confessed virtue that has not that tendency.  To the
first objection it may be shortly answered that no intuitive moralist ever dreamed of doubting that benevolence
or charity, or in other words, the promotion of the happiness of man, is a duty. lie maintains that it not only
is so, but that we arrive at this fact by direct intuition,
and not by the discovery that such a course is conducive
to our own interest.  But while he cordially recognises
this branch of virtue, and while he has therefore a perfect
right to allege the beneficial effects of a virtue in its
defence, he refuses to admit that all virtue can be reduced to this single principle.  With the general sentimrent of mankind he regards charity as a good thing
only because it is of use to the world.  With the same
general sentiment of mankind he believes that chastity and
truth have an independent value, distinct from their influence upon happiness.  To the question whether every
confessed virtue is conducive to human happiness, it is
less easy to reply, for it is usually extremely difficult
to calculate the remote tendencies of acts, and in cases
where, in the common apprehension of mankind, the
morality is very clear, the consequences are often very
obscure.  Notwithstanding the claim of great precision
which utilitarian writers so boastfully make, the standard
by which they profess to measure mlorals is itself absolutely incapable of definition or accurate explanation.
Happiness is one of the most indeterminate and unde



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MIORALS.                 41
finable words in the language, and what are the  conditions of' the greatest possible happiness' no one can
precisely say.  No two nations, perhaps, no two  indi-viduals, would find them  the same.l  And even if every
virtuous act were incontestably useful, it by no means
follows that its virtue is derived from its utility.
It may  be readily  granted, that as a general rule
those acts which we call virtuous, are unquestionably productive of happiness, if not to the agent, at least to mankind in general, but we have already seen that they have by
no means that monopoly or pre-eminence of utility which
on utilitarian principles, the unique position assigned to
them would appear to imply.  It may be added, that if
we were to proceed in detail to estimate acts by their
consequences, we should soon be led to very startling
conclusions. In the first place, it is obvious that if virtues
are only good because they promote, and vices only evil because they impair the happiness of mankind, the degrees
of excellence or criminality must be strictly proportioned
to the degrees of utility or the reverse.2  Every action,
every disposition, every class, every condition of society
must take its  place  on  the  moral scale precisely in
accordance with  the degree in which  it promotes or
diminishes human happiness.  Now it is extremely questionable, whether some of the most monstrous forms of
sensuality which it is scarcely possible to name, cause as
much unhappiness as some infirmities of temper, or procrastination or hastiness of judgment. It is scarcely doubtful that a modest, diffident, and retiring nature, distrustful
This truth has been adclmirably illustrated by iMr. Herbert Spencer
(Social Statics, pp. 1-8).
2'1On 6value la grandeur de la vertu en comparant les biens obtenus
aux maux au prix desquels on les achete: l'exc6dant en bien rmesure la
valeur de la vertu, comme l'exc6dant en rmal mesure le degre de haine que
doit inspirer le vice.'-Ch. Comte, Traitg dce.Lefislation, liv. ii. ch. xii.




62             IIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
of its own abilities, and shrinking with humility from  conflict, produces on the whole less benefit to the world, than
the  self-assertion  of an  audacious  and  arrogant nature,
which is impelled  to every struggle, and developes  every
capacity.   Gratitude has no  doubt done much to soften
and sweeten the intercourse of life, but the corresponding
feeling  of revenge  was for centuries the  one bulwark
against social anarchy, and is even  now  one of the chief
restraints to crime.'  On  the great theatre of public life,
especially in periods of great convulsions when passions
are  fiercely  roused, it is neither the  iman  of  delicate
scrupulosity and  sincere impartiality, nor yet the singleminded religious enthusiast, incapable of dissimulation or
procrastination, who confers most benefit upon the world.
It is much rather the astute  statesman earnest about his
encls but unscrupulous  about his  mneans, equally  free
from  the tramnmels  of conscience and from   the blindness
of zeal, who  governs because  he  partly  yields  to  the
passions and the prejudices of his time.   But however
1 Mt. Dumont, the translator of Bentham, has elalborated in a ratlher famous
passage the utilitarian notions about vengeance.' Toute espace de satisfaction entrainant une peine pour le ddlinquanlt produit naturellement un plaisir
de rengeance pour la partie les6e.  Ce plaisir est un gain. I1 rappelle la
parabole de Samson.  C'est le doux qui sort du terrible. C'est le miel
recueilli dans la gueule du lion. Produit sans frais, resultat net d'une operation n6cessaire a d'autres titres, c'est une jouissance a cultiver comme toute
autre; car le plaisir de la vengeance considleree abstraitement n'est comme
tout autre plaisir qu'un bien en lui-meme.' —Pnceilpes dut Cocle p9nal, 2me
partie, ch. xvi. According to a very acute living writer of this school,' The
criminal law stands to the passion of revenge in much the same relation as
marriage to the sexual appetite' (J. F. Stephen On the Criminal Lawv of
England, p. 99). Mr. 3Iill observes that,'In the golden rule of Jesus of
Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility' (Utilitarianism, p. 24). It is but fair to give a specimen of the opposite order of extravagance.' So well convinced was Father Claver of the eternal happiness
of almost all whom he assisted,' says this saintly missionary's biographer,
that speaking once of some persons who had delivered a criminal into the
hands of justice, he said, God forgive them; but they have secured the
salvation.of this malln at te pi obable risk of t/heir own.'-Newman's Angclican
DiFiculties, p. 205,.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MIORALS.              43
much some modern writers may idolize the heroes of
success, however much they may despise and ridicule
those far nobler men, whose wide tolerance and scru-pulous honour rendered them unfit leaders in the fray,
it has scarcely yet been contended that the delicate
conscientiousness which in these cases impairs utility
constitutes vice.  If utility is the sole measure of virtue,
it is difficult to understand how we could look with
moral disapprobation on any class who prevent greater
evils than they cause. But with such a principle we
might find strange priestesses at the utilitarian shrine.'Aufer meretrices de rebus humanis,' said St. Augustine,' turbaveris omnia libidinibus."'
Let us suppose an enquirer who intended to regulate his
life consistently by the utilitarian principle; let us suppose
him to have overcome the first great difficulty of his school,
arising from the apparent divergence of his own interests
from his duty, to have convinced himself that that divergence does not exist, and to have accordingly made thle
pursuit of duty his single object, it remains to consider
what kind of course he would pursue.  He is informed
that it is a pure illusion to suppose that human actions
have any other end or rule than happiness, that nothing
is intrinsically good or intrinsically bad apart from  its
consequences, that no act which is useful can possibly
be vicious, and that the utility of an act constitutes and
measures its virtue.   Oile of his first observations will be
that in very many special cases acts such as murder, theft,
or falsehood, which the world calls criminal, and which
in the majority of instances would undoubtedly be hurtful, appear eminently productive of good.  Why then, he
may ask, should they not in these cases be performed?
1 De Ordine, ii. 4. The experiment has more than once been tried at
Venice, Pisa, &c., and always with the results St. Augustine predicted.




44         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
The answer le receives is that they would not really be
useful, because we must consider the remote as well as the
immediate consequences of actions, and that although in
particular instances a falsehood or even a murder might
appear beneficial, it is one of the most important interests
of mankind that the sanctity of life and property should
be preserved, and that a high standard of veracity should
be maintained. But this answer is obviously insufficient.
It is necessary to show that the extent to which a single
act of what the world calls crime would weaken these
great bulwarks of society is such as to counterbalance
the immediate good which it produces.  If it does not,
the balance will be on the side of happiness, the murder
or theft or falsehood will be useful, and therefore, on
utilitarian principles, will be virtuous.  Now even in the
case of public acts, the effect of the example of an obscure individual is usually small, but if the act be accomplished in perfect secresy, the evil effects resulting from
the example will be entirely absent.  It has been said
that it would be dangerous to give men permission to
perpetrate what men call crimes in secret.  This may be
a very good reason why the utilitarian should not proclaim such a principle, but it is no reason why lie should
not act upon it.  If a man be convinced that no act
which is useful can possibly be criminal, if it be in his
power by perpetrating what is called a crime to obtain
an end of great immediate utility, and if he is able to
secure such absolute secrecy as to render it perfectly certain that his act cannot become an example, and cannot
in consequence exercise any influence on the general
standard  of morals, it appears demonstrably  certain
that on utilitarian principles he would be justified in
performing it.  If what we call virtue be only virtuous
because it is useful, it can only be virtuous when it is use



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                          45
ful.  The question of the morality of a large number of
acts must therefore  dependl  upon the probability of their
detection,  andc  a little  adroit hypocrisy  must often, not
merely in appearance but in reality, convert a vice into a
virtue. The only way by which it has been attempted
with any plausibility to evade this conclusion has been by
asserting  that the  act would  impair the  disposition  of
the  agent, or in  other words predispose  him   on  other
occasions to perform  acts which are generally  hurtful to
society.  But in the first place a single act has no such
effect upon disposition as to counteract a great immediate
good, especially when, as we have supposed, that act is
not a revolt against what is believed  to  be right, but is
performed under the full belief that it is in  accordance
with the one rational rule  of morals, and  in  the  next
place, as fair as the act would form  a habit it would  appear to be the habit of in  all cases regulating actions by
a precise and minute calculation of their utility, which is
the very ideal of utilitarian virtue.
1 The reader will here observe the very transparent sophistry of an assertion which is repeated ad nauseam by utilitarians.  They tell us that a
regard to the remote consequences of our actions would lead us to the conclusion that we should never perform an act which would not be conducive to
human happiness if it were universally performed, or, as IMr. Austin expresses
it, that' the question is if acts of this class were generally done or generally
forborne or omitted, what would be the probable effect on the general
happiness or good?' (Lectzures on JTurislprudenee, vol. i. p. 32.)  The question
is nothing of the kind. If I am convinced that utility alone constitutes
virtue, and if I am meditating any particular act, the sole question of
morality must be whether that act is on the whole useful:, produces a net
result of happiness. To determine this question 1 must consider both the
immediate and the remote consequences of the act; but the latter are not
ascertained by asking what would be the result if every one did as I do, but
by asling how far, as a matter of fact, my act is likely to produce imitators,
or affect the conduct and future acts of others. It is quite clear that no act
which produces on the whole more pleasure than pain can on utilitarian
principles be vicious. It is, I think, equally clear that no one could act
consistently on such a principle without being led to consequences which in
the commnon judgment of mlankind are grossly and scandalously immoral.




46         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
If our enquirer happens to be a man of strong ilnagination and of solitary habits, it is very probable that he
will be accustomed to live much in a world of imagination,
a world peopled with beings that are to him  as real as
those of flesh, with its joys and sorrows, its temptations
and its sins.  In obedience to the common feelings of our
nature he may have struggled long and painfully against
sins of the imagination, which he was never seriously
tempted to convert into sins of action.  But his new
philosophy will be admirably fitted to console his mind.
If remorse be absent the indulgence of the most vicious
imagination is a pleasure, and if this indulgence does not
lead to action it is a clear gain, and therefore to be applauded.  That a course may be continually pursued in
imagination without leading to corresponding actions he
will speedily discover, and indeed it has always been one
of the chief objections brought against fiction that the
constant exercise of the sympathies in favour of imaginary beings is found positively to indispose men to practical benevolence. 1
Proceeding farther in his course, our moralist will soon
find reason to qualify the doctrine of remote consequences,
which plays so large a part in the calculations of utilitarianism.  It is said that it is criminal to destroy human
beings, even when the crime would appear productive of
great utility, for every instance of murder weakens the
sanctity of life. But experience shows that it is possible
for men to be perfectly indifferent to one particular
section of human life, without this indifference extending
to others.  Thus among the ancient Greeks, the murder
or exposition of the children of poor parents was con1 There are some very good remarlis on the possibility of living a life of
imagination wholly distinct from the life of action in Mr. Bain's Emotions
and Will, p. 246.




THE NATURAL IIISTORY OF MIORIALS.         47
tinually practised  with the most absolute callousness,
without exercising any appreciable influence upon the
respect for adult life. In the same manner what may be
termed religious unveracity, or the habit of propagating
what are cleemed useful superstitions, with the consciousness of their being false, or at least suppressing or misrepresenting the facts that might invalidate them, does
not in any degree imply industrial unveracity. Nothing is
more common than to find extreme dishonesty in speculation coexisting with scrupulous veracity inl business.
If any vice might be expected to conform strictly to the
utilitarian theory, it would be cruelty; but cruelty to
animals may exist without leading to cruelty to men,
and even where spe(,tacles in which animal suffering forms
a leading element exercise anl injurious influence on
character, it is more than doubtful whether the measure
of luman unhappiness they may ultimately produce is at
all equivalent to the passionate enjoyment they immediately afford.
This last consideration, however, 1mlakes it necessary
to notice a new, and as it appears to me, almost grotesque development of the utilitarian theory.  The duty
of humanity to animals, thoug]h for a long period too
much neglected, may, on the principles of the intuitive moralist, be easily explained and justified.  Our
circumstances and characters produce in us many and
various affectiorns towards all with whom  we come in
contact, and our consciences pronounce these affections
to be good or bad.  We feel that humanity or benevolence is a good affection, and also that it is due in different degrees to different classes.  Thus it is not only
natural but riglt that a man should care for his own
family more than for the world at large, and this obligation
applies not only to parents who are responsible for having
5




48         IHISTORIY OF EUROPEAN BORALS.
brought their children into existence, and to children
who owe a debt of gratitude to their parents, but also to
brothers who have no such special tie.  So too we feel it
to be both unnatural and wrong to feel no stronger interest in our fellow-countrymen thanl in other men.  In
the same way we feel that there is a wide interval between the humanity that it is both natural and right to
exhibit towards animals, and that which is due to our
own species.  Strong philanthropy could hardly coexist
with cannibalism, and a man who had 1no hesitation in
destroying human life for the sake of obtaining the skins
of the victims, or of freeing himself from  some trifling
inconvenience, would scarcely be -eulogised for his benevolence.  Yet a man may be regarded as very humane
to animals who has no scruple in sacrificing their lives
for his food, his pleasures, or his convenience.
Towards the close of the last century an energetic agitation in favour of lhumanity to animals arose in England,
and the utilitarian moralists, who were then rising into
influence, caught the spirit of their time and made very
creditable efforts to extend it.l  It is manifest, however,
that a theory which recognized no other end in virtue
than the promotion of human happiness, could supply
no adequate basis for the movement. Some of the recent
members of the school have accordingly enlarged their
theory, maintaining that acts are virtuous when they produce a net result of happiness, and vicious whlen they
produce a net result of suffering, altogether irrespective
of the question whether this enjoyment or sufferin(g is
of men or animals.  In other words, they place the duty
of man to animals on exactly the same basis as the duty
1 Benthaml especially recurs to this subject frequently. See Sir J. Bowring's edition of his works (Edinburgh, 1843), vol. i. pp. 142, 143, 562; vol.
x. pp, 549-55 0.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                        49
of man to his fellow-men, maintaining that no suffering can
be rightly inflicted on brutes, which does not produce a
larger amount of happiness to man.1
The first reflection  suggested by this theory is, that it
appears cifficult to understand  how, on the principles of
tile  inductive school, it could be arrived  at.  ]3enevolence, as we have seen, according to these writers begins
in interest.  We first of all do good to men, because it is
for our advantage, though  the force of the habit nmay at
last act irrespective of interest. But in the case of animals
who cannot resent barbarity, this foundation of self-interest does not for the  most part2 exist.  Probably, however, an association of ideas might help to solve the difflculty, and the habit of benevolence generated  originally
from  the  social relations of men  might at last be extended to the animal world; but that it should be so to
the extent of placing the  duty to animals on the same
basis as the duty to  men, I do not anticipate, or (at the
risk of being accused of great inhumanity), I must add,
1' Granted that any practice causes more pain to animals than it gives
pleasure to man; is that practice moral or immoral? And if exactly in
proportion as human beings raise their heads out of the slough of selfishness
they do not with one voice answer "' immoral," let the morality of the principle of utility be for ever condemned.'-M ill's l)issert. vol. ii. p. 485.' We
deprive them [animals] of life, and this is justifiable-their pains do not
equal our enjoyments. There is a balance of good.'-Bentham's.Deontology,
vol. i. p. 14. 3r. Mill accordingly defines the principle of utility, without
any special reference to man.'The creed which accepts as the foundation
of morals, utility or the greatest happiness principle, holds that actions are
right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend
to produce the reverse of happiness.' —Utilitarcianism, pp. 9-10.
2 The exception of course being domestic animals, which may be injured
by ill-treatment, but even this exception is a very partial one. No selfish
reason could prevent any amount of cruelty to animals that were about to
be killed, and even in the case of previous ill-usage the calculations of
selfishness will depend greatly upon the price of the animal. I have been
told that on some parts of the continent diligence horses are systematically
under-fed, and worked to a speedy death, their cheapness rendering such a
course the most econom ical.




liO          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
desire.  I cannot look forward to a time when no one
will wear any article of dress formed out of the skin of
an animal, or feed upon animal flesh, till he had ascertained that the pleasure he derived from doing so, exceeded
the pain inflicted upon the animal, as well as the pleasure
of which by abridging its life he had deprived it.'  And
supposing that with such a calculation before him, the
utilitarian should continue to feed on the flesh of animals,
his principle might carry him  to further conclusions, from
which  I confess I should  recoil.  If, when  Swift was
writing his famous essay in favour of employing for food
the redundant babies of a  half —starving  population, he
had been informed that, according to the more advanced
moralists, to eat a child, and to eat a sheep, rest upon
exactly the same ground; that in the one case as in the
other, the single question for the moralist is, whether the
repast on the whole produces more pleasure than pain, it
must be owned that the discovery would have greatly
facilitated his task.
The considerations I have adduced will, I think, be
sufficient to show that the utilitarian principle if pushed
to its full logical consequences would be by no means
as accordant with ordinary moral notions as is sometimes
alleged; that it would, on the contrary, lead to conclusions
utterly and outrageously repugnant to the moral feelings it
1 Bentlam, as we have seen, is of opinion that the gastronomic pleasure
would produce the requisite excess of enjoyment. Hartley, who has some
amiable and beautiful remarks on the duty of lindness to animals, without
absolutely condemning, speaks with much aversion of the custom of eating'our brothers and sisters,' the animals. (On Mcian, vol. ii. pp. 222-223.)
IPaley, observing that it is quite possible for men to live without flesh-diet,
concludes that the only sufficient justification for eating meat is an express
divine revelation in the Book of Genesis. (loral.Philos. book ii. ch. 11.)
Some reasoners evade the main issue by contending that they kill animals
because these would otherwise overrun the eaith; but this, as Windlhaur said,'is an indifflrent reason for killing fish,'




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                    M1
is intended to explain.  I will conclude this part of my
argument by very briefly adverting to two great fields
inll which, as I believe, it would prove especially revolutionary.
The first of these is the field of chastity. It will be
necessary for me in the course of the present work to
dwell at greater length than I should desire upon questions connected  with this virtue.   At present, I will
simply ask the reader to conceive a mind from  which
all notion of the intrinsic excellence or nobility of purity
was banished, and to suppose such a mind comparing, by
a utilitarian standard, a period in which sensuality was
almost unbridled, such as the age of Athenian glory or
the English restoration, with a period of austere virtue.
The question which of these societies was morally the best
would thus resolve itself simply into the question in which
there' was the  greatest amount of enjoyment and  tflhe
smallest amount of suffering.  The pleasures of domestic
life, the pleasures resulting from a freer social intercourse,'
the different degrees of suffering inflicted on those who
violated the law  of chastity, the ulterior consequences of
each mode of life upon population, would be the chief
elements of the comparison. Can any one believe that the
balance of enjoyment would be so unquestionably and so
largely on  the side of the more austere society as to
justify the degree of superiority which is assigned to it? 2
1 In commenting upon the French licentiousness of the eighteenth century, Itume says, in a passage which has excited a great deal of animadversion:-' Our neighbours, it seems, have resolved to sacrifice some of the
domestic to the social pleasures; and to prefer ease, freedom, and an open
commerce, to strict fidelity and constancy. These ends are both good, and
are somewhat difficult to reconcile; nor must we be surprised if the customs
of nations incline too much sometimes to the one side, and sometimes to the
other.'-Dialogute.
2 There are few things more pitiable than the blunders into which writers
have fallen when trying to base the plain virtue of chastity on utilitarian




52           HISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MOlRALS.
The second sphere is that of speculative truth.  No
class of men have  more  highly valued an  unflinching
hostility to superstition than utilitarians.  Yet it is more
than  doubtful whether upon their principles it can be
justifiecl.  Many superstitions do undoubtedly answer to
the Greek conception of slavish' fear of the gods,' and
have been productive of unspeakable misery to mankind,
b)ut there are very many others of a different tendency.
Superstitions appeal to our hopes as well as to our fears.
They often meet and gratify the inmrost longings of the
heart.  They offer certainties when reason can only afford
possibilities or probabilities.  They supply conceptions on
which the imagination maost fondly dwells.  They sometimes  even  impart a  new   sanction  to  moral truths.
Creating wants which  they alone can  satisfy, and fears
which they alone canl quell, they often become essential
elements of happiness, and  their consoling  efficacy  is
most felt in the languid  or troubled hours when it is
most needed.  We owe more to our illusions than to our
knowledge.  The imagination, which  is altogether constructive, probably  contributes more  to  our happiness
calculations. Thus since the writings of iMalthus it has been generally recognised that one of the very first conditions of all material prosperity is to
check early marriages, to restrain the tendency of population to multiply
more rapidly than the means of subsistence. Knowing this, what can be
more deplorable than to find moralists making such arguments as these the
-very foundation of morals?-' The first and great mischief, and by consequence the guilt, of promiscnous concubinage consists in its tendency to
diminish marriages.' (Paley's Moral Philosolphy, book iii. part iii. ch. ii.).'That is always the most happy condition of a nation, and that nation is
most accurately obeying the laws of our constitution, in which the number
of the human race is most rapidly increasing. Now it is certain that under
the law of chastity, that is, when individuals are exclusively unitedl to each
other, the increase of population will be more rapid than under any other
circumstances.' (Wayland's Elements of.Moral cienzce, p. 298, 11th ed.,
Boston, 1839.) I am sorry to bring such subjects before the reader, but it
is impossible to write a history of morals without doinag so.




THE NATALTTIAL HISTORY OF MIORPALS.        53
than the reason, which, inl the sphere of speculation is
mainly critical and destructive.  The rude charm which
in the hour of danger or distress the savage clasps so
confidently to his breast, the sacred picture which is
believed to shed a hallowing and protecting influence
over the poor man's cottage, can bestow a more real consolation in the darkest hour of human suffering than can
be afforded by the grandest theories of philosophy. The
first desire of the heart is to find something on which to
lean.  The first condition of happiness to common minds
is the exclusion of doubt.  A credulous and superstitious
nature may be degraded, but in the many cases where,superstition does not assume a persecuting or appalling form it is not unhappy, and degradation, apart from
unhappiness, can have no place in utilitarian ethics.  No
error can be inore grave than to imagine that when
a critical spirit is abroad the pleasant beliefs will all
remain, and the painful ones alone will perish.  To introducee into the mind the consciousness of ignorance
and the pangs of doubt is to inflict or endure much
suffering, which may even survive the period of transition.'Why is it,' said Luther's wife, looking sadly
back upon the sensuous creed which she had left,' that
in our old faith we prayed so often and so warmly, and
that our prayers are now so few and so cold?'l  It is
related of an old monk named Serapion, who had embraced the heresy of the anthropomorphites, that. he was
convinced by a brother monk of the folly of attributing
to the Almighty a human form.  He bowed his reason
humbly to the Catholic creed; but lwhen lie knelt down
to pray, the image which his imagination had conceived,
and on which for so many years his affections had been
concentrated, had disappeared, and the old man burst
1 See Luther's Table Talk.




54           HTIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MfORI.LS.
into tears, exclaiming,'You  have deprived me of my
god.' 1
These are indeed facts which must be deeply painful to
all who are concerned with the history of opinion.  The
possibility of often  adding to the happiness of men by
diffusing abroad, or at least sustaining pleasing falsehoods,
and the suffering that must commonly result from  their
dissolution, can hardly reasonably be denied.  There is
one, and but one, adequate reason that can always justify
men in critically reviewing what they have been taught.
It is, the conviction that opinions should not be regarded
as mere mental luxuries, that truth should be deemed an
end distinct from  and superior to utility, and that it is a
moral duty to pursue it, whether it leads to pleasure or
whether it leads to pain.  Among the many wise sayings
which antiquity ascribed  to Pythagoras, few  are more
remarkable than his division of virtue into two distinct
branches-to seek truth and to do good.2
Of the sanctions which, according to the utilitarians,
constitute the sole motives to virtue, there is one, as I have
said, unexceptionably adequate. Those who adopt the religious sanction, can always appeal to a balance of interest
in favour of virtue; but as the great majority of modern
utilitarians confidently sever their theory from  all tlheological considerations, I will dismiss this sanction with two
or three remarks.
In the first place, it is obvious that those who regard
1 Tillemont. Mel. Ipor' serve'r  I'Idst. ecclsicstique, tome x. p. 57.
2 To rc dXOE6EtV iaciL ro EVEspYE7elV. (Mlian, Ycr. Ilist. xii. 59.) Longinus in like manner divides virtue into Edpyrla icft c' aX;Ola  (.De iSublim.
~ 1.) The opposite view in England is continually expressed in the saying,'You should never pull down an opinion until you have something to
put in its place,' which can only mean, if you are convinced that some
religious or other hypothesis is ftlse, you are morally bound to repress or
conceal your conviction until you have discovered positive affirmations or
explanations as unqualified and consolatory as those you have destroyed.




THE NATUPRAL HISTORY OF MORALS.              55
the arbitrary will of the Deity as the sole rule of morals,
render it perfectly idle to represent the Divine attributes
as deserving of our admiration.  To speak of the goodness of God, either implies that there is such a quality as
goodness, to which the Divine acts conform, or it is an
unmeaning tautology. Why should we extol, or how can
we admire, the perfect goodness of a Being whose will
and acts constitute the sole standard or definition of perfection? I The theory which teaches that the arbitrary will
of the Deity is the one rule of morals, and the anticipation
of future rewards and punishments the one reason for
conforming to it, consists of two parts.  The first annihilates the goodness of God; the second, the virtue of man.
Another and equally obvious remark is, that while
these theologians represent the hope of future rewards,
and the fear of future punishments, as the only reason for
doing right, one of our strongest reasons for believing in
the existence of these rewards and punislhments, is our
deep-seated feeling of merit and demerit.  That the present disposition of affairs is in many respects unjust, that
suffering often attends a course which deserves reward, and
happiness a course which deserves punishment, leads men
to infer a future state of retribution.  Take away the consciousness of desert, and the inference would no longer be
made.
A third remark, which I believe to be equally true,
but which will not be acquiesced in with equal readiness,
is that without the concurrence of a moral faculty, it is
wholly impossible to prove from  nature that supreme
goodness of the Creator, which utilitarian theologians
I See this powerfully stated by Shaftesbury. (Inquiry concernizzg Firtue,
book i. part iii.) The samne objection applies to Dr. 3Mansel's modification
of the theological doctrine —viz. that the origin of morals is not the will
but the nature of God,




0          HItlSTORY OF EUROPEAN MhORALS.
assume. We speak of the benevolence shown in the joy of,
the insect glittering in the sunbeam, in the protecting in-i
stincts so liberally bestowed among  the animal world, in
the kindness of the parent to its young, in the happiness
of little children, in the beauty and the bounty of nature,
but is there not another side to the picture?  The hideous
disease, the countless forms of rapine and of suffering,
the entozoa that live within the bodies, and feed upon the
anguish of sentient beings, the ferocious instinct of the
cat, that prolongs with delight the agonies of its victim,
all the multitudinous forms of misery that are manifested among the innocent portion of creation, are not
these also the works of nature?  We speak of the Divine
veracity.  What is the whole history of the intellectual
progress of the world but one long struggle of the intellect of man to emancipate itself frlom the deceptions of
nature?  Every object that meets the eye of the savage
awakens his curiosity only to lure him into some deadly
error.  The sun that seems a diminutive light revolving
around his world; the moon and the stars that appear
formed only to light his path; the strange fantastic
diseases that suggest irresistibly the notion of present
dramons; the terrific phenomena of nature which appear
the results, not of blind forces, but of isolated spiritual
ag(encies-all these things fatally, inevitably, invincibly
impel him into superstition.  Through long centuries the
superstitions thus generated have deluged the world with
blood.  Millions of prayers have been vainly breatled to
what we now know were inexorable laws of nature.
Only after ages of toil did the mind of man emancipate
itself from those deadly errors to which by the deceptive
appearances of nature the long infancy of humanity is
universally doomed.
And in the laws of wealth how different are the appear



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MIORALS.                  67
ances from the realities of things!  Who can estimate the
wars thlat have been kindled, tle bitterness and the wretchedness that have been caused, by errors relating to the apparent antagonism  of the interests of nations which were
so natural that for centuries they  entangled the  very
strongest intellects, and it was scarcely till our own day
that a tardy science came to dispel them?
What shall we say to these things? If induction alone
were our guide, if we possessed absolutely no knowledge
of some things being, in their own nature good, and others
in their own nature evil, how  coul.ld we rise from  this
spectacle of nature to the conception of an all-perfect
Author?  E1ven if we could discover a predominance of
benevolence in the creation, we should still regard the
mingled attributes of nature as a reflex of the mingled
attributes of its Contriver. Our knowledge of the Supreme
Excellence, our best evidence even of the existence of the
Creator, is derived not from  the material -universe but
frnom  our own moral nature.1  It is not of reason but of
faith.  In other Awords it springs from  that instinctive or
moral nature which  is as truly a part of our being as is
our reason, which teaches us what rereason could lnever
teach, the supreme and transcendent excellence of moral
good,  rllich rising. dissatisfied above this Awiorld of sense,
proves itself by the very intensity of its aspiration to be
adapted for another sphere, and which constitutes at once
the evidence of a Divine element within us, and the augury
of the future that is before us.2
1'The one great and binding ground of the belief of God and a hereafter is the law of conscience.' —Coleridgej Nrotes Theological and Politicac,
p. 367. That our moral faculty is our one reason for maintaining the supreme benevolence of the Deity was a favourite position of Kant.
2'Nescio quomlodo iniheret in mentibus quasi smeculorum quolddam
auguriurl  futurorum; idque in maximis ingeniis altissimisque a"nimis et
existit maxime et apparet facillime.'-Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 12.




HIlSTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
These things belong  rather to  the sphere of feeling
than  of reasoning.  Those  who  are most deeply persuaded of their truth, will probably feel that they are
unable by argument to express adequately the intensity
of their conviction, but they may point to the recorded
experience of the best and greatest men in all ages, to
the incapacity of terrestrial things to  satisfy our nature,
to the manifest tendency, both in individuals and nations,
of a pure and heroic life to kindle, and of a selfish and
corrupt life to cloud, these aspirations, to the historical
fact that no philosophy and no scepticism  have been able
permanently to repress them.  The lines of our moral
nature tend upwards.  In it we have the common root
of religion and of ethics, for the same consciousness that
tells us that, even when it is in fact the weakest element
of our constitution, it is by right supreme, commanding
and authoritative, teaches us also that it is Divine.  All
religions that have truly governed mankind, have done
so by. virtue of the affinity of their teaching with this
nature, by speaking, as common religious language correctly describes it,'to  the heart,' by appealing not to
self-interest, but to that Divine element of self-sacrifice
which is latent in every soul.1   The reality of this moral
nature is the one great question of natural theology, for
1'It is a calumny to say that mlen are roused to heroic actions by ease,
hope of pleasure, recompense-suggar-plums of any kind in this world or the
next.  In the meanest mortal there lies sonmething nobler.  The poor
swearing soldier hired to be shot has his " honour of a soldier," different
fiom drill, regulations, and the shilling a day. It is not to taste sweet things,
but to do noble and true things, and vindicate himself under God's heaven
as a God-made man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show
him the way of doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero.
They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty,
tabnegation, martyrdom, death, are the allurements that act on the heart of
lman. Kindle the inner genial life of him, you have a flame that burns up
all. lower considerations.'-Carlyle's Iero-worslip, p. 237 (ed. 1858).




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS..;9
it involves that connection between our own and a higher
nature, without which the existence of a First Cause were
a mere  question  of archeology, and  religion  but an
exercise of the imagination.
I return gladly to the secular sanctions of utilitarianism. The majority of disciples assure us that these
are sufficient to establish their theory, or in other words,
that our duty  coincides  so  strictly  with  our interest
when rightly understood, that a perfectly prudent would
necessarily become a perfectly virtuous man.1 Bodily
vice they tell us ultimately brings bodily weakness and
suffering.  Extravagance is followed by ruin; unbridled
passions by the loss of domestic peace; disregard for the
interests of others by social or legal penalties; while on
the other hand, the most moral is also the most tranquil
disposition; benevolence is one of the truest of our pleasures, and virtue may become by habit, an essential of
enjoyment. As the shopkeeper who has made his fortune,
still sometimes  continues at the  counter, because  the
daily routine has become necessary to his happiness,
so  the'moral hero' imay  continue  to  practise  that
virtue  which was at first  the mere instrument of his
pleasures, as being  in  itself, more  precious  than  all
besides.2
1  Clamat Epicurus is quem vos nimis voluptatibus esse deditum dicitis
non posse jucunde vivi nisi sapienter, honeste, justeque vivatur, nee sapienter, honeste, juste nisi jucunde.' —-Cicero, De Fin. i.
2  The virtues to be complete must have fixed their residence in tiel
heart and become appetites impelling to actions without further thought than
the gratification of them; so that after their expedience ceases they still
continue to operate by the desire they raise.... I knew a mercer who
having gotten a competency of fortune, thought to retire and enjoy himself
in quiet; but finding he could not be easy without business was forced to
return to the shop and assist his former partners gratis, in the nature of a
journeyman. ANWhy then should it be thought strange that a man long inured
to the practice of moral duties should persevere in them out of liking, when
they can yield him no further advantage?' —Tuceker's Liy1t of Ciatu'e, vol. i.




00          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3MORALS.
This theory of the perfect coincidence of virtue and
interest rightly  understood, which  has always been a
common-place of moralists, and has been advocated by
many who were far from  wishing to resolve virtue into
prudence, contains no doubt a certain amount of truth,
but only of the most general kind.  It does not apply to
nations as wholes, for althouigh luxurious and effeminate
vices do undoubtedly corrode and enervate national character, the histories of ancient Rome and of not a few
modern monarchies abundantly prove that a career of
consistent rapacity, ambition, selfishness, and fraudcl may
be eminently conducive to national prosperity.1  It does
not apply to imperfectly organised societies, where the
restraints of public opinion are unfelt and where force
is the one measure of right.  It does not apply except
in a very partial degree even to the most civilised of
mankind.  It is, indeed, easy to show that in a polished
community a certain low  standard of virtue is essential
to prosperity, to paint the evils of unrestrained passions,'anl to prove that it is better to obey than to violate the
laws of society.   But if turninc from the criminal or the
drunkard we were to compare the man who simply falls
in with or slighftly surpasses the average morals of those
about him, and indulges in a little vice which is neither
injurious to his own health or to his reputation, with the
man who earnestly and painfully adopts a much higher
standard than that of his time or of his class, we should
be driven to another conclusion. Honesty it is said is the
best policy —a fact, however, which depends very much
p. 269.'Mr. J. S. MAill in his Utilitarianisnm dewells much on the heroism
which he thinks this view of morals may produce.
1 See Lactantius, Inst. Div. vi. 9. Montesquieu, in his D'cadclence de
I'Enmpire'ronia,n has shovwn in detail the manner in which the crimes of 
Iloman politicians contributed to the greatness of their nation. The history
of Prussia forms a modern illustration of the same truth.




NATURAL HISTORY OF MIOPRALS.           61
upon the condition of the police force, but heroic virtue
must rest upon a different basis.  If happiness in any
of its forms be the supreme object of life, moderation
is the most emphatic counsel of our being, but moderation is as opposed to heroism  as to vice.  There is no
form  of intellectual or moral excellence which has not
a general tendency to produce happiness if cultivated in
moderation.  There are very few  which if cultivated
to great perfection have not a tendency directly the
reverse.  Thus a mind that is sufficiently enlarged to
range abroad  amid the pleasures of intellect has no
doubt secured a fund of inexhaustible enjoyment; but he
who inferred from  this that the highest intellectual eminence was the condition lmost favourable to happiness
would be lamentably deceived.  The diseased nervous
sensibility that accompanies intense mental exertion, the
weary, wasting sense of ignorance and vanity, the disenchantment and disintegration that commonly follow a
profound researcl, have filled literature witll mournfull
echoes of the words of the royal sage,'In much wisdom  is muchl grief, and he that increaseth knowledge
increaseth sorrow.'  The lives of men of genius have
been for the most part a conscious and deliberate realisation of the ancient myth-the tree of knowledge and
the tree of life stood side by side, and they chose the
tree of knowledge rather than the tree of life.
NTor is it otherwvise in the realm  of morals.1  The
virtue which is most conducive to happiness is plainly
that which can be realised without much suffering, anc
sustained without much  effort.   Legal and  physical
I'That quick sensibility which is the groundwork of all advances
towards perfection increases the pungency of pains and vexations.'-Tucker's;Ligt of Nature, ii, 16, ~ 4.




62           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MOR.ALS.
penalties apply only to the grosser and more extreme
forms of vice.   Social penalties may strike the  very
highest forms of virtue.'   That very sentiment of unity
with mankind which utilitarians assure us is one day to
become so stronlg as to overpower all unsocial feelings,
would make it more and more impossible for men consistently with their happiness to adopt any course, whether
very virtuous or very vicious, that would place them  out
of harmony with the general sentiment of society.  It
may be said that the tranquillity of a perfectly virtuous
mind is the highest form of happiness, and may be reasonably preferred not only to material advantages, but also
to the approbation of society; but no  man can fully
attain, and few can even approximate, to such a condition.
When vicious passions and impulses are very strong, it is
idle to tell the sufferer that he would be more happy if
his nature. were radically different from  what it is.  If
happiness be his object, he must regulate  his course
with a view  to the actual condition  of his being, and
there can be little doubt that his peace would be most
promoted by a compromise with vice.  The selfish theory
of morals applies only to the virtues of temperament, and
not to that much highler form of virtue which is sustained
in defiance of temperament.2   We have  no  doubt a
certain pleasure in cultivating our good tendencies, but
we have by no means the same pleasure in repressing our
bad ones.  There are men whose whole lives are spent in
1 This position is forcibly illustrated by Mr. M[aurice in his fourth lecture
On Conscieoce (1868).  It is manifest that a tradesman resisting a dishonest or illeoal trade custom, an Irish peasant in a disturtbed dlistrict
revolting against the agrarian conspiracy of his class, or a soldier in many
countries conscientiously refusing in obedience to the law to fight a duel,
would incur the full force of social penalties, because he failed to do that,
which was illegal or criminal.
2 See Browyn On tfhe (Cllaaraeeristics, pp. 206-209.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MIORALS.                   03
willing one thing, and desiring the opposite.  Illn such
cases as these virtue clearly involves a sacrifice of happiness; for the suffering caused by resisting natural tendencies is much  greater than would  ensue from  their
moderate gratification.
The plain truth is that no proposition  call be more
palpably and egregiously false than the assertion  that,
as far as this world is concerned, it is invariably conducive to the happiness of a man to pursue the most
virtuous career. Circumstances and disposition will make
one man find his highest happiness in the happiness, and
another man in the nmisery, of his kind; and if the second
man acts according to his interest, the utilitarian, however mnuch he may deplore the result, has no right to
blame or condemn the agent.  For that agent is acting
according' to his interest, and this, in the eyes of utilitarians, in one form or another, is the highest, or to speak
more accurately, the only motive by whlich human nature
can be actuated.
We may remark too that the disturbance or pain which
does undoubtedly usually accompany what is evil, bears
no kind of proportion to the enormity of the guilt.  An
irritability of temper, which is chiefly due to a derangenient of the nervous system, or a habit of procrastination
or indecision, will often cause more suffering than some of
the worst vices that can corrupt the heart.'
But it may be said this calculation of pains an.d pleasures is defective through the omission of one element.
1'A toothache produces more violent convulsions of pain than a phthisis
or a dropsy. A gloomy disposition... may be found in very worthy
characters, though it is sufficient alone to embitter life.... A selfish villain
may possess a spring and alacrity of temper, which is indeed a good quality,
but which is rewarded much beyond its merit, and when attended with
good fortune, will compensate for the uneasiness and. remorse arising from
all the other vices.'-HluI e's.Essays: The Sceptic.
6




64         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
Although a man who had a very strong natural impulse
towards some vice would appear more likely to promote
the tranquillity of his nature by a moderate and circumspect gratification of that vice, than by endeavouring painfully to repress his natural tendencies, yet he possesses a
conscience which adjudicates upon his conduct, and its
sting or its approval constitutes a pain or pleasure so
intense, as more than to redress the balance.  Now
of course, no intuitive moralist will deny, what for a
long time his school may be almost said to have been
alone in. asserting, the reality of conscience, or the pleasures and pains it may afford. He simply denies, and
he appeals to consciousness in attestation of his position, that those pains and pleasures are so powerful or so
proportioned to our acts as to become an adequate basis
for virtue.  Conscience, whether we regard it as an original faculty, or as a product of the association of ideas,
exercises two distinct functions.  It points out a difference between right and wrong, and when its commands
are violated, it inflicts a certain measure of suffering and
disturbance.  The first function it exercises persistently
fthrouogh life.  The second it only exercises under certain
special circumstances. It is scarcely conceivable that al
man. in the possession of his faculties should pass a life
of gross depravity and crime without being conscious that
he was doing wrong; but it is extremely possible for
him to do so without this consciousness having any appreciable influence upon his tranquillity.  The condition
of their consciences, as Mr. Carlyle observes, has less influence on the happiness of men than the condition of
their livers.  Considered as a source of pain, conscience
bears a striking resemblance to thle feeling of disgust.
Notwithstanding the assertion of Dr. Johnson, I venture
to maintain that there are multitucles to whom  the




TIIE NATURAL HISTORY OF MIORALS.    f6
necessity of discharging the duties of a butclher would be
so inexpressibly painful and revolting, that if they could
obtain flesh diet on no other condition, they would relinquish it for ever.  But to  those who  are inured to the
trade, this repugnance  has simply  ceased.   It has no
place in  their emotions or calculations.  NTor can it be
reasonably  questioned  that most men  by  an  assiduous
attendance at the slauglhter-house could acquire a similar
indifference.   In  like  manner, the  reproaches  of conscience are doubtless a very real and important form  of
suffering to a sensitive, scrupulous, and virtuous girl who
has committed some trivial act of levity or disobedience;
but to an old and hardened criminal they are a matter of
thelmost absolute indifference.
NTow it is undoubtedly conceivable, that by an association of ideas  men  might acquire  a  feeling  that would
cause that which wculcld naturally be painful to them  to
be pleasurable, and that whiclh would naturally be pleasurable to be painful.1- [But tihe question will immediately
arise, why should they respect this feeling? We have seen
that, according to the inductive theory, there is no such' At the same time, the following passage contains, I thinlk, a great deal of
wisdom and of a kind peculiarly needed in Eng'land at the present day:-' The
nature of the subject furnishes the strongest presumption that no better system
will ever, for the future, be invented, in order to account for the origin of the
benevolent from the selfish affections, and reduce all the various emotions
of the human mindll to a perfect simplicity.  The case is not the same in
this species of philosophy as in physics. Many an hypothesis in nature,
contrary to first appearances, has been found, on more accurate scrutiny,
solid and satisfactory.... But the presumption always lies on the other
side in -all enquiries concerning the origin of our passions, and of the internal
operations of the human mind. The simplest and most obvious cause which
can there be assigned for any phenomenon, is probably the true one....
The affections are not susceptible of any impression from the refinements of
reason or imag'inaton; and it is always found that a vigorous exertion of the.
latter faculties, necessarily, from the narrow capacity of the human mind
destroys all activity in the former.'-Hume's Enquiry concerning AooraIls
Append. It.




60         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3MORALS.
thing as natural duty.  MIen enter into life solely desirous
of seeking their own happiness.  The whole edifice of
virtue arises from the observed fact, that owing to the
constitution of our nature, andc the intimacy of our social
relations, it is necessary for our happiness to abstain from
some courses that would be immediately pleasurable and to
pursue others that are immediately the reverse. Self-interest is the one ultimate reason for virtue, however much
the moral chemistry of Hartley may disguise and transform it.  Ought or ought not, means nothing more than
the prospect of acquiring or of losing pleasure.  The fact
that one line of conduct promotes, and another impairs
the happiness of others is, according to these moralists,
no reason whatever for pursuing the former or avoiding the latter, unless such a course is that which brings
us the greatest happiness.  The happiness mayarise from
the action of society upon ourselves, or from  our own
naturally benevolent disposition,  or, again, frorn an association of ideas, which means the force of a habit we
ehave formed, but in any case our own happiness is the
one possible or conceivable motive of action. If this be
a true picture of human nature, the reasonable course for
every man is to modify his disposition in such a manner
that he may attain the greatest possible amount of enjoyment.  If lhe has formed an association of ideas, or contracted a habit which inflicts more pain than it prevents,
or prevents more pleasure than it affords, his reasonable
course is to dissolve that association, to destroy that hlabit.
This is what he'ought' to do according to the only
meaning that word can possess in the utilitarian vocabulary.  If lhe does not, he will justly incur the charge of
imprudence, which is the only charge utilitarianism can
consistently bring against vice.
That it would be for the happiness as it would certainly




'THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                        67
be in the power of a man of a temperament such  as 1
have lately described, to quenchl that conscientious feeling,
lwhich  by its painful reproaches prevents him  from  pursuingcr tle course that would  be most conducive to  his
tranquillity, I conceive to  be self-evident.   And, indeed,
on the whole, it is more than  doubtful whether conscience, considered  apart from  the course of action it prescribes, is not the cause of more pain than pleasure.   Its
reproaches  are  more felt than  its approval.   The selfcomplacency  of a virtuous man reflecting  with  delight
upon his own exceeding merit, is frequently spoken of in
the writings of moral philosophers,l but is rarely found in' The pleasing consciousness and self-approbation that rise up in the
mind of a virtuous man, exclusively of any direct, explicit, consideration of
advantage likely to accrue to himself from his possession of those good
qualities' (Hartley Onz MHtn, vol. i. p. 493), form a theme upon which moralists of both schools are fond of dilating, in a strain that reminds one irresistibly of the self-complacency of a famous nursery hero, while reflecting
upon his own merits over a Christmas pie. Thus Adam Smith says,' The
man who, not from frivolous fancy, but from proper motives, has performed
a generous action, when he looks forward to those whom he has served,
feels himself to be the natural object of their love and gratitude, and by
sympathy with them) of the esteem and approbation of all muanlind. Ann
when he looks backwardl to the motive friom which he acted, and surveys it
in the lig'ht in which the indifferent spectator will survey it, he still continues to enter into it, and applauds himself by sympathy with the approbation of this supposed impartial judge. In both these points of view, his
conduct appears to him every way agreeable.... M[isery and wretchedness
can never enter the breast in which dwells complete self-satisfaction.'- T/ieory
of Mloral Sentitenwts, part ii. ch. ii. ~ 2; part iii. ch. iii. I suspect that many
moralists confuse the self-gratulation which they suppose a virtuous man to
feel, with the delight a religious man experiences from the sense of the protection and favour of the Deity. B3ut these two feelings are clearly distinct,
and it will, I believe, be found that the latter is most strongtly experienced
by the very men who most sincerely disclaiml all sense of merit.' Were the
perfect man to exist,' said that good and great writer, Archer Butler,'he
himself woult be the last to know it; for the highest stage of advancement
is the lowest descent in humility.' At all events, the reader will observe,
that on utilitarian principles nothing could be more pernicious or criminal
than that modest, humble, and diffident spirit, which diminishes the pleasure of self-gratulation, one of the highest utilitarian motives to virtue.




HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
actual live where the most tranquil is seldom  the most
perfect nature, where the sensitiveness of conscience increases at least in proportion to moral growth, and where
in the best man a feeling of modesty and h]umrility is always present to check the exuberance of self-gratulation.
If the patience of the reader has enabled him to accompany me through this long train of tedious arguments,
he will, I think, have concluded that the utilitarian theory,
though undoubtedly held by many men of the purest, and
by some men of the most heroic virtue, would if carried
to its logical conclusions prove subversive of morality, and
especially, and in the very highest degree, unfavourable
to self-denial and to heroism.  Even if it explains these,
it fails to justify them, and conscience being traced to a
mere confusion of the means of happiness with its end,
would be wholly unable to resist the solvent of criticism.
That this theory of conscience gives a true or adequate
description of the phenomenon it seeks to explain, no
intuitive moralist will admit.  The sense of obligation and
of legitimate supremacy, whicl is the essential and characteristic feature of conscience, and which distinguishes
it from  all the other parts of our nature, is wholly unaccounted for by the association of ideas. To say that
a certain course of conduct is pleasing, and that a certain
amount of pain results from  the weakening of feelings
that impel men towards it, is plainly different from what
men mean when they say we ought to pursue it.  The
virtue of Hartley is, in its last analysis, but a disease of
the imagination. It may be more advantageous to society
than avarice; but it is formed in the same  lmanner, and
[as exactly the same degree of binding force.i
Hartley has tried in one place to evade this conclusion by an appeal to
the doctrine of final causes. He says that the fact that conscience is not al
original principle of our nature, but is formed mechanically in the manner I




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                        X
These considerations will help to supply an answer to
the common utilitarian  objection that to  speak  of duty
as distinct from self-interest is unmeaning, because it is
absurd to say that we are under an obligation to  do any
thing  when  no  evil consequences would  result to  us
from  not doing it.  Rewards and punishments it may be
answered are undoubtedly necessary to enforce, but they
are not necessary to  constitute, duty.  This distinction,
whether it be real or not, has at all events the advantage
of appearing self-evident to all who are not philosophers.
Thus when a party  of colonists occupy a new  territory
they portion the unoccupied land among  themselves, and
they murder, or employ for the gratification of their lusts,
the savage inhabitants.   Both acts are done with  perfect
impunity, but one is felt to  be innocent and the other
wrong.  A  lawful government appropriates the land and
protects  the  aboriginals, supporting  its  enactments by
penalties.  In  the  one  case tlhe  law  both  creates  and
enforces a  duty, in  the other it only enforces it.  The
have described, does not invalidate the fact that it is intended for our guide,'for all the things which have evident final causes, are plainly brought about
by mechanical means;' and he appeals to the milk in the breast, which is
intended for the sustenance of the young, but which is nevertheless mechanically produced. (On Man, vol. ii. pp. 338-339.) But it is plain that
this mode of reasoning would justify us in attributilng an authoritative
character to any habit-e.g. to that of avarice-which these writers assure
us is in the manner of its formation an exact parallel to conscience. The
later followers of IHartley certainly cannot be accused of any excessive
predilection for the doctrine of final causes, yet we sometimes find them
asking what greaLt difference it can make whether (when conscience is
admitted by both parties to be real) it is regarded as an original principle of
our nature, or as a product of association?  Simply this. If by the constitution of our nature we are subject to a law of duty which is different
from and higher than our interest, a man who violates this law through
interested motives, is deserving of reprobation. If on the other hand there,
is no natural law of duty, and if the pursuit of our interest is the one original
principle of our being, no one can be censured who pursues it, and the first
criterion of a wise man will be his determination to eradicate every habit
(conscientious or otherwise) which impedes him in doing so.




TO         I1ISTORY OF EUROPEAN IMO01ALS.
intuitive  moralist simply asserts that we  have  the
power of perceiving that certain courses of action are
higher, nobler, and better than others, and that by the
constitution of our being, this fact, which is generically
distinct from the prospect of pleasure or the reverse, may
and ought to be and continually is a motive of action. It
is no doubt possible for a man to prefer the lower course,
and in this case we say he is deserving of punishment,
and if he remains unpunished we say that it is unjust.
But if there were no power to reward or punish him
his acts would not be indifferent.  They would still
be intelligibly described as essentially base or noble,
shameful though there were none to censure, admirable
though there were none to admire.
That men have the power of preferring other objects
than happiness is a proposition which must ultimately be
left to the attestation of consciousness.  That the pursuit
of virtue, however much happiness may eventually follow
in its train, is in the first instance an example of this
preference, must be established by that common voice of
mankind which has invariably regarded a virtuous motive
as generically different from an interested one. And indeed
even when the conflict between strong passions and a strong
sense of duty does not exist it is impossible to measure
the degrees of virtue by the scale of enjoyment.  The
highest nature is rarely the happiest.  The mind of Petronius Arbiter was probably more unclouded thaln that
of Marcus Aurelius.  For eighteen centuries the religious
instinct of Christendom  has recocgnised its ideal in the
form of a' Mlan of Sorrows.'
Considerations such as I have now urged lead the intuitive moralists to reject the principles of the utilitarian.
They acknowledge indeed that the effect of actions upon
the happiness of mankind forms a most important element




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.           71
in determining their moral. quality, but they maintain
that without natural moral perceptions we never should
have known that it was our duty to seek the happiness of
mankind when it diverged from our own, and they deny
that virtue was either originally evolved from or is necessarily proportioned to utility.  They acknowledge that
in the existing condition of society there is at least a
general coincidence between the paths of virtue and of
prosperity, but they contend that the obligation of virtue
is of such a nature that no conceivable convulsion of
affairs could destroy it, and that it would continue even
if the government of the world belonged to- supreme
malice instead of supreme benevolence.  Virtue, they
believe, is something more than a calculation or a habit.
It is impossil)le to conceive its fundamental principles
reversed. Our judgments of it are not the results of
elaborate or difficult deductions, but are simple, intuitive, and decisive. Notwitlhstanding the strong tendency
to confuse cognate feelings, the sense of duty and the
sense of utility remain perfectly distinct in the apprehensions of mankind, and we are quite capable of recognising
each separate ingredient in the same act.  Our respect
for a gallant but dangerous enemy, our contempt for a
useful traitor, our care in the last moments of life for the
interests of those who survive us, Our clear distinction
between intentional and unintentional injuries, and between the consciousness of imprudence and the consciousness of guilt, our conviction that the pursuit of interest
should always be checked by a sense of duty, and that
selfish and moral motives are so essentially opposed, that
the presence of the former necessarily weakens the latter,
our indignation at those who when honour or gratitude
call them to sacrifice their interests pause to calculate
remote consequences, our feelings of remorse which differ




72         1-HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
fiom every other emotion of our nature —in a word, the
universal, unstudied sentiments of mankind all concur in'
leading us to separate widely our virtuous affections from
our selfish ones.  Just as pleasure and pain are ultimate
grounds of action, and no reason can be given why we
should seek the former and avoid the latter, except that
it is the constitution of our nature that we should do so,
so we are conscious tihat the words right and wrong express
ultimate intelligible motives, that these motives are generieally different from the others, that they are of a higlher
order, and that they carry with them a sense of obligation.
Any scheme of morals that omits these facts fails to give
an accurate and adequate description of the states of feeling which consciousness reveals.  The consciences of men
in every age would have echoed the assertion of Cicero
that to sacrifice pleasure with a view of obtaining any
form  or modification of pleasure in return, no more
answers to our idea of virtue, than to lend money at
interest to our idea of charity.  The conception of pure
disinterestedness is presupposed in all our estimates of'virtue.  It is the root of all the emotions with which we
contemplate acts of heroism.  We feel that man is capable of pursuing what lie believes to be right although pain
and disaster and mental suffering and an early death be
the consequence, and though no prospect of future reward
lighlten upon his tomb.  This is the highllest prerogative
of our being, the point of contact between thle human nature and the divine.
In addition to the direct arguments in its support,
the utilitarian school owes nuch of its influence to some
very'powerful moral and intellectual predispositions in
its favour-the first, which we shall hereafter examine,
consisting of the tendency manifested in certain conditions of society towards the qualities it is most calculated




THE NATURAL HISTOIRY OF MORALS.             73
to produce, and the second of the almhnost irresistible
attraction which unity and precision exercise on many
minds.  It was this desire to simplify human nature, by
reducing its various faculties and complex operations to a
single principle or process, that gave its great popularity
to the sensational school of the last century.  It led
most metaphysicians of that school to deny the duality
of human nature.  It led Bonnet and Condillac to propose an animated statue, endowed with the five senses as
channels of ideas, and with faculties exclusively employed
in transforming the products of sensation, as, a perfect
representative of humanity.  It led IIelvetius to assert
that the original faculties of all men were precisely the
same, all the difference between what we call genius
and  what we call stupidity arising from  differences of
circumstances, and all the difference between men and
animals arising mainly from the structure of the human
lhand.  In morals, theories of unification are peculiarly
plausible, and I think peculiarly dangerous, because,
owing to the interaction of our moral sentiments, and
the many transformations that each can undergo, there
are few affections that might not under some conceiveable circumstances become the parents of every other.
When Hobbes, in the name of the philosophy of selfinterest contended that' Pity is but the imagination of
future calamity to ourselves, produced by the sense of
another man's calamity; 1 vwhen Hutcheson, in the name
of the philosophy of'benevolence, argued that the vice
of intemperance is that it impels us to violence towards
others, and weakens our capacity for doing them good;2
when other moralists defending the excellence  of our
nature maintained that compassion is so emphatically the
highest of our pleasures that a desire of gratifying it
IOn HIu lnman N\ature, chap. ix. ~ 10. o2 Enquiry concerning Good and Evil.




74            HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
is the cause of our  acts of barbarity;1 each  of these
theories, extravagant as it is, contains a germ of undoubted
psychological truth.  It  is true  that  a  mllind  intensely
apprehensive of future calamities would  on that account
receive a shock  at the sight of the  calamities  of others.
It is true that a very keen  and ad asorbing  sentiment of
benevolence would be in itself sufficient to  divert men
from  any habit that impaired their power of gratifying it.
It is true that compassion involves a certain  amount of
x This theory is noticed by Hlutcheson, and a writer in the Spectator (No.
436) suggests that it may explain the attraction of prize-fights. The case of
the pleasure derived from fictitious sorrow is a distinct question, and has
been admirably treated in Lord Kames' -Essay oln Mlorality. Bishop Butler
notices (Second Sermon on Compassion), that it is possible for the very intensity of a feeling of compassion to divert men from charity by mlakino
them' industriously turn away from the miserable;' and it is well known
that Goethe, on account of this very susceptibility, made it one of the
rules of his life to avoid everything that could suggest painful ideas.
Hobbes mlakes the following very characteristic comments on some famous
lines of Lucretius:''From  what passion proceedeth it that men take
pleasure to behold from the shore the danger of those that are at sea in a
tempest or in fight, or from a safe castle to behold two armies charge one
another in the field?  It is certainly in the whole sum joy, else men would
never flock to such a spectacle. Nevertheless, there is both joy and grief,
for as there is novelty and remembrance of our own security present, which
is delight, so there is also pity, which is grief. But the delight is so far
predominant that men usually are content in such a case to be spectators of
the misery of their friends.' (On.Iinuman NXature, ch. ix. ~ 19.) Good Christians, according to some theologians, are expected to enjoy this pleasure in
great perfection in heaven.'We may believe in the next world also the goodness as well as the happiness of the blest will be confirmed and advanced by
reflections naturally arising from the view of the misery which some shall
undergo, which seems to be a good reason for the creation of those beings
who shall be finally miserable, and for the continuation of them in their
miserable existence.... though in one respect the view of the misery which
the damned undergo miglht seem to detract from the happiness of the blessed
through pity and commiseration, yet under another, a nearer and much more
affecting consideration, viz. that all this is the mitery they themlselves were
often exposed to and in danger of incurring, w-hy may not the sense of their
own escape so far overcome the sense of another's ruin as quite to extinguish
the pain that usually attends the idea of it, and even render it productive of
some real happiness? To this purpose, Lucretius' Suave Mari,' etc. (Laws'
notes to Mhis T'ranslaction of King's Origin of Eauil, pp. 477, 479.)




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF iMORALS.             75
pleasure, and conceivable that that pleasure might be so
intensified that we might seek it by a crime.  The error
in these theories is not that they exaggerate the possible
efficacy of the motives, but that they exaggerate their
actual intensity in human nature and describe falsely the
process by which the results they seek to explain have
been arrived at. The function of observation in moral
philosophy is not simply to attest the moral sentiments
we possess, leaving it to the reason to determine deductively
how they may have been formed; it is rather to follow
them through all the stages of their formation.
And here I may observe that the termn inductive, like
most others that are employed in moral philosophy, may
give rise to serious misconception.  It is properly applied
to those moralists who, disbelieving the existence of any
moral sense or faculty revealing to us what is right
and wrong, maintain that the origin of those ideas is
simply our experience of the tendency of different lines
of conduct to promote or impair true happiness.  It
appears, however, to be sometimes imagined that inductive moralists alone think that it is by induction or
experience tlat we ought to ascertain what is the origin
of our moral ideas. [But this I conceive to be a complete, mistake.  The basis of morals is a distinct question
from l the basis of theories of morals.  Those wh-lo maintain the existence of a moral faculty do not, as is sometimes said, assume this as a first principle of their
arguments, but they arrive at it as their conclusion by
a process of induction quite as severe as any that can
be employed by their opponents.1  They examine, analyse, and classify their existing moral feelings, ascertain
in what respects those feelings agree with or differ from
others, trace thenl through their various phases, and
I See e.g. Reid's 8Zsays on the Active Powers, essay iii. ch. v.




76            HISTORY OF EUROPEAN' MORALS.
only  assign them  to  a  special faculty when  they  think
they have shown them  to be incapable  of resolution, and'
generically different from  all others.1
This separation is all that is meant by a moral faculty.
We are apt to regard the term  as implying a distinct and
well defined organ, bearing to the mindl the same kind of
relation as a limb to the body.  But of the  existence  of
such organs, and of the propriety of such material imagery,
we know  nothing.   Perceiving  in  ourselves a will, and a
The error I have traced in this paragraplh will be found running through
a great part of what Mr. Buckle has written upon morals-I think the weakest
portion of his great work.  See, for example, an elaborate confusion on the
subject, list. of Civilisation, vol. ii. p. 429. Mr. Buckle maintains that all
the philosophers of what is commonly called' the Scotch school' (a school
founded by the Irishman Hutcheson, and to which Hume does not belong),
were incapable of inductive reasoning, because they maintained the existence of a moral sense or faculty, or of first principles, incapable of
resolution; and he enters into a learned enquiry into the causes which
made it impossible for Scotch writers to pursue or appreciate the inductive
method.  It is curious to contrast this view with the language of one, who,
whatever may be the value of his original speculations, is, I conceive,
one of the very ablest philosophical critics of the present century.'Les
philosophes 6cossais adopte'rent les procdcls que Bacon avait recommand6s
d'appliquer  l' 16tude du monde physique, et les transporterent dans l'6tude
du monde moral. Ils firent voir que l'induction baconienne, c'est-a-dire,
l'induction prdc6d6e d'une observation scrupuleuse des phdnoml nes, est en
philosophic comme en physique la seule m6thode ldgUitime.  C'est un de
leurs titres les plus honorables d'avoir insist6 sur cette d6monstration, et
d'avoir en rnieme temps joint l'exemple au pr6cepte..  I1 est vrai qclue le
zele des philosophes ecossais en fa.veur de la mo6thode d'observation leur a
presque fait d6passer le but. Ils out incline i renfermner la psychologie dclans
la description minutieuse et continuelle des ph6nomenes de l'alle sans
r6fl6chir assez que cette description doit faire place'a l'induction et au
raisonnement ddductif, et qu'une philosophic qui se bornerait a l'observation
serait aussi st6rile que cello qui s'amuserait h construire des hypotheses sans
avoir prdalablement observ6.'-Cousin, ceole d'tEcosse, lrf levon. Duugald
Stewart hacd said much the same thing, but he was a Scotchnman, and therefore, according to ~Mr. Buckle (IIist. of Civ. ii. pp. 485-86), incapable of understanding what induction was.  I may add that one of the principal objections AM. Cousin males against Locke is, that he investigated the origin
of our ideas before analysing minutely their nature, and the propriety of this
method is one of the points on which Mr. Mill (LExamination of XS.i IV.
llamilton) is at issue with AI. Cousin.




THE N-ATURAL HISTORY OF 3MORALS.          77
crowd of intellectual and emotional phenomena that seem
wholly different from  the properties of matter, we infer
the existence of an immaterial substance wvhich wills,
thinks, and feels, and can classify its own operations with
considerable precision.  The term  faculty is simply an
expression of classification.  If we say that the moral
faculty differs from the esthetic faculty, we can only mean
that the mind forms certain judgments of moral excellence, and also certain judgments of beauty, and that
these two mental processes are clearly distinct.  To ask
to what part of our nature moral perceptions should be
attributed, is only to ask to what train of mental phenomena they bear the closest resemblance.
If this simple, but often neglected, consideration be borne
in mind, the apparent discordance of intuitive moralists
will appear less profound than might at first sighlt be supposed, for each section merely elucidates some one characteristic of moral judgments. Thus Butler insists upon the
sense of obligation that is involved in them, contends that
this separates them from all other sentiments, and assigns
them in consequence to a special faculty of supreme authority called conscience.  Adam Smith and many other
writers were especially struck by their sympathetic, and
what may be termed their mlagnetic, character.  We are
naturally attracted by humanity, and rejpelled by cruelty,
and this instinctive, unreasoning sentiment constitutes,
according to these moralists, the  difference between
right and wrong.  Cudworth, however, the English precursor of Kant, had already anticipated, and later metaphysicians have more fully exhibited, the inadequacy
of such an analysis.  Justice, humanity, veracity, and
kindred virtues not merely have the power of attracting
us, we have also an intellectual perception that they are
essentially and immutably good, that their nature does




78         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
not depend upon, and is not relative to, our constitutions;
that it is impossible and inconceivable they should ever
be vices,, and their opposites, virtues. They are therefore,
it is said, intuitions of the reason. Clarke, developing the
same rational school, and following in the steps of thle
stoics and of Butler, who regarded our nature as a hierarchy of powers or faculties, with different degrees of
digynity, and an appropriate order of supremacy and subordination, maintained that virtue consisted in harmony
with the nature of things. Wollaston endeavoured to reduce it to trutlh, and IHutcheson to benevolence, whicl he
maintained is recognised and approved of by what his
respect for the philosophy of Locke induced him to call'a moral sense,' but what Shaftesbury hlad regarded as a
moral'taste.' The pleasure attending the gratification
of this taste, according to Shaftesbury and Henry More,
is the motive to virtue.  The doctrine of a moral sense
or faculty was the basis of the ethics of Reid.  HIume
maintained that the peculiar quality of virtue is its utility,
but that our affections are purely disinterested, and that
we arrive at our knowledge of what is virtuous by a moral
sense implanted in our nature, which leads us instinctively
to approve of all acts that are beneficial to others.  Expancling a pregnant hint which had been thrown out by
Butler, lie laid the foundation for a union of the schools
of Clarke anld Shaftesbury, by urging that our moral
decisions are not simple, but complex, Qontainini' both a
judgment of the reason, and an emotion of the heart.
This fact has been elucidated still further by later writers,
who have observed that these two elements apply in varying degrees to different kinds of virtue.  Accordingc to
Lord EKames, our intellectual perception of right and
wrong applies most strictly to virtues like justice or
veracity, which are of what is called' perfect obligation,'




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF iMORALS.             79
or, in other words, are of such a nature, that their violation is a distinct crime, while the emotion of attraction or
affection is shown most strongly towards virtues of imperfect obligation, like benevolence or charity.  Like
Hutcheson and Shaftesbury, Lord Kames notices the analogies between our moral and  estlhetical judgments.
These last analogies open out a region of thought widely
different from that we have been traversing. The close connection between the good and the beautiful has been always
felt, so much  so, that both were in Greek expressed
by the same word, and in the philosophy of Plato, moral
beauty was regarded as the archetype of which all visible
beauty is only the shadow or the image.  AVe all feel that
there is a strict propriety in the term moral beauty.  We
feel that there are different forms of beauty which have a
natural correspondence to different moral qualities, and
much of the charm of poetry and eloquence rests upon
this harmony. We feel that we have a direct, immediate,
intuitive perception that some objects, such as the sky
tabove us, are beautiful, that this perception of beauty is
totally different, and could not possibly be derived, from a
perception of their utility, and that it bears a very striking
resemblance to the instantaneous and unreasoning admiration that is elicited by a generous or heroic action. VWe
perceive too, if we examine with care the operations of
our own mind, that an esthetical judgment includes an
intuition or intellectual perception, and an emotion of
attraction or admiration, very similar to those which compose a moral judgment.  The very idea of beauty again
implies that it should be admired, as the idea of happiness implies that it should be desired, and the idea of
duty that it should be performed.  There is also a striking correspondence between the degree and kind of uniformity we can in each case discover.  That there is a
7




SO         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
difference between right and wrong, and between beauty
and ugliness, are both propositions which are universally
felt.  That right is better than wrong, and beauty than
ugliness, are equally unquestioned.  When we go further, and attempt to define the nature of these qualities,
we are met indeed by great diversities of detail, but by a
far larger amount of substantial unity.  Poems like the
Iliad or the Psalms, springing in the most dissimilar quarters, have commanded the admiration of men throulgh
all the changes of some 3,000 years.  The charm  of
music, the harmony of the female countenance, the majesty of the starry sky, of the ocean or of the mountain,
the gentler beauties of the murmuring stream or of the
twilight shades, were felt, as they are felt now, when the
imagination of the infant world first embodied itself in
written words.  And in the same way types of heroism,
and of virtue, descending from  the remotest ages, command the admiration of mankind.  NVe can sympathise
with the emotions of praise or blame revealed in the
earliest historians, and the most ancient moralists strike
a responsive chord in every heart.  The broad lines
remain unchanged.  No one ever contended that justice was a vice or injustice a virtue; or that a summer
sunset was a repulsive object, or that the sores upon a
human body were beautiful.  Always, too, the objects of
msthetical admiration were divided into two great classes,
the sublime and the beautiful, which in ethics have their
manifest counterparts in the heroic and the amiable.
If, again, we examine the undoubted diversities that
exist in judgments of virtue and of beauty, we soon discover that in each case a large proportion of them are
to be ascribed to the different degrees of civilisation. The
moral standard changes within certain limits, and according to a regular process with the evolutions of society.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.             81
There are virtues very highly estimated in a rude civilisation which sink into comparative insignificance in an
organised society, while conversely, virtues that were
deemed secondary in the first become primary in the
other.  There are even virtues that it is impossible for
any but higlhly cultivated minds to recognise.  Questions
of virtue and vice, such as the difference between humanity
and barbarity, or between temperance and intemperance,
are sometimes merely questions of degree, and the stan(lard at one stage of civilisation may be much higher
than at another.  Just in the same way a steady modification of tastes, while a recognition of the broad
feattres of beauty remains unchanged, accompanies advancing civilisation. The preference of gaudy to subdued
tints, of colour to form, of a florid to a chaste style, of
convulsive attitudes, gigantic figures, and strong emotions,
may be looked for with considerable confidence in an
uninstructed people.  The refining influence of cultivation is in no sphere more remarkable than in the canons
of taste it produces, and there are few better measures of
the civilisation of a people than the conceptions of beauty
it forms, the type or ideal it endeavours to realise.
Many diversities, however, both of moral and eFsthletical judgments, may be  traced to accidental causes.
Some one who is greatly admired, or who possesses great
influence, is distinguished by some peculiarity of appearance, or introduces some peculiarity of dress. He will
soon find countless imitators. Gradually the natural sense
of beauty will become vitiated; the eye and the taste
will adjust themselves to a false and artificial standard,
and men will at lat last judge according to it with the most
absolute spontaneity.  In the same way, if any accidental
circumstance has elevated an indifferent action to peculiar
honour, if a religious system  enforces it as a virtue or




82          HISTORY OF EUEROPEAN MORALS.
brands it as a vice, the consciences of men will after a time
accommodate themselves to the sentence, and an appeal
to a wider than a local tribunal is necessary to correct
the error.  Every nation again, from its peculiar circulmstances and position, tends to some particular type, both
of beauty and of virtue, and it naturally extols its national
type beyond all others. Tlhe virtues of a small poor
nation, living among barren mountains, surrounded by
powerful enemies, and maintaining its independence only
by the most inflexible discipline, watchfulness, and courage,
will be in some degree different from  those of a rich
people removed from  all fear of invasion and placed in
the centre of commerce.  The former will look with a
very lenient eye on acts of barbarity or treachery, which
to the latter would appear unspealkably horrible, and will
value very highly certain virtues of discipline which the
other will comparatively neglect.  So, too, the conceptions of beauty formed by a nation of negroes will be
different from those formed by a nation of whites;1 the
splendour of a tropical sky or the savage grandeur of
a northern ocean, the aspect of great mountains or of
wide plains, will not only supply nations with present
images of sublimity or beauty, but will also contribute to
form their standard and affect their judgments.  Local
customs or observances become so inrterwoven with our
earliest recollections, that we at last regard them  as
essentially venerable, and even in the most trivial imatters
it reqciires a certain effort to  dissolve the association.
There was muclh wisdom  as well as much wit in the
picture of the novelist who described the English footman's contempt for the uniforms of the French,' blue
1 LI. Ch. Cointe, in his very learned Triaite deleqislation, liv. iii. clh. iv., has
made an extremely curious collection of instances in which different nations
have made their own distinctive peculiarities of colour and form the ideal of
beauty.




THE NAT URAL HIISTORY OF MIORALS.            83
being altogether ridiculous for regimentals, except in the
blue guards and artillery;' and I suppose there are few
Englishmen into whose first confused impression of France
lthere does not enter a half-instinctive feeling of repugnance
caused by the ferocious appearance of a peasantry who
are all dressed like butchers.1
It has been said2 that' the feelings of beauty, grandeur,
and whatever else is comprehended under the name of
taste, do not lead to action, but terminate in delightful
contemplation, which constitutes the essential distinction
between them and the moral sentiments to which in some
points of view  they may doubtless be likened.'  This
position I conceive to be altogether untenable.   Our
msthetical judgment is of the nature of a preference.  It
leads us to prefer one class of objects to another, and
whenever other things are equal, becomes a ground for
action.  In choosing the persons with whom we live, the
neighbourhood we inhabit, the objects that surround us,
we prefer that which is beautiful to that which is the
reverse, and in every case in which a choice between
beauty and deformity is in question, and no counteracting
motive intervenes, we choose the former, and avoid the
latter.  There are no doubt innumerable events in life in
which this question does not arise, but there are also
very many in which we are not called upon to make a
moral judgmlent.  We say a man is actuated by strong,
moral principle who chooses according to its dictates
in every case involving a moral judgment that comes
naturally before him, and who in obedience to its impulse pursues special courses of action.  Corresponding
1' How particularly fine the hard theta is in our English terminations, as
in that grancd word death, for which the Germans gutturise a sound that
puts youl in m bZind of nothing but a loathlsome toad.' —Coleridge's Table Talk,
p. 181.
a Mackintosh, Dissert. p. 238.




84         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
propositions may be maintained with perfect truth concerninog our sense of beauty. In proportion to its strength
does it guide our course in ordinary life, and determine
our peculiar pursuits.  We may indeed sacrifice our
sense of material beauty to considerations of utility with
mnuch more alacrity than our sense of moral beauty; we
may consent to build a shapeless house sooner than to
commit a dishonourable action, but we cannot voluntarily
choose that which is simply deformed, rather than that
which is beautiful, without a certain feeling of pain, and
a pain of this kind, according to the school of Hartley, is
the precise definition of conscience. Nor is it at all difficult to conceive men with a sense of material beauty so
strong that they would die rather than outrage it.
Considering all these things, it is not surprising that
many moralists should have regarded moral excellence as
simply the highest form of beauty, and moral cultivation
as the supreme refinement of taste.  But although this
manner of regarding it is, as I think, far more plausible
than the theory which resolves virtue into utility, although
the Greek moralists and the school of Shaftesbury have
abundantly proved that there is an extremely close connection between these orders of ideas, there are two considerations which appear to show the inadequacy of this
theory.  We are clearly conscious of the propriety of
applying the epithet beautiful to virtues such as charity,
reverence, or devotion, but we cannot apply it with the
same propriety to duties of perfect obligation, such as
veracity or integrity.  The sense of beauty and the
affection that follows it attach themselves rather to modes
of enthusiasm  and feeling than to the course of simple
duty which constitutes a merely truthful and upright man.l
Besides this, as the Stoics and Butler have shown, the
I Lord Kames' Essays op. Morality (lst edition), pp. 55-06.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MIORALS.             85
position of conscience in our nature is wholly unique, and
clearly separates morals from  a study of the beautiful.
While each of our senses or appetites has a restricted
sphere of operation, it is the function of conscience to
survey the whole constitution of our being, and assign
limits to the gratification of all our various passions and
desires.  Differing not in degree, but in kind from  the
other principles of our nature, we feel that a course of
conduct which is opposed to it may be intelligibly described as unnatural, even when in accordance with our
most natural appetites, for to conscience is assigned the
prerogative of both judging and restraining tlemn all. Its
power may be ihsignificant, but its title is undisputed, and'if it had milght as it has right, it would govern the
world.' I  It is this faculty, distinct from, and superior to,
all appetites, passions, and tastes, that makes virtue the
supreme law of life, and adds an imperative character to
the feeling of attraction it inspires.  It is this which was
described by Cicero as the God ruling within us; by the
Stoics as the sovereignty of reason; by St. Paul as the
law of nature; by Butler as the supremacy of conscience.
The distinction of different parts of -our nature, as
higher or lower, which appears in the foregoing reasoning, and which occupies so important a place in the
intuitive systems of mlorals, is one that can only be defended by the way of illustrations.  A  writer can only
select cases in which such distinctions seem  most apparent, and leave them to the feelings of his reader. A few
examples will, I hope, be sufficient to show that even in
our pleasures, we are not simply determined by the
amount of enjoyment, but that there is a difference of
kind, which may be reasonably described by the epithets,
higher or lower.
I See Butler's Tihree Sermons on.llutnman N'atzre, and the preface.




86           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3MORALS.
If we suppose  a being  from  another sphere, who
derived  his conceptions-by  a purely rational process,
without the intervention of the senses, to descend to our
world, and to enquire into the principles of human nature,
I imagine there are few  points that would strike him as
more anomnalous, or which he would be more absolutely
unable to realise, than the different estimates in which
men hold the pleasures derived from  the two senses of
tasting  and hearing.  Under the first is comprised the
enjoyment resulting  from  the action of certain kinds of
food upon the palate.  Under the second the charm  of
music.  Each of these forms of pleasure is natural, each
can be greatly heightened by cultivation, in each case
the pleasure may be vivid, but is very transient, and in
neither case do evil consequences necessarily ensue.  Yet
with so many undoubted points of resemblance, whlen we
turn to the actual world, we find the difference between
these two orders of pleasure of such a nature, that a
comparison seems absolutely ludicrous.  In  what then
does this difference consist?  hNot, surely, in the greater
intensity of the enjoyment derived from  music, for in
many cases this superiority does not exist.'  We are all
conscious that in our comparison of these pleasures, there
is an element distinct from  any consideration of their
intensity, duration, or consequences. We naturally attach
a faint notion of shame to the one, while we as naturally
glory in the other.  A very keen sense of the pleasures
Spealdng of the animated statue whlich he regarded as a representative
of man, Condillac says,'Le gofit peut ordinairement contribuer plus que
l'odorat h son bonheur et a son malheur.... I1 y contribue mlleme encore
plus que les sons harmonieux, parce que le besoin de nourriture lui rend les
saveurs plus n6cessaires, et par conseqluent les lui fait gofiter avec plus de
vivacit4. La faim pourra la rendre malheureuse, mais des qu'elle aura remarque les sensations propres a l'apaiser, elle y d6terminera davantage son
attention, les d4sirera avec plus de violence et en jouira avec plus de d6lire.'
TraitM des Sensattons. re partie, eh. x.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.           87
of the palate is looked upon as in a certain degree discreditable. A man will hardly boast that he is very fond
of eating, but lie has no hesitation in acknowledgcing that
he is very fond of music. The first taste lowers, and the
second elevates him in his own eyes, and in those of his
neighbours.
Again, let a man of cheerful disposition, and of a
cultivated but not very fastidious taste, observe his own
emotions and the countenances of those around him
during the representation of a clever tragedy and of a
clever farce, and it is probable that he will come to the
conclusion that his enjoyment in the latter case has been
both more unimingled and more intense than in the
former. lie has felt no lassitude, lie has not endured
the amount of pain that necessarily accompanies the pleasure of pathos, he has experienced a vivid, absorbing
pleasure, and lie has traced similar emotions in the violent
demonstrations of his neighbours.  Yet he will readily
admit that the pleasure derived from the tragedy is of a
higher order than that derived fronm the farce. Sometimes
he will find himself hesitating which of the two  he will
choose. The love of mere enjoyment leads him to the one.
A sense of its nobler character inclines him to the other.
A similar distinction may be observed in other departments. Except in the relation of the sexes, it is probable
that a more intense pleasure is usually obtained from
the grotesque, and the eccentric, than from the perfections of beauty. The pleasure derived from beauty is
not violent in its nature, and it is in most cases peculiarly
mixed with melancholy.  The feelings of a man who is
deeply moved by a lovely landscape are rarely those of
extreme elation. A shade of melancholy steals over his
mind.  His eyes fill with tears.  A vague and unsatisfied
longing fills his soul. Yet, troubled an'd broken as is




83           IIISTORY  OF EURtOPEAN  MIORALS.
this form  of enjoyment, few  persons would hesitate to
pronounce it of a higher kind  than  any that can be
derived from the exhibitions of oddity.
If pleasures were the sole objects of our pursuit, and
if their excellence were measuredl only by the quantity of
enjoyment they afford, nothing could appear more obvious
than that that man would be esteemed most wise who
attained his object at least cost.  Yet the whole course
of civilisation is in a precisely  opposite  direction.   A
child derives the keenest and most exquisite enjoyment
from the simplest objects.  A flower, a doll, a rude game,
the least artistic taste, is sufficient to enchant it. An
uneducated peasant is enraptured with the wildest story
and the coarsest wit.  Increased cultivation almost always
produces a fastidiousness which necessitates the increased
elaboration  of our pleasures.  We attach a certain discredit to a man who has retained  those of childhood.
I'he very  fact of our deriving  pleasure  from   certain
amusements creates a kind  of lumiliation, for we feel
that they are not in harmony with the nobility of our
nature.l
Our judgments of societies resemble in this respect our
judgments of individuals.  Few persons, I think, who have
compared  the  mode  of popular life  in  stagnant  and
undeveloped countries like Spain with those in the great
centres of industrial civilisation, will venture to pronounce
1 This is one of the favourite thoughts of Pascal, who, however, in his
usual fashion dwells upon it in a somewhat morbid and exaggerated strain.' C'est une bien grande misere que de pouvoir prendre plaisir a des choses si
basses et si m6prisables... l'omme est encore plus a plaindre de cc qiu'il
peut se divertir a ces choses si frivoles et si basses, quo de ce qu'il s'afflige
de ses miseres effectives... D'oui vient que cet homme, qui a perdu depuis
peu son fils unique, et qui, accabl6 de proces et de querelles, 6tait cematin
si trouble, n'y pense plus maintenant? Ne vous en 6tonnez pas; il est tout
occupe'  voir par oit passera un cerf que ses ehiens poursuivent.... C'est
une joie de malade et de freinetique.'-Pensdees (Misere de l'homme).




THE NATURAL IIISTOIIY OF MIORALS.              89
with any confidence that the quantum  or average of
actual realised enjoyment is greater in the civilised than
in the semi-civilised society.  An undeveloped nature is
by no means necessarily an unhappy nature, and although
we possess no accurate gauge of happiness, we lmay, at
least, be certain that its degrees do not coincide with the
degrees of prosperity.  The tastes and habits of men in a
backward society accommodate themselves to the narrow
circle of a few  pleasures, and probably find in  these
as complete satisfaction as more civilised men in a wider
range, and if there is in the first condition somewhat
more of the weariness of monotony there is in the second
much more of the anxiety of discontent.  The superiority
of a highly civilised man lies cliefly in the fact that lhe
belongs to a higher order of being, for he has approached
more nearly to the end of his existence, and has called
into action a larger number of his capacities.  And this
is in itself an end.  Even if, as is not improbable, the
lower animals are happier than  man,1  and  semi-barbarians than civilised  men, still it is better to be a
man than a brute, better to be born  amid the fierce
struggles of civilisation than  in some stranded nation
apart from  all the flow  of enterprise and knowledge.
Even in that material civilication which utilitarianism delights to glorify, there is an element which the philosophy
of mere enjoyment cannot explain.
Again, if we ask the reason of the vast and indisputable
superiority which the general voice of mainkind gives to
mental pleasures, considered as pleasures, over physical
Q1'Qus singult improvidam mortalitatem involvunt, solum ut inter ista
certum sit, nihil esse certi, nec mliserius quidquamn homine, aut superbius.
Caeteris quippe animantium sola Tictus cura est, in quo sponte naturte benignitas sufficit: uno quiderl vel preeferendo cunctis bonis, quod de gloria, de
pecunia, ambitione superque de morte non cogitant.'-Plin. list. Nac. ii. 5.




90           IIISTORY  OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
ones, we shall find, I think, no adequate or satisfactory
answer on the supposition that pleasures'owe all their
value  to the quantity  of enjoyment they afford.  The
former, it is truly said, are more varied and more prolonged than the latter, but on the other hand, they are
attained with  more effort, and  they are  diffused over
a far narrower circle.  No one who compares the class
of men who derive their pleasure chiefly from  field sports
or other forms of physical enjoyment with  those who
derive their pleasure from  the highest intellectual sources,
or the period of boyhood when enjoyments are chiefly
animal with  early  manhood  when  they are chiefly intellectual, will say that the apparent level of enjoyment of
the latter is so manifestly and incontestibly superior to
that of the former as we might infer from  the great interval the world  places between  their pleasures.   No
painter or novelist, who wished  to  depict an ideal of
perfect happiness, would seek it in a profound student.
Without entering into any doubtful questions concerning
the relations of the body to all mental states, it may be
maintained that bodily conditions have in general more
influence upon our enjoyment than  mental ones.  The
happiness of the great majority of men is fhr more affected
by health  and by temperament,1 resulting from  physical
1 Paley, in his very ingenious, and in some respects admirable, chapter on
happiness tries to prove the inferiority of animal pleasures, by showing the
short time their enjoyment actually lasts, the extent to which they are
dulled by repetition, and the cases in which they incapacitate men for other
pleasures. But this calculation omits the influence of some animal enjoyments upon health and temperament. The fact, however, that health,
which is a condition of body, is the chief source of happiness, Paley fully
Rdmits.'Eealth,' he says,' is the one thing needful... when we are in
perfect health and spirits, we feel in ourselves a happiness independent of
any particular outward gratification.... This is an enjoyment which the
Deity has annexed to life, and probably constitutes in a great measure the
happiness of infants and brutes... of oysters, periwinkles, and the like;
for which I have sometimes been at a loss to find out amusement.' On the




THE NATURAL HIISTORY  OF M1IORAILS.                 91
conditions, which  again  physical enjoyments  are often
calculated  to produce, than  by  any  mental or  moral
causes, and  acute  physical sufferings paralyse  all the
energies of our nature to  a  greater extent than  any
mental distress.  It is probable  that the American inventor of the first anmsthetic has done more for the real
happiness of mankind than  all the  moral philosophers
from   Socrates  to  Mill.  Moral' causes may teach  men
patience, and the endurance of felt suffering, or may even
alleviate  its pangs, but there  are  temperaments  due
to  physical causes from  which  most sufferings glance
almost unfelt.  It is said that when an ancient w)as asked' what use is philosophy?' he answered,'it teaches men
how to die,' and he verified his words by a noble death;
but it has been proved on a thousand battle-fields, it has
been proved on a thousand scaffolds, it is proved through
all the wide regions of China and India, that the dull and
animal nature which feels little and realises faintly, can
meet death with a calm  that philosophy can barely rival.'
The truth is, that the mental part of our nature is not
regarded  as superior to  the  physical part, because it
contributes most to our happiness.  The superiority is of
a different kind, and may be intelligibly expressed by the
epithets higher and lower.
test of happiness he very fairly says,' All that can be said is that there
remains a presumption in favour of those conditions of life in which men
generally appear most cheerful and contented; for though the apparent
happiness of mankind be not always a true measure of their real happiness,
it is the best measure we have.'-l.Moral Philosophly, i. 6.
A writer who devoted a great part of his life to studying the deaths
of men in different countries, classes, and churches, and collecting from other
physicians information on the subject, says:'A moesure qu'on s'6loigne des
grands foyers de civilisation, qu'on se rapproche des plaines et des montagnes,
le caractere de la mort prend de plus en plus l'aspect calme du ciel par un
beau crTpuscule du soir.... En gen6ral la mort s'accomplit d'une llaniere
d'autant plus simple et naturelle qu'on est plus libre des innombrables liens
de la civilisation.'-Lauvergne, De l'agonie dde c4 Mort, tome i. pp. 131-132.




92            HISTO-RY  OF EUROPEAN  3MORALS.
And, once more, there is a class of pleasures resulting
from  the  gratification  of our moral feelings which  we
naturally  place  ill the  foremost rank.   To  the  great
majority of mankind  it will probably appear, in spite of
the doctrine of Paley, that no multiple of the pleasure of
eating pastry can be an equivalent to the pleasure derived
from  a generous action.  It is not that the latter is so
inconceivably intense.  It is that it is of a higher order.
This distinction of kind-which has been neglected or
denied by most utilitarian writers,1 is of much importance'I will omit much usual declamation upon the dignity and capacity of
our nature, the superiority of the soul to the body, of the rational to the
animal part-of our constitution, upon the worthiness, refinement, and delicacy
of some satisfactions, or the meanness, grossness, and sensuality of others;
because I hold that pleasures differ in nothing but in continuance and intensity.'-Paley's Moral PkilosoplAy, book i. ch. vi. Bentham in like manner
said,' Quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry,' alld
he maintained that the value of a pleasure depends on-its (1) intensity,
(2) duration, (3) certainty,(4) propinquity, (5) purity, (6) fecundity, (7)
extent (Springs qf Action).  The recognition of the'purity' of a pleasure
might seem to imply the distinction for which I have contended in the text,
but this is not so. The purity of a pleasure or pain, according to Bentham,
is (the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite
kind; that is pain if it be a pleasure, pleasure if it be a pain.' —Morals and
Legislation, i. ~ S. Mlr. Buckle (Hist. of Civilisation, vol. ii. pp. 399-400)
writes in a somewhat similar strain, but less unequivocally, for he admits
that mental pleasures are'more ennobling' than physical ones. The older
utilitarians, as far as I have observed, did not even advert to the question.
This being the case, it must have been a matter of surprise as well as of
gratification to most intuitive moralists to find MrlI. Mill fully recognising the
existence of different kinds of pleasure, and admitting that the superiority of
the higher kinds does not spring from  their being greater in amount.Utilitaricanism, pp. 11-12. If it be meant by this that we have the power of
selecting some pleasures rather than others as superior in kind, irrespective
of all consideration of their intensity, their cost, and their consequences, I
submit that the admission is by no means (as IMr. Mill maintains) compatible
with the utilitarian theory.  It may be added that IMr. M3ill elsewhere (Dissert. vol. i. p. 387) admits that every human action has'its resthetic aspect,
or that of its beauty,' which addresses itself to the imagination. It will
probably appear to many of my readers that these two concessions-that we
have the power of recognising a distinction of kind in our pleasures, and that
we have a perception of beauty in our actions —make the difference between
Mr. Mill and intuitive moralists not very much more than verbal.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MIORALS.            93
in morals. It is important, because it shows that our wills
do not necessarily tend to that which produces most
enjoyment, either actual or in prospect; but even in our
pleasures recognise, and may obey a moral element.  It
is important, too, because it shows that the different parts
of our nature to which these different pleasures refer,
bear to each other a relation which mlay be clearly and
justly described by the terms higher and lower, and
because the assertion that our reason reveals to us intuitively and directly this hierarchy of our being, is a
fundamental position of the greatest schools of intuitive
moralists. According to these writers, when we say that
our moral and intellectual is superior to our animal
nature, that the benevolent affections are superior to the
selfish -ones, that conscience has a legitimate supremacy
over the other parts of our being; this language is not
arbitrary, or fantastic, or capricious, because it is intelligible.  When such a subordination is announced, it
corresponds with feelings we all possess, falls in with the
natural course of our judgments, with our habitual and
unstudied language.
The arguments that have been directed against the
theory of natural moral perceptions are of two kinds,. the
first, which I have already noticed, being designed to
show that all our moral judgments may be resolved into
considerations of utility; the second resting upon the
diversity of these judgments in different nations and stages
of civilisation, which, it is said, is altogether inexplicable
upon the supposition of a moral faculty. As these variations form the great stumbling-block in the way of the
doctrine I am maintaining, and as they constitute a very
important part of the history of morals, I shall malke no
apology for noticing them in some detail.
In the first place, there are many cases in which diver



94         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
sities of moral judgment arise from causes that are not
moral, but purely intellectual.  Thus for example: when
theologians pronounced loans at interest contrary to the
law of nature and plainly extortionate, this error obviously
arose from a false notion of the uses of money. They
believed it to be a sterile thing, and that he who has
restored what he had borrowed, has cancelled all the
benefit he received from  the transaction. At the time
when the first Christian moralists treated the subject,
special circumstances had rendered the rate of interest
extremnely high, and consequently extremely oppressive to
the poor, and this fact, no doubt, strengthened  the prejudice; bhut the root of the condemnation of usury was
simply an error in political economy.  When men came
to understand that money is a productive thing, and that
the sum lent enables the borrower to create sources of
wealth that will continue when the loan has been returned, they perceived that there was no natural injustice in exacting payment for this advantage, and usury
either ceased to be assailed, or was assailed only upon
the ground of positive commands.
Thus again the question of the criminality of abortion has
been considerably affected by physiological speculations
as to the time when the fetus in the womb acquires the
nature, and therefore the rights, of a separate being. The
general opinion among the ancients seems to have been
that it was but a part of the mother, and that she had the
same right to destroy it as to cauterise a tumour upon
her body. Plato and Aristotle both admitted the practice.
The Roman law contained no enactment against voluntary
abortion till the tilme of Ulpian. The Stoics thought that
the infant received its soul when respiration began.  The
Justinian code fixed its animation at forty days after conception.  In modern legislations it is treated as a distinct




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 3MORALS.             89
being from the moment of conception.' It is obvious that
the solution of suclh questions, though affecting our moral
judgments, must be sought entirely outside the range of
moral feelings.
In the next place, there is a broad distinction to be
drawn between duties which rest immediately on the
dictates of conscience, and those which are based upon
positive commands.  The iniquity of theft, murder, falsehood, or adultery rests upon grounds generically distinct
from  those on which men pronounce it to be sinful to
eat meat on Friday, or to work on Sunday, or to abstain
from  religious assemblies.  The reproaches conscience
directs against-tthose who are guilty of these last acts are
purely hypothetical, conscience  enjoining obedience to
the Divine commands, but leaving it to reason to deterinine what those commands may be.  The distinction
between these two classes of duties becomes apparent on
the slightest reflection, and the variations in their relative
prominence form one of the most important branches of
religious history.
Closely connected with thle preceding are the diversities
which result from an ancient custom  becoming at last,
through its very antiquity, or through the confusion of
means with ends, an object of religious reverence. Among(
the many safeguards of female purity in the Roman republic was an enactment forbidding women even to taste
wine, andc this very intelligible law being enforced with
the earliest education, became at last, by habit and
traditionary reverence, so incorporated with the moral
feelings of the people, that its violation was spoken of
as a monstrous crime.  Aulus Gellius has preserved a
Biichner, Force et Mlatif&e, pp. 163-164, There is a very curious collection of the speculations of the ancient philosophers, on. this subject in
Plutarch's treatise, D) Placitis Philos.
8




HISTORtY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
passage in which Cato observes,'that the husband has an
absolute authority over his wife; it is for him  to condemn
and punish her, if she has been guilty of any shameful
act, such as drinking wine or committing adultery.' 1  As
soon  as the reverence for tradition  was diminished, and
men ventured to judge old customs upon their own merits,
they were able, by steadily reflecting upon this belief, to
reduce  it to  its primitive  elements, to  separate the act
from  the ideas with which  it had  been  associated, and
thus to perceive that it was not necessarily opposed to any
of those great moral laws or feelings which  their consciences revealed, and which were the  basis of all their
reasonings on morals.
A  confused association of ideas, which is easily exposed
by  a patient analysis, lies  at the root of more serious
anomalies.   Thus to those who reflect deeply upon moral
history, few  things I suppose are more humiliating  than
to  contrast  the  admiration  and  profound  reverential
attachment  excited  by  a  conqueror, who  through  the
1 Aulus Gellius, Noetes, x. 23. The law is given by Dion. Halicarn. Valerius Maximus says,' Vini usus olim Romanis feminis ignotus fuit, ne scilicet
in aliquod dedecus prolaberentur: quia proximus a Libero patre intemperantie gradus ad inconcessam Venerem esse consuevit' (Val. IMax. ii. 1, ~ 5).
This is also noticed by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xiv. 14) who ascribes the law to
I-omulus, and who mentions two cases in which women were said to have
been put to death for this offence, and a third in which.the offender was
deprived of her dowry. Cato said that the ancient Romans were accustomed
to kiss their wives for the purpose of discovering whether they had been drinkingl wine. The Bona Dea, it is said, was originally a woman named Fatua,
who was famous for her modesty and fidelity to her husband, but who, unfortunately, having once found a cask of wine in the house, got drunk, and
was in consequence scourged to death by her husband. He afterwards repented of his act, and payed divine honours to her memory, and as a
memorial of her death, a cask of wine was always placed upon the altar
during the rites. (Lactantius, Div. Inst. i. 22.) The Milesians, also, and the
inhabitants of Marseilles are said to have had laws forbidding  w-omen to
drink wine (/Elian, Hist, Var. ii. 38). Tertullian describes the prohibition
of wine amono the Roman women as in his time obsolete, and a taste for
it was one of the great trials of St. Monica (Aug. Cowf. ix. 8).




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MIORALS.            97
promptings of simple vanity, through love of fame, or
through greed of territory, has wantonly caused the
deaths, the sufferings, or the bereavements of thousands,
with the abhorrence produced by a single act of murder
or robbery committed by a poor and ignorant man,
perhaps under the pressure of extreme want or intolerable wrong.  The attraction of genius and power, which
the vulgar usually measure by their material fruits, the
advantages acquired by the nation to which he belongs,
the belief that battles are decided by providential interference, and that military success is therefore a proof of
Divine favour, and the sanctity ascribed to the regal
office, have all no doubt conspired to veil the atrocity of
the conqueror's career; buat there is probably another
and a deeper influence behind.  That which invests war,
in spite of all the evils that attend it, with a certain moral
grandeur, is the heroic self-sacrifice it elicits.  With
perhaps the single exception of the Church, it is the
sphere in which mercenary motives have least sway, in
which performance is least weighed and measured by
strict obligation, in wlhich a disinterested entlhusiasm has
most scope.  A battle-field is the scene of deeds of selfsacrifice so transcendent, and at the same time so dramatic, that in spite of all its horrors and crimes, it
awakens the most passionate moral enthusiasm.  But this
feeling produced by the thought of so many who have
sacrificed their life-blood for their flag or for their chief,
needs some definite object on which to rest.  The mnultitude of nameless combatants do not strike the imagination. They do not stand out, and are not realised,
as distinct and living figures conspicuous to the view.
Hence it is that the chief, as the most prominent, becomes
the representative warrior; the martyr's aureole descends
upon his brow, and thus by a confusion that seems the




98         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
very irony of fate, the enthusiasm  evoked by the selfsacrifice of thousands sheds a sacred glow around the
very man whose prodigious egotism had rendered that
sacrifice necessary.
Another form  of moral paradox is derived from the
fact that positive religions may override our moral perceptions in such a manner, that we may consciously admit
a moral contradiction.  In this respect there is a strict
parallelism  between our intellectual and  our moral
faculties. It is at present the professed belief of about
four-fifths of the Christian Church, and was for some
centuries the firm belief of the entire Church, that on a
certain night the Founder of the Christian faith, being
seated at a supper table, held His own body in His own
hand, broke that body, distributed it to His disciples, who
proceeded to eat it, the same body remaining at the same
moment seated intact at the table, and soon afterwards
proceeding to the garden of Gethsemane.  The fact of
such a doctrine being believed, does not imply that the
faculties of those who hold it are of such a nature that
they perceive no contradiction or natural absurdity in
these statements.  The well-known argument derived
from  the obscurity of the metalphysical notion of substance is intended only in some slight degree to soften
the difficulty.  The contradiction is clearly perceived, but
it is accepted by faith as part of the teaching of the
Church.
What transubstantiation is in the order of reason the
Augustinian doctrine of the damnation of unbaptised
infants, and the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation, are
in the order of morals.  Of these doctrines it is not too
much to say, that in the form in which they have often
been stated, they surpass in atrocity any tenets that have
ever been admitted into any pagan creed, and would, if




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.              99
they formed an essential part of Christianity, amply
justify the term' pernicious superstition,' which Tacitus
applied to the faith.  That a little child who lives but
a few momnents after birth and dies before it has been
sprinkled with the sacred water is in such a sense responsible for its ancestors having 6,000 years before eaten
some forbidden fruit, that it may with perfect justice
be resuscitated and cast into an abyss of eternal fire
in expiation of this ancestral crime, that an all-righteous
and  all-merciful Creator in the full exercise of thlose
attributes deliberately calls into existence sentient beings
whom He has from eternity irrevocably destined to endless, unspeakable, unmitigated torture, are propositions
which are at once so extravagantly absurd and so ineffably atrocious that their adoption might well lead men
to doubt the universality of moral perceptions.  Such
teacliCing is in fact simply deinonism, and  denmonism
in its most extreme fornm.  It attributes to the Creator
acts of injustice and of barbarity, which it would be
Labsolutely impossible for the imagination to surpass, acts
before which the most monstrous excesses of human
cruelty dwindle into insignificance, acts which are in
fact considerably worse than any that theologians have
attributed to the devil.  If there were men who while
vividly realising the nature of these acts naturally turned
to them as the exhibitions of perfect goodness, all systems
of ethics founded upon innate moral perceptions would
be false. But happily this is not so. Those who embrace
these doctrines do so only because they believe that some
inspired Church or writer has taught them, and because
they are still in that stage in which men consider it more
irreligious to question the infallibility of an apostle than
to disfigure by any conceivable imputation the character of




LO         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3MORALS.
the Deity.  They accordingly esteem it a matter of duty,
and a commendable exercise of humility, to stifle the
moral feelings of their nature, and they at last succeed
in persuading themselves that their Divinity would be
extremely offended if they hesitated to ascribe to him
the attributes of a fiend.  But their moral feelings,
thoughl not unimpaired by such conceptions, are not on
ordinary subjects generically different from those of
their neighbours.  Witlh an amiable inconsistency they
can even find something to revolt them in the lives of
a Caligula or a Nero. Their theological estimate of justice
and mercy is isolated.  Their doctrine is accepted as
a kind of moral miracle, and as is customary with a
certain school of theologians when they enunciate a proposition which is palpably self-contradictory they call it
a mystery and an occasion for faith.
In this instance a distinct moral contradiction is consciously admitted.  In the case of persecution, a strictly
-moral and logical inference is drawn from a very immoral
proposition which is accepted as part of a system  of
dogmatic theology.  The two elements that should be
considered in ptnishing a criminal are the heinousness of
his guilt and the injury hlie inflicts.  When the greatest
guilt and the greatest injury are combined, the greatest
punishment naturally follows.  INo one would argue
against the existence of a moral faculty, on the ground
that men put murderers to death.  When therefore theologians believed that a man was intensely guilty who
held certain opinions, and that he was causing the damnation of his fellows if he propagated them, there was no
moral difficulty in concluding that the heretic should be
put to death.  Selfish considerations may have directed
persecution against heresy rather tlhan against vice, but
the Catholic doctrines of the guilt of error, and of the




THE NATURA. L HISTOR Y OF MIORALS.        101
infallibility of the Church were amply sufficient to justify it.
It appears then that a dogmatic system  which is
accepted on rational or other grounds, and supported by
prospects of rewards and punishments, may teach a code
of ethics differing from that of conscience; and that in
this case the voice of conscience may be either disregarded
or stifled. It is however also true, that it may be perverted.  When, for example, theologians during a long
period have inculcated habits of credulity, rather than
habits of enquiry; when they have persuaded men that it
is better to cherish prejudice than to analyse it; better to
stifle every doubt of what they have been taught than
honestly to investigate its value, they will at last succeed
in forming habits of mind that will instinctively and
habitually recoil from  all impartiality and intellectual
honesty.  If men continually violate a duty they may at
last cease to feel its obligation. lBut this, though it forms
a great difficulty in ethical enquiries, is no argument
against the reality of moral perceptions, for it is simply
a law to which all our powers are subject.  A bad intellectual education will produce not only erroneous or
imperfect information but also a false ply or habit of
judgmlent.  A bad esthetical education will produce false
canons of taste. Systematic abuse will pervert and vitiate
even some of our physical perceptions.  In each case the
experience of many mninds under many conditions must
be appealed to, to determine the standard of right and
wrong, and long and difficult discipline is required to
restore the diseased organ to sanity.  We may decide
particular moral questions by reasoning, but our reasonimg is an appeal to certain moral principles which are
revealed to us by intuition.
The principal difficulty I imagine which most men have




.102  IIISTOR Y OF EUROPEAN M3ORALS.
in admitting  that we possess certain natural moral perceptions arises from  the supposition that it imp)lies the
existence of some llysterious agent like the clemon of
Socrates, which gives us specific and infallible information
in particular cases.  But this I conceive to be a complete
mistake.  All that is necessarily meant by the adherents
of this school is comprised in two propositions.  The first
is that our will is not governed exclusively by the law of
pleasure and pain, but also by the law of duty, which we
feel to be distinct from the former, and to carry with it
th~l sense of obligation.  The second is that the basis of
our conception of duty is an intuitive perception that
among the various feelings, tendencies, and impulses that
constitute our emotional being, there are some which are
essentially good, and ought to be encouraged, and some
which are essentially bad, and oughlt to be repressed.
They contend that it is a psychological fact that we are
intuitively conscious that our benevolent affections are
superior to our malevolent ones, truth to falsehood, justice
to injustice, gratitudle to ingratitude, chastity to sensuality,
and that in all ages and countries the path of virtue has
been towards the hiTgher and not towards the lower
feelings.  It may be that the sense of duty is so weak as
to be scarcely perceptible, and then the lower part of our
nature will be supreme.  It may happen that certain
conditions of society lead men to direct their anxiety for
moral improvement altogether in one or two channels, as
was the case in ancient Greece, where civic and intellectual virtues were very hi]ghly cultivated, and the virtue
of chastity was almost neglected. It may happen that different parts of our higher nature in a measure conflict, as
when a very stronog sense of justice clhecks our benevolent
feelings.  Dogmatic systems may enjoin men to propitiate
certain unseen beincs by acts which are not in accord



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MIORALS.                103
anice with the moral law.  Special circumstances may influence, and the intermingling of many different motives
may obscure and complicate, the moral evolution; but
above all these one great truth appears.   -o one who
desires to become holier and better imacgines that he does
so by becoming more malevolent, or more untruthful, or
more unchaste.  Every one who desires to attain perfection in these departments of feeling is impelled towards
benevolence, towards veracity, towards chastity.l
Now  it is manifest that according to this theory the
moral unity to be expected in different a(ges is not a unity
of standard, or of acts, but a unity of tendency.  MAIen
come into the world with their benevolent affections very
inferior in power to their selfish ones, and the function of
morlls is to invert this order.  The extinction of all
selfish feeling is impossible for an individual, and if it
were general, it would result in the dissolution of society.
The question of morals must always be a question of
proportion or of degree.  At one time the benevolent
affections embrace merely the family, soon the circle expanding includes first a class, then a nation, then a coalition
of nations, then all 1humanity, and finally, its influence is
felt in the dealings of man with the animal world.  In
each of these stages a standard is formed, different from
that of the preceding stage, but in each case the same
tendency is recognised as virtue.
We have in this fact a simple, and as it appears to me
a  conclusive, answer to  the  overwhelming  majority
of the objections that are continually and confidently
urged against the intuitive school.  That some savages' La loi fondamentale de Is, morale agit sur toutes les nations bien connues.
I1 y a mille diff6rences dans les interpretations de cette loi en mille circonstances; mais le fond subsiste toujours le mnme, et ce fond est l'id6e du juste
et de l'injuste.'-Yoltaire, Le Philosophe ignorant.




104         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
kill their old parents, that infanticide has been practised
without compunction by even civilisecl nations, that the
best Romans saw nothing wrong in the gladiatorial shows,
that political or revengeful assassinations have been for
centuries admitted, that slavery  has  been  sometimes
honoured and sometimes condemned, are unquestionable
proofs that the same act may be regarded in one age as
innocent, and in  another as criminal.  Now  it is undoubtedly true that in many cases an historical examination  will reveal special circumstances, explaining  or
palliating  the apparent anomaly.  It has been  often
shown that the gladiatorial shows were originally a form
of human sacrifice adopted through religious motives; that
the rude nomadic life of savages rendering impossible
the preservation of aged and helpless members of the
tribe, the murder of parents was regarded as an act of
mercy both by the murderer and the victim; that before
an effective administration of justice was organised, private vengeance was the sole preservative against crime,1
and political assassination against usurpation; that the insensibility of some savages to the criminality of theft
arises from the fact that they were accustomed to have
all things in common; that the Spartan law, legalising
theft, arose partly from  a desire to foster military dexterity among the people, but chiefly from  a desire to discourage wealth; that slavery was introduced through
motives of mercy, to prevent conquerors from killing their
prisoners.2 All this is true, but there is another ancl a more
1 The feelin( in its favour being often intensified by filial affection.'~What is the most beautiful thing on the earth?' said Osiris to Horus,
l'o avenge a parent's wrongs,' was the reply.-Plutarch's Do   e Isie et
Osiride.
2 Hence the Justinian code and also St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, xix. 15)
dlerived servus from' serrvare,' to preserve, because the victor preserved his
prisoners alive.




THE NATURAL IhISTORY OF MIORALS.                          10O
general answer.   It is not to  be expected, and it is not
maintained, that mlen in all ages should have agreed about,the application of their moral principles.   All that is contended for is that these principles are themselves the same.
Some  of what appear to  us  monstrous acts of cruelty,
were  dictated  by that very feeling  of humanity, the universal perception of the merit of which they are cited to
disprove,1 and even when this is not the case, all that can
be  inferred  is, that the  standard  of humanity  was very
low.   But still humanity was recognised as a virtue, and
cruelty as a vice.
At this point, I may observe how  completely fallacious
is the assertion  that a progressive  morality is impossible
upon the  supposition  of an original moral faculty.2   To
such  statements there  are two very simple  answers.   In
the first place, although the intuitive moralist asserts that
certain  qualities are necessarily virtuous, he fully admits
that  the  degree  in  which  they  are  acted  upon, or in'1 Les habitants du Congo tuent les malades qu'ils imaginent ne pouvoir
en revenir; c'est, dlisent-ils, pour lezr gpargner les clouleurs de l'ayonie.  Dans
Pile Formose, lorsqu'un hlomme est dangereusemlent malade, on lui passe
un nceud coulant au col et on l'Ptrangle, pour l'arraciher CI la douleur.'
Helveties, -De l'Esprit, ii. 13. A  similar explanation may be often found
for customs -which are quoted to prove that the nations where they
existed had no sense of chastity.   C'est pareillenment sous la sauvegarde
des lois quo les Siamoises, la gorge et les cuisses i n moiti6 decouvertes, porte'es
dans les rues sur les panlanquins, s'y presentent dans des attitudes treslascives.  Cette loi fut 6tablie par une de leurs reines nomn6ee Tirada, qui,
vpour cldgoiter les hIomnzes d'un amour plus cleslonmnte, crut devoir employer
toute la puissance doe la beaut6.' —De l'Esprit, ii. 14.
2' The contest between the lmorality which appeals to an external
standard, and that which grounds itself on internal conviction, is the
contest of progressive morality against stationary, of reason and argument
against the deification of mere opinion and habit' (Mill's Dissertations, vol.
ii. p. 472); a passage with a true B3entham  ring.  See, too, vol. i. p. 158.
There is, however, a schism  on this point in the utilitarian camp.  The
views which Mr. Buckle has expressed in his most eloquent chapter on the
comlparative influence of intellectual ancd moral agencies in civilisation
diverge widely from those of IMr. 3Mill.




:10       ETHISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
other words, the standard of duty, may become progressively higher.  In the next place, although he refuses
to resolve all virtue into utility, lie admits as fully as his
opponents, that benevolence, or the promotion of the
happiness of man, is a virtue, and that therefore discoveries which exhibit more clearly the true interests of
our kind, may throw new light upon the nature of our
dutv.
The considerations I have urged with reference to
humanity, apply with equal force to the various relations of the sexes.  When the passions of men are altogether unrestrained, community of wives and all eccentric forms of sensuality will be admitted.  When men
seek to  improve their nature in this respect, their
object will be to abridge and confine the empire of
sensuality. But to this process of improvement there
are obvious limits.  In  the first place the continuance of the species is only possible by a sensual act.
In the next place the strength of this passion and the
weakness of humanity are so great, that the moralist must
take into account the fact that in all societies, and especially in those in which free scope had long been given to
tlhe passions, a large amount of indulgence will arise which
is not due to a simple desire of propagating the species.
If then incest is prohibited, and community of wives
replaced by ordinary polygamy, a moral improvement
will have been effected, and a standard of virtue formed.
But this standard soon becomes the starting-point of new
progress. If we examine the Jewish law, we find the
legislator prohibiting adultery, regulating the degrees of
marriage, but at the same time authorising polygamy,
though with a caution against the excessive multiplication
of wives.  In  Greece monogamy, though not without




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.             107
exceptions, had been enforced, but a concurrence of influences very unfavourable to chastity prevented any high
standard being attained among the men, and almost
every form of sensual indulgence beyond the limits of
marriage was permitted.  In Rome the standard was far
higller.  M/Ionogamy was firmly established.  The ideal
of female morality was placed as high as among Christian
nations. Among men, however, while unnatural love and
adultery were regarded as wrong, simple unchastity before marriage was scatrcely considered a fault.  In Catlolicism marriage is regarded in a twofold light, as a
means for the propagation of the species, and as a concession to the weakness of humanity, and all other sensual
enjoyment is stringently prohibited.
In these cases there is a great difference between the
degrees of earnestness with which men exert themselves in
the repression of their sensual passions, and in the amount
of indulgence which is conceded to their lower nature; 
but there is no difference in the direction of the virtuous
impulse.  While, too, in the case of adultery, and in the
production of children, questions of interest and utility do
undoubtedly intervene, we are conscious that the general
progress turns upon a totally different order of ideas. The
feeling of all men and the language of all nations, the
sentiment which though often weakened is never wholly
effaced, that this appetite, even in its most legitimate
gratification, is a thing to be veiled and withdrawn fromn
sight, all that is known under the names of decency and
indecency, concur in proving that we have an innate,
intuitive, instinctive perception that there is somethino
1'Est enim sensualitas qumdam vis animm inferior.... Ratio vero vie
animae est superior.' —-eter Lombard, Set. ii. 24.




108        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
degrading in the sensual part of our nature, something to
which a feeling of shame is naturally attached, something that jars with our conception of perfect purity,
something  we could not with any propriety ascribe to an
all-holy being.  No one -was ever altogether destitute of
this: perception, and nothing but the most inveterate
passion for system could induce men to resolve it into a
mere calculation of interests. It is this feeling or instinct
which lies at the root of the whole movement I have
described, and it is this too that produced that sense of
the sanctity of perfect continence whicl  the Catholic
church has so warmly encouraged, but which may be
traced through the most distant ages, and the most various
creeds.  We find it among the Nazarenes and Essenes
of Judoa, amlong the priests of Egypt and India, in the
monasteries of Tartary, and in the histories of miraculous
virgins that are so numerous in the mythologies of Asia.
Such, for example, was the Chinese legend that tells how
when there were but one man and one woman upon earth,
the woman refused to sacrifice her virginity even with a
view to the peopling of the globe, and the gods honouring
her purity granted that she should conceive beneath the
gaze of her lover's eyes, and a virgin-mother became the
parent of humanity.1  In the midst of the sensuality
of ancient Greece, chastity was the pre-eminent attribute
of sanctity ascribed to Athene and Artemis.'Chaste
daughter of Zeus,' prayed the suppliants in _Zschylus,' thou whose calm eye is never troubled, look down upon
us! Virgin, defend the virgins.' The Parthenon, or virgin's
temple, was the noblest religious edifice of Athens.  Ce1 Helvetius, De l'Esprit, discours iv. See, too, Dr. Draper's extremely
remarkable.listory of Intellectuatl Development in.Eurolpe (New York, 1804),
pp. 48j 63.




THE NATURAL IllSTORIY OF MORALS.              109
libacy was an essential condition in a few of the orders
of priests, and in several orders of priestesses. Plato
based his moral system  upon the distinction between the
bodily or sensual, and the spiritual or rational part of
our nature, the first being the sign of our degradation,
and the second of our dignity.  The whole school of
Pythagoras made chastity one of its leading virtues, and
even laboured for the creation of a monastic system.
The conception of the celestial Aphrodite, the uniter of
souls, unsullied by the taint of matter, lingered side
by side with that of the earthly Aphrodite or patroness
of sensuality, and if there was a time when the sculptors
sought to pander to the excesses of passion there was
another in which all their art was displayed in refining
and idealising it.  Strabo mentions the existence in Thrace
of societies of men aspiring to perfection by celibacy and
austere lives. Plutarch applauds certain philosophers who
vowed to abstain for a year from  wine and women in
order'to hlonour God by their continence.' 1 In Rome the
religious reverence was concentrated more especially upon
married life.  The great prominence accorded  to  the
Penates was the religious sanction of domesticity.  So
too, at first, was the worship so popular among the Roman
women of the Bona D)ea -the ideal wife who according
to tle legend had, when on earth, never looked in the
face or known the name of any man but her husband.2' For altar and hearth' was the rallying cry of the Roman
soldier.  But above all this we find the traces of a higher
ideal.  WVe find it in the intense sanctity attributed to the
1 Plutarch, -De Colibendzca Ira.
2 Lactantius, Div. Inst. i. 22. The mysteries of the Bona Dea became,
however, after a time the occasion of great disorders. See Juvenal, Sat. vi.
BI. MIagnin has examined the nature of these rites (Origines du Tedtre,
pp. 267-259).




110           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
vestal virgins whose  continence  was  guarded by  such
fearful penalties, and supposed to be so closely linked
with  the prosperity of the  state, whose prayer was believed to possess a miraculous power, and who were permitted to- drive through the streets of Rome  at a time
when  that privilege was refused  even  to the  Empress.l
We find it in the legend of Claudia, who, when the ship
bearing  the image of the mother of the gods had been
stranded  in  the Tiber, attached her girdle to  its prow,
and vindicated her challenged chastity by drawing with
her virgin hand, the ponderous mass which  strong men
had  sought,  in vain  to  move.  We  find  it in  the prophetic gift so often attributed to virgins,2 in the law which
sheltered  them  from  the degradation  of an  execution,3
in the language  of Statius, who described marriage itself
The history of the vestals, which forms one of the most curious pages
in the moral history of Rome, has been fully treated by the Abbe Nadal,
in an extremely interesting and well-written memoir, read before the
Academie des Belles-lettres, and republished in 1725. It was believed
that the prayer of a vestal could arrest a fugitive slave in his flight, provided he had not got past the city walls.  Pliny mentions this belief
as general in his time. The records of the order contained many miracles
wrought at different times to save the vestals or to vindicate their questioned purity, and also one miracle which is very remarkable as furnishing
a precise parallel to that of the Jew who was struck dead for touching the
ark to prevent its falling.
2 As for example the Sibyls and Cassandra.  The same prophetic power
was attributed in India to virgins. —Clem. Alexandrin. Strom. iii. 7.
3 This custom  continued to the worst period of the empire, though it
was shamefully and characteristically evaded. After the fall of Sejanus
the senate had no compunction in putting his innocent daughter to death,
but their religious feelings were shocked at the idea of a virgin falling beneath the axe. So by way of improving matters' filia constuprata est prius
a carnifice, quasi impium esset virginem in carcere perire.'-Dion Cassius,
lviii. 11. See too, Tacitus, Annal. v. 9. 9. If a vestal met a prisoner going
to execution the prisoner was spared, provided the vestal declared that the
encounter was accidental. On the reverence the ancients paid to virgins,
see Justus Lipsius, De Vesta et Vestalibus.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.'111
as a fault.'  In  Christianity scarcely any other single circumstance has contributed  so much to the attraction of
the faith as the ascription of virginity to its female ideal.
The  Catlholic monastic  system  has been  so  constructed
as to  draw  many  thousands from  the sphere  of  active
duty; its irrevocable vows have  doubtless led  to  much
suffering  and  not a little  crime; its  opposition  to  the
normal development of our mingled nature has often resulted in impure imaginations which are peculiarly fitted
to  degrade  the  character;  it has  excluded  those  who
enrol themselves in it from domestic affections and sympathies which  have  a very high  moral value; but in its
central conception that the sensual or animal side of our
nature is a low  and a degraded  side, it reflects, I believe,
with perfect fidelity the feelings of our nature.2
- See his picture of the first night of marriage:
Tacite subit ille supremus
Virginitratis amor, primceeque modestia culpm
Confundit vultus. Tune ora rigantur honestis
Imbribus.'- Thebaidos, lib. ii. 232-34.
2 Bees (which Virgil said had in them  something of the divine nature)
were supposed by the ancients to be the special emblems or models of chastity.
It was a common belief that the bee mother begot her young without losing
her virginity. Thus in a fragment ascribed to Petronius we read,
Sic sine concubitu textis apis excita ceris,
Fervet, et audaci milite castra replet.'
Petron. -De Varia Anialuinum (eneratioJne.
So too Virgil:-'Quod neque concubitu indulgent nec corpora segnes
In Venerem solvunt aaut foetus nixibus edunt.'- Georgy. iv. 198-99.
Plutarch says that an unchaste person cannot approach bees, for they immediately attack him and cover him with stings. Fire was also regarded as
a type of virginity. Thus Ovidl, speaking of the vestals, says:-'N ataque de flamma corpora nulla vides:
Jure igitur virgo est, quse semina nulla remittit
Nec capit, et comites virginitatis amat.''The Egyptians believed that there are no males auong -vultu-res, and they
9




112         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN  1MORALS.
To these considerations some others of a different nature
may be added.  It is not true that some ancient nations
regarded polygamy as good in tle same sense as others
regarded chastity.  There is a great difference between
deeming a state permissible and proposing it as a condition of sanctity.  If Mahommedans people paradise with
images of sensuality, it is not because these form  their
ideal of holiness.  It is because they regard earth as the
sphere of virtue, heaven as that of simple enjoyment.  If
some paLgan nations deified sensuality, this was simply
because the deification of the forces of nature, of whlich
the prolific energy is one of the most conspicuous, is
among the earliest forms of religion, and long precedes
the identification of the Deity with a moral ideal.l  If
there have been nations who attached a certain stigma to
virginity, this has not been because they esteemed sensuality intrinsically holier than chastity; but because a
scanty, warlike people rwhose position in' the world depends
chiefly on the number of its warriors, will naturally make
it its main object to encourage population.  This was
especially the case with the ancient Jews, who always regarded extreme populousness as indissolubly connected
with national prosperity, whose religion was essentially
patriotic, and among whom the possibility of becoming an
ancestor of the Messiah had imparted a peculiar dignity
to childbirth.  Yet even among the Jews the Essenes regarded virginity as the ideal of sanctity.
accordingly made that bird an emblem of nature.'-Amnlianus fiarcellinus,
xvii. 4.
1'La divinit6 6tant consid6r6e comme elnfermant en elle toutes les
qualit6s, toutes les forces intellectuelles et morales de l'homme, chacune de
ces forces ou de ces qualit6s, concue separ6ment, s'offrait comme un Etre
divin... De li aussi les contradictions les plus choquantes dans les notions
que les anciens avaient des attributs divins.' —-Iaury, Iist. des Religions de
la G'ce antigue, tome i. pp. 678-579.




THE NATURAL IlISTORY OF MORALS.            11i3
The reader will now be in a position to perceive the
utter futility of the objections which from  the time of
Locke have been continually brought against the theory
of natural moral perceptions, upon the ground that some
actions which were admitted as lawful in one age, have
been regarded as immoral in another.  All these become
absolutely worthless when it is perceived that in every
age virtue has consisted of the cultivation of the same
feelings, though the standards of excellence attained have
been different.  The terms higher and lower, nobler or
less noble, purer or less pure, represent moral facts with
much greater fidelity than the terms right or wrong,
or virtue or vice.  There is a certain sense in which
nmoral distinctions are absolute and immutable.  There is
another sense in which they are altogether relative and
transient.  There are some acts wlhich are so manifestly
and grossly opposed to our moral feelings, that they are
regardled as wrong in the very earliest stages of the
cultivation of these feelings.  There are distinctions, such
as tlhat between truth and falsehood, wvhich from  their
nature assume at once a sharpness of definition that
separates them from mere virtues of degree, though even
in these cases there are wide variations in the amount
of scrupulosity that is in different periods required.  But
apart from  positive commands, the sole external rule
enabling men to designate acts, not simply as better or
worse, but as positively right or wrong, is, I conceive,
the standard of society; not an arbitrary standard like
that whiclh Mandeville imagined, but the level which
society has attained in the cultivation of what our moral faculty tells us is the higher or virtuous part of our
nature.  He who falls below this is obstructing the tendency which is the essence of virtue.  He who merely
attains this, may not be justified in his own conscience,




114       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IMORALS.
or in other words, by the standard of his own moral
development, but as far as any external rule is concerned,
he has done his duty. He who rises above this has
entered into the region of things which it is virtuous to
do, but not vicious to neglect-a region known among
Catholic theologians by the name of' counsels of perfection.' No discussions, I conceive, can be more idle than
whether slavery, or the slaughter of prisoners in war, or
gladiatorial shows or polygamy are essentially wrong.
They may be wrong now-they were not so once -and
when an ancient countenanced by his example one or
other of these, he was not committing a crime. The unchangeable proposition for which we contend is this-that
benevolence is always a virtuous disposition-that the
sensual part of our nature is always the lower part.
At this point, however, a very difficult problem naturally arises. Admitting that our moral nature is superior
to our intellectual or physical nature, admitting, too, that
by the constitution of our being we perceive ourselves to
be under an obligation to develope our nature to its perfection, establishing the supreme ascendency of moral motives,
the question still remains whether the disparity between
the different parts of our being is such that no material
or intellectual advantage, however great, may be rightly
purchased by any sacrifice of our moral nature, however small. This is the great question of casuistry, the
question which divines express by asking whether the end
ever justifies the means; and on this subject there exists
among theologians a doctrine which is absolutely unrealised, which no one ever dreams of applying to actual
fe, but of which it may be truly said that though propounded with the best intentions, it would, if acted upon,
be utterly incompatible with the very rudiments of civilisation. It is said that an undoubted sin, even the most




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                 115
trivial, is a thing in its essence and in its consequences so
unspeakably dreadful, that no conceivable material or intellectual advantage can counterbalance it; that rather
than it should be committed, it would be better that any
amount of calamity which did not bring with it sin should
be endured, even that the whole human  race  should
perish in agonies.1  If this be the case, it is manifest that
the supreme object of humanity should be sinlessness, and
it is equally manifest that the means to this end is the
absolute suppression of the desires.  To expand the circle
of wants is necessarily to multiply temptations, and therefore to increase the  number of sins.  It may indeed
elevate the moral standard, for a torpid sinlessness is not
a high moral condition; but if every sin be what these
theologians assert, if it be a thing deserving eternal agony,
and so inconceivably frightful that the ruin of a world is
a less evil than its commission, even moral advantages are
utterly incommensurate with it.  No heightening of the
moral tone, no depth or ecstasy of devotion, can for a
moment be placed in the balance.  The consequences of
this doctrine, if applied to actual life, would be so extravagant, that their simple statement is a refutation. A sovereign, when calculating the consequences of a war, should
reflect that a single sin occasioned by that war, a single
blasphemy of a wounded soldier, the robbery of a single
hencoop, the violation of the purity of a single woman, is
a greater calamity than the ruin of the entire commerce
of his nation, the loss of her most precious provinces, the
1'The Church holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from
heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it
to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes,
than that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single
venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, though it harmed no one, or
steal one poor farthing without excuse.'-Newman's Alnqlican Difcultifes,
p. 190.




116         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MiORALS.
destruction of all her power.  He must believe that the
evil of the increase of unchastity, which invariably results
from the formation of an army, is an immeasurably greater
calamity than any material or political disasters that army
can possibly avert. He must believe that the most fearful plague or famine that desolates his land should be
regarded as a matter of rejoicing, if it had but the
feeblest and most transient influence in repressing vice.
He must believe that if the agglomeration of his people
in great. cities adds but one to the number of their sins,
no possible intellectual or material advantages can prevent the construction of cities being a fearful calamity.
According to this principle, every elaboration of life,
every amusement that brings multitudes together, almost
every art, every accession of wealth that awakens or
stimulates desires, is an evil, for all these become the
sources of some sins, and their advantages are for the
most part purely terrestrial. The entire structure of
civilisation is founded upon the belief that it is a good
thing to cultivate intellectual and material capacities, even
at the cost of certain moral evils which we are often
able accurately to foresee.' The time will doubtless come
when the man who lays the foundation-stone of a manu.facture will be able to predict with assurance in what
proportion the drunkenness and the unchastity of his city
w-vill be increased by his enterprise.  Yet lie will still
pursue that enterprise, and mankind will still pronounce
it to be good.
The theological doctrine on the subject, considered in
its full stringency, though professed by many, is, as I
1 There is a remarkable dissertation on this subject, called'The Limitations
of Morality,' in a very ingenious and suggestive little work of the Benthamite school, called Essays by a Barrister (reprinted from the Saturday
Review).




THIE NATURAL HISTORY OF MOtRALS.           117
have said, realisedl and consistently acted on by no one;
but the practical judgments of mankind concerning the
extent of the superiority of moral over all other interests
vary greatly, and this variation supplies one of the most
serious objections to intuitive moralists. The nearest
practical approach to the theological estimate of a sin may
be found in the ranks of the ascetics. Their whole system
rests upon the belief that it is a thing so transcenlldingly
dreadful as to bear no proportion or appreciable relation to
any earthly interests. Starting from this belief: the ascetic
makes it the exclusive object of his life to avoid sinning.
He accordingly abstains from  all the active business of
society, relinquishes all worldly aims and ambitions, dulls
by continued discipline his natural desires, and endeavours
to pass a life of complete absorption in religious exercises.
And in all this his conduct is reasonable and consistent.
The natural course of every man who adopts this estimate of the enormity of sin is at every cost to avoid all
external influences that can prove temptations, and to
attenuate as far as possible his own appetites and emotions.  It is in this respect that the exaggerations of
theologians paralyse our moral being.  For the diminution of sins, however important, is but one part of
inoral progress.  Whenever it is forced into a disproportion ed prominence, we find tame, languid, and mutilated
natures, destitute of all fire and energy, and this tendency
has been still further aggravated by the extreme prominence usually given to the virtue of gentleness, which
may indeed be attained by men of strong natures and
vehement emotions, but is evidently more congenial to a
somewhat feeble and passionless character.
Ascetic practices are manifestly and rapidly disapp earing,
and their decline is a striking proof of the evanescence of
the moral notions of which they were the expression, but




L18         HISTORY OF -EUROPEAN MfORALS.
in. many existing questions relating to the same matter,
we find perplexing diversity of judgment.  We find it
in the contrast between the system  of education usually
adopted by the Catholic priesthood, which has for its
pre-eminent object to prevent sins, and for its means a
constant and minute supervision, and the English system
of public schools, which is certainly not the most fitted to
guard against the possibility of sin, or to foster any very
delicate scrupulosity of feeling; but is intended, and popularly supposed to secure, the healthy expansion of every
variety of capacity.l   We find it in the widely different
attitudes which  good  men  in  diffirent periods have
adopted towards religious opinions, which they believe
to be false; some like the reformers refusing to participate in any superstitious service, or to withhold on any
occasion, or at any cost, their protest against what they
regarded as a lie, others, like most ancient, and some
modern philosophers and politicians, combining the most
absolute personal incredulity, with an assiduous observance
of superstitious rites, and strongly censuring those who
disturbed delusions which' are useful or consolatory  to
the people, while a third class silently, but without protest, wvithdraw  themselves from  the  observances, and
desire that their opinions should have a free expression
in literature; but at the same time discourage all proselytising efforts to force them  rudely on unprepared minds.
We find it in the frequent conflicts between the political
economist and the Catholic priest on the subject of early
marriages, the former opposing them  on the ground that
1 There is still in existence one example of a government making it a
main object to prevent sin —that of the priests at Rome —and no one, I
think, who compares Rome with the other great cities of Italy can question its superiority in, at least, some forms of virtue. But the very system
of'paternal government,' which diminishes the number of glaring sins,
crushes the whole political and intellectual development of the people.




TE NATURAL HISTORPY OF MIORALS.         119
it is an essential condition of material well-being that the
standard of comfort should not be depressed, the latter
advocating them on the ground that the postponement
of marriages, through prudential motives, by any large
body of men, is the fertile mother of sin. We find it
most conspicuously in the mlarked diversities of tolerance
manifested in different comm-unities towards amusements
which may in themselves be perfectly innocent, but which
prove the sources or the occasions of vice. The Scotch
puritans probably represent one extreme, the Parisian
society of the empire the other, while the position of
average Englishmen is perhaps equidistant between them.
Yet this difference, great as it is, is a difference not of
principle, but of degree.  No puritan seriously desires
to suppress every clan gathering, every highland game
which may have occasioned an isolated fit of drunkenness, thouglh he may be unable to show that it has perventel any sin that would otherwise have been committed. No Frenclhman will question that there is a
certain amount of demoralisation which should not be
toleratedl, however great the enjoyment that accompanies
it.  Yet the one dwells almost exclusively upon the
moral, the other upon the attractive, nature of a spectacle.
Between these there are numerous gradations, which are
shown in frequent disputes about the merits and demerits
of the racecourse, the ball, the theatre, and the concert.
Where then, it may be asked, is the line to be drawn? By
what rule can the point be determined at which an amusement becomes vitiated by the evil of its consequences?
To these questions the intuitive moralist is obliged
to answer, that such a line cannot be drawn, that
such a rule does not exist. The colours of our moral
nature are rarely separated by the sharp lines of our
vocabulary. They fade and blend into one another so




120       I-IISTOIRY OF EURIOPEAN MOIRALS.
imperceptibly, that it is impossible to mark a precise point
of transition.  The end of man is the full development
of his being in that symmetry and proportion which
nature has assignled it, and such a development implies
that the supreme, the predominant motive of his life,
should be moral.  If in any society or individual this ascendency does not exist, that society or that individual
is in a diseasede  and  abnormal condition.  But the
superiority of the moral part of our nature, though unquestionable, is indefinite not infinite, and the prevailing
standard is not at all times the same.  The moralist can
only lay down general principles. Individual feeling or the
general sentiment of society must draw the application.
The vagueness that on such questions confessedly hangs
over the intuitive theory, has always been insisted upon
by members of the opposite school, who' in the greatest
happiness principle' claim to possess a definite formulary,
enabling them to draw boldly the frontier line between
the lawful and the illicit, and to remove moral disputes
from the domain of feeling' to that of demonstration. But
this claim, which forms the great attraction of the utilitarian school, is, if I mistake not, one of the grossest
of impostures.  WVe compare with accuracy and confidence the value of the most various -material commodities, for we mean by this term, exchangeable value, and
we have a common measure of exchange.  But we seek
in vain for such a measure enabling us to compare different kinds of utility or happiness.  Thus, to take -a
very familiar example, the question may be proposed,
whether excursion trains from  a country district to a
seaport town produce more good tlan evil, whether a
man governed by moral principles should encourage or
oppose them. They give innocent and healthy enjoyment
to many thousands, they enlarge in some degree the




THE NA1TURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.         121
range of their ideas, they can hardly be said to prevent
any sin that would otherwise have been committed, they
give rise to many cases of drunkenness, each of which,
accordinug to the theolooical doctrine we have reviewed,
should be deemed a more dreadful calamity than the
earthquake of Lisbon, or a visitation of the cholera,
but which have not usually any lasting terrestrial effects;
they also often produce a measure, and often no small
measure, of more serious -vice, and it is probable that
hundreds of women may trace their first fall to the
excursion train.  We have here a nlumber of advantages
and disadvantages, the first being' intellectual and physical,
and the second moral.  Nearly all moralists would acknowledge that a few instances of immorality would not
prevent the excursion train being, on the whole, a good
thing. All would acknowledge that very numerous instances would more thllan counterbalance its advantages.
The intuitive moralist confesses that he is unable to draw
a precise line, showing where the moral evils outweigh
the physical- benefits.  In what possible respect the introduction of Benthamite formularies improves the matter,
I am1 unable to understand. No utilitarian would reduce
the question to one of simple majority, or would have
the cynicism to balance the ruin of one woman by the
day's enjoyment of another.  The impossibility of drawing, in such cases, a distinct line of division, is no argument against the intuitive moralist, for that impossibility
is shared to the full extent by his rival.
There are, as we have seen, two kinds of interest with
which utilitarian moralists are concerned, the private
interest which they believe to be the motivrc,- a"ndtle
public interest which they believe to be the end, of all
virtue.  With reference to the first, the intuitive mloralist
denies that a selfish act can be a virtuous or meritorious




122        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
one.  If a man when about to commit a theft, became
suddenly conscious of the presence of a policeman, and
through fear of arrest and punishment were to abstain from
the act le would otherwise have committed, this abstinence would not appear in the eyes of mankind to possess
any moral value, and if he were determined partly by
conscientious motives, and partly by fear, the presence of
the latter element would, inll proportion to its strength,
detract from his merit.  But although selfish considerations are distinctly opposed to virtuous ones, it would be
a mistake to imagine they can never ultimately have a
purely moral influence.  In the first place, a well-ordered
system of threats and punishments marks out the path of
virtue with a distinctness of definition it could scarcely
have otherwise attained.  In the next place, it often
happens that when the mind is swayed by a conflict of
motives, the expectation of reward or punishment will so
reinforce or support the virtuous motives, as to secure
their victory, and as every triumph of these motives increases their strength and weakens the opposing principles, a step will thus have been made towards moral
perfection, which will render more probable the future
triumph of unassisted virtue.'With reference to the interests of society, there are
two distinct assertions to be made.  The first is, that
althou"lgh the pursuit of public interest is undoubtedly one
form of virtue, it does not include all virtue, or in other
words, that there are forms of virtue which, even if
beneficial to mankind, do not become virtuous on that
account, but have an intrinsic excellence which is not
proportioned to or dependent on their utility. The second
is, that there may occasionally arise considerations of
extreme and overwhelming utility, that- may justify a
sacrifice of these virtues. This sacrifice may be made in




THE NATURAL HISTORY  OF MORPALS.                    123
various ways, as when a man undertakes an enterprise
which is in itself perfectly innocent, but which in addition  to its great material advantages  will, as he well
knows, produce  a certain  measure of crime, or when
abstaining from  a protest he tacitly countenances beliefs
which he considers untrue, because he regards them  as
transcendently useful; or again, when, for the benefit of
others, and under circumstances of great urgency, he utters
a direct falsehood, as, for example, when by such means
alone he could save the life of an innocent man.1  B3ut
the fact, that in  these cases, considerations of extreme
utility are suffered to  override considerations of morality, is in no degree inconsistent with the facts, that the
latter differ in kind from  the former, that they are of a
higher nature, and  that they  may supply adequate and
legitimate motives of action  not only distinct from, but
even in opposition to utility. Gold and silver are different
metals.  Gold is more valuable than silver; yet a very
small quantity of gold may be advantageously exchanged
for a very large quantity of silver.
The last class of objections to  the  theory of natural
moral perceptions which it is necessary for me to notice,
arises from  a very mischievous equivocation in the word
natural.2   The term  natural man is sometimes regardecld
1 The following passage, though rather vague and rhetorical, is not unimpressive:'Oui, dit Jacobi, je mentirais comme Desdemona mourante, je
tromperais comme Oreste quand il veut mourir t la place de Pylade, j'assassinerais comme Timolon, je setais parjure comme Epaminondas et Jean de
Witt, je me d6terminerais au suicide comme Caton. je serais saeril6ge
comme David; car j'ai la certitude en moi-meme qu'en pardonnant a ces
fautes suivant la lettre 1'homme exerce le droit souverain que la majest6
de son etre lui conf6re; il appose le sceau de sa divine nature sur la grace
qu'il accorde.'-BarchlouI de Penhoen, Hist. de la Philos. cllemanclde, tome i.
p. 295.
2 This equivocation seems to me to lie at the root of the famous dispute whether man is by nature a social being, or whether as Hobbes
averred, tihe state of nature is a state of war. Few persons who have




124         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN  10tRALS.
as synonymous with man in his primitive or barbarous
condition, and sometimes as expressing all in a civilised
man that is due to nature as distinguished from artificial
habits or acquirements.  This equivocation is especially
dangerous, because it implies one of the most extravagant
excesses to whichl the sensational philosophy could be
pushed; the notion that the difference between a savage
and a civilised man is simply a difference of acquisition,
and not at all a difference of development.  In accordance with this notion, those who deny original moral
distinctions have ransacked the accounts of travellers for
examples of savages who appeared destitute of moral
sentiments, and have adduced them as conclusive evidence
of their position.  N"ow it is I think abundantly evident
that these narratives are usually exceedingly untrustworthy.  They have been in most cases collected by uncritical and unphilosophical travellers, who knew little
of the language and still less of the inner life of the
people they described, whose means of information were
acquired in simply traversing  the country, who were
more struck by moral paradox than by unostentatious
virtue, who were proverbially addicted to embellishing
and exaggerating the singularities they witnessed, and
who very rarely investigated  their origin.  It should
not be forgotten that the French moralists of the last
century, who insisted most strongly on this species of
evidence, were also the dupes of one of the most curious
delusions in the whole compass of literary history. Those
unflinching sceptics who claimed to be the true disciples of
the apostle who believed nothing that he had not touched,
observed the recent light thrown on the primitive condition of man, will question that it was that of savage life, and fewer still will question that this is
a state of war. On the other hand, it is, I think, equally certain that man
necessarily becomes a social being in exact proportion to the development
of the cap,-cities of his nature.




TIIE NATURAL HISTORY  OF MORALS.                    125
and whose relentless criticism  played with withering effect on all the holiest feelings of our nature, and on all
the tenets of traditional creeds, had discovered one happy
land where the ideal had ceased to be a dream.  They
could  point to  one  people  whose  pure  and  rational
morality, purged  from   all the  clouds  of bigotry  and
enthusiasm, shone  with  an  almost dazzling  splendour
above the ignorance and superstition of Europe.  Voltaire
forgot to gibe, and Helvetius kindled  into  enthusiasm,
wlhen  China and  the  Chinese rose before their minds,
and to this semi-barbarous nation they habitually attributed maxims of conduct that neither Roman nor Christian virtue had ever realised.
But putting aside these considerations, and assuming
the fidelity of the pictures of savage life upon which these
writers rely, they fail to prove the point for which  they
are- adduced.  The moralists I am  defending, assert that
we possess a natural power of distinguishing between the
higher and lower parts of our nature.  But the eye of
the mind like the eye of the body may be closed.  Mforal
and rational faculties may be alike dormant, and they will
certainly be so if men are wholly immersed in the gratification of their senses.  MAan is like a plant,  which requires
a     favourable soil for the full expansion  of its natural
or innate powers.1   Yet those powers both rational and
1 The distinction between innate faculties evolved by experience and
innate ideas independent of experience, and the analogy between the expansion of the former and that of the bud into the flower has been very
happily treated by Reid.  (On the Active Pow2ers, essay iii. ch. viii. p. 4.)
Professor Sedg'wick, criticising Locke's notion of the soul being oligitally
like a sheet of white paper, very beautifully says:' Naked mlan comes from
his mother's womb, endowed with limbs and senses indeed well fitted to
the material world, yet powerless from want of use; and as for knowledge,
his soul is one unvaried blank; yet has this blalnk been already touched by
a celestial hand, and when plunged in the colours which surround it, it
takes not its tinge from accident but design, and comes forth covered ewith a
glorious pattern.' (On the &etdies of the University, p. 54.)  Leibnitz says,




126           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
moral are there, and  when quickened  into  action, each
will discharge  its appointed  functions.   If it could  be
proved that there are savages who are absolutely destitute
of  hle  progressive  energy  which  distinguishes  reason
from  instinct and of the moral aspiration  which constitutes virtue, thlis would not prove that rational or moral
faculties  fornm- no  part of their nature.  If you  could
show  that there  is a stage of barbarism  in which  man
knows, feels and does nothing  that might not be known,
felt and  done by an  ape, you would  not have  reduced
him  to the level of the brute.  There would still be this
broad  distinction  between  them.  The  one possesses a
capacity  for  development, which  the  other  does  not
possess.  Under favourable circumstances the savage will
become a reasoning, progressive, and moral man.  Under
no circumstances can a similar transformation be effected
in the  ape.  It may be as difficult to detect the oakleaf
in the acorn as in the stone.  Yet the acorn may be converted into an oak.   The stone will always continue to be
a stone.l
L'esprit n'est point une table rase. I1 est tout plein de caracteres quoe la
sensation ne peut que decouvrir et mettre en lumiire au lieu de les y imprimer. Je me suis servi de la comlllpaaison d'une pierre de marbre qui a
des veines plut6t que d'une pierre de marbre tout unie.... S'il y avait
dans la pierre des veines qui marquassent ]a figure d'HIercule pr6f6rablement
a d'autres figures,.... -ercule y serait comme inne en quelque fa9on,
quoiqu'il fallfit diu travail pour dccouvrir ces veines.' — Critiqe cle l'Essai sur
IEzte~nclzeent.
T1 he argument against the intuitive moralists derived from sava,e life
was employed at some length by Locke. Paley then adopted it, taking
a history of base ingratitude related by Valerius Maximus, and asling
whether a savage would view it with disapprobation (Moral dPhil. book i.
ch. 5.)  Dugcald Stewart (Active cand Moral Powers, vol. i. pp. 230-231)
and other writers have very fully answered this, but the same objection
has been revived in another form by TMr. Austin, -who supposes (Lectures on
Jitrisplcrdenlce, vol. i. pp. 82-83) a savage who first meets a hunter carrying
a dead deer, lhills the hunter and steals the deer, and is afterwards himself
assailed by another hunter whom  he kills.  Mr. Austin asks whether
the savage would perceive a moral difference between these two acts of




THE NATURAL HISTORPY OF MORALS.               127
The foregoing pages will, I trust, have exhibited with
sufficient clearness the nature of the two great divisions
of moral philosoplhy-the school which proceeds from the
primitive truth that all men desire happiness, and endeavours out of this principle to evolve all ethical doctrines, and the school which traces our moral systems
to an intuitive perception that certain parts of our nature
are higher or better than others.  The subdivisions of
each system  are, as we have seen, very numerous, the
degrees of their approximation or divergence of their
subtlety and' refinement are extremely various; but yet
from the earliest days of philosophy some traces of this
duality may be detected.  The prominence of each school
may be regarded as a mental phenomenon due in a great
measure to predispositions resulting from  certain conditions of society, and producing certain effects which it
is the province of the historian to trace.
It is obvious that this difference concerning the origin
of our moral conceptions forms part of the very much
wider metaphysical question, whether our ideas are derived exclusively from sensation or whether they spring
in part from  the mind itself.  The latter theory in antiquity was chiefly represented by the Platonic doctrine
of pre-existence, which rested on the conviction that the
mind has the power of drawing from  its own depths
certain conceptions or ideas which cannot be explained
by any post-natal experience, and must therefore, it was
said, have been acquired in a previous existence. In the
seventeenth century it took the form of a doctrine of
innate ideas.  But though this theory in the form  in
homicide? Certainly not. In this early stage of development, the savage
recognises a duty of justice and humanity to the members of his tribe,
but to no one beyond this circle. He is in a; state of war' with the foreign
hunter. He has a right to kill the hunter and the hunter an equal right to
kill him.
10




.128         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
which it was professed by Lord Herbert of Cherbury and
assailed by Locke has almost disappeared, the doctrine
that we possess certain  faculties  which  by  their own
expansion, and  not by  the reception  of notions from
without, are not only capable  of, but must necessarily
attain, certain ideas, as the bud must necessarily expand
into its own specific flower, still occupies a distinguished
place inl the world of speculation.  From  some passages
in his Essay, it appears that Locke himself had a confused
perception  of this distinction,l whlich was by no means
unknown to previous writers, and after the publication of
the philosophy of Locke it was clearly exhibited both by
Shaftesbury  and  Leibnitz, and  incidentally noticed  by
Berkeley  long  before  Kant established  his distinction
between  the  form  and  the matter of our knowledge,
between ideas which are received a priori and ideas which
are received a posteriori.  The existence or non-existence
of this source of ideas forms the basis of the opposition
between  the inductive philosophy of England  and the
French philosophy of the eighteenth century on the one
hand, and the German and Scotch philosophies, as well as
the French eclecticism of the nineteenth century upon the
other.  The tendency of the first school is to restrict as far
1 Everyone who is acquainted with metaphysics knows that there has
been an almost endless controversy about Locke's meaning on this point.
The fact seems to be that Locke, like most great originators of thought,
and indeed more than most, often failed to perceive the ultimate consequences of his principles, and partly through some confusion of thought,
and partly through unhappiness of expression, has left passages involving
the conclusions of both schools. As a matter of history the sensual school
of Condillac grew professedly out of his philosophy. In defence of the
legitimacy of the process by which these writers evolved their conclusions from the premises of Lockle, the reader may consult the very able
lectures of M. Cousin on Locke. The other side has been treated, among
others, by Dugald Stewart in his -Dissertation, by Professor Webb in his
Jntellectualism of Locke, and by Mr. Rogers in an essay reprinted from the
Edinbur qh. Review.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.            129
as possible the active powers of the human mind, and to
aggrandise as far as possible the empire of external circumstances.  The other school dwells especially on the
instinctive side of our nature, and maintains the existence
of certain intuitions of the reason, certain categories or
original conceptions, which are presupposed in all our
reasonings and cannot be resolved into sensations. The
boast of the first school is that its searching analysis leaves
no mental phenomenon unresolved, and its attraction is
the extreme simplicity it can attain.  The second school
multiplies faculties or original principles, concentrates its
attention mainly upon the nature of our understanding,
and asserts very strongly the initiative force both of our
will and of our intellect.
We find this connection between a philosophy based
upon the senses, and a morality founded upon utility from
the' earliest times. Aristotle was distinguished among
the ancients for the emphasis with which he dwelt upon
the utility of virtue, and it was from the writings of Aristotle that the schoolmen derived the famous formulary
which has become the motto of the school of Locke.
Locke himself devoted especial research to the refutation
of the doctrine of a natural moral sense, which lhe endeavoured to overthrow by a catalogue of immoral practices that exist among savages, and the hesitation he
occasionally exhibited in his moral doctrine corresponds
not unfaithfully to the obscurity thrown over his metaphysics by the admission of reflection as a source of
ideas. If his opponent Leibnitz made pleasure the object
of moral action, it was only that refined pleasure which
is produced by the contemplation of the happiness of
others. When, however, Condillac and his followers, removing reflection from the position Locke had assigned
it, reduced the philosophy of sensation to its simplest




130       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
expression, and when the Scotch and German writers
elaborated the principles of the opposite school, the moral
tendencies of both were indisputably manifested. Everywhere the philosophy of sensation was accompanied by
the morals of interest, and the ideal philosophy, by an
assertion of the existence of a moral faculty, and every
influence that has affected the prevailing theory concerning the origin of our ideas, has exercised a corresponding
influence upon the theories of ethics.
The great movement of modern thought, of which
Bacon was at once the highest representative and one of
the chief agents, has been truly said to exhibit a striking
resemblance, and at the same time a striking contrast, to
tlhe movement of ancient thought, which wavs effected
chiefly by the genius of Socrates. In the name of utility,
Socrates diverted the intellect of antiquity from the fantastic cosmogonies with which it had long been occupied,
to the study of the moral nature of man. In the name of
the same utility Bacon laboured to divert the modern
intellect from the idle metaphysical speculations of the
schoolmen to natural science, to which newly discoverecd
instruments of research, his own soundcer method, and a
cluster of splendid intellects, soon gave an unprecedented
impulse.  To the indirect influence of this movement,
perhaps, even more than to the direct teaching of Gassendi and Locke, may be ascribed the great ascendency of
sensational philosophy among modern nations, and it is
also connected with some of the most important differences between ancient and modern history. Among the
ancients the humal mind was chiefly directecl to philosophical speculations, in which the law  seems to be
perpetual oscillation, wwhile among the moderns it has
rather tended towards physical science, in which the
law is perpetual progress. National power, and in most




THE NATURAL IISTORY OF MORALS.          131
cases even national independence, implied among the
ancients the constant energy of high intellectual or moral
qualities. When the heroism or the genius of the people
had relaxed, when an enervating philosophy or the lassitude that often accompanies civilisation arrived, the whole
edifice speedily tottered, the sceptre was transferred to
another state, and the same history was elsewhere repro.
duced. A great nation bequeathed indeed to its successors works of transcendent beauty in art and literature, philosophies that could avail only when the mind
had risen to their level, examples that might stimulate
the heroism of an aspiring people, warnings that might
sometimes arrest it on the path of ruin.  But all these
acted only through the mind. In modern times, on the
other hand, if we put aside religious influences, the principal causes of the superiority of civilised men are to
be found in inventions which when once discovered can
never pass away, and the effects of which are in consequence in a great measure removed from the fluctuations
of moral life. The causes which most disturbed or accelerated the normal progress of society in antiquity were
the appearance of great men, in modern times they have
been the appearance of great inventions. Printing has
secured the intellectual achievements of the past, and furnished a sure guarantee of future progress.  Gunpowder
and military machinery hlave rendered the triumph of
barbarians impossible. Steam has united nations in the
closest bonds. Innumerable mechanical contrivances have
given a decisive preponderance to that industrial element
which has coloured all the developments of our civilisation. The leading characteristics of modern societies are
in consequence marked out much more by the triumphs
of inventive skill than by the sustained energy of moral
causes.




132        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
Now it will appear evident, I think, to those who
reflect carefully upon their own minds, and upon the
course of history, that these three things, the study of
physical science, inventive skill, and industrial enterprise,
are connected in such a manner, that when in any nation
there is a long-sustained tendency towards one, the others
will speedily follow.  This connection is partly that of
cause and effect, for success in either of these branches
facilitates success in the others, a knowledge of natural
laws being the basis of many of the most important inventions, and being itself acquired by the aid of instruments of research, while industry is manifestly indebted
to both. But besides this connection, there is a connection
of congruity. The same cast or habit of thought developes
itself in these three forms. They all represent the natural
tendencies of what is commonly called the practical as
opposed to the theoretical mind, of the inductive or experimental as opposed to the deductive or ideal, of the
cautious and the plodding as opposed to the imaginative
and the ambitious, of the mind that tends naturally to
matter as opposed to that which dwells naturally on
ideas. Among the ancients, the aversion to physical
science, which the belief in the capricious divine government of all natural phenomena, and the aversion to
industrial enterprise which slavery produced, conspired
to favour the philosophical tendency, while among the
moderns physical science and industrialism  continually
react upon one another.
There can be -no question that the intellectual tendencies of modern times are far superior to those of antiquity, both in respect to the material prosperity they
effect, and to the uninterrupted progress they secure.
Upon the other hand, it is, I think, equally unquestionable that this superiority is purchased by the sacrifice




T'HE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.              133
of sotmething of dignity and elevation of character.  It
is when the cultivation of mental and moral qualities
is deemed the primary object, when the mind and its
interests are most removed from the things of sense, that
great characters are most firequent, and the standard of
heroism is most high.  In this, as in other cases, the law
of congruity is supreme.  The mind that is concentrated
most on the properties of matter, is predisposed to derive
all ideas from the senses, while that which dwells naturally
upon its ownl operations inclines to an ideal philosophy,
and the prevailing system  of morals depends upon the
distinction.
In the next place, we may observe that the practical
consequences, as far as ethics are concerned,' of the
opposition between the two great schools of morals, are
not so great as might be inferred froLm  the intellectual
chasm  that separates them.  Moralists grow  up under
the influence of the moral atmosphere of society, and
experience all the common feelings of other men. Whatever theory of the genesis of morals they may form, they
commonly recognise as right the broad moral principles of
the world, and they endeavour-though I have attempted
to show not always successfully-to prove that these principles may be accounted for and justified by their system.
The great practical difference between the schools lies
not in the difference of the virtues they inculcate, bLt in
the different degrees of prominence they assign to each,
in the different casts of mind they represent and promote.
As Adam  Smith  observed, a system  like that of the
Stoics, vwhich makes self-control the ideal of excellence, is
1 I male this qualification, because I believe that the denial of a moral
nature in man capable of perceiving the distinction between duty and
interest, and the rightful supremacy of the former, is both philosophically
and actually subversive of natural theology.




134          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3IORALS.
especially favourable to the heroic qualities, a system like
that of ItHutcheson, which resolves virtue into benevolence,
to the amiable  qualities, and utilitarian  systems to the
industrial virtues.  A  society in which any one of these
three forms of moral excellence is especially prominent,
has a natural tendency towards the corresponding theory
of ethics; but, on the other hand, this theory, when formed,
reacts upon  and  strengthens the  moral tendency that
elicited it. The Epicureans and the Stoics can each claim
a great historical fact in their favour.  When every other
Greek school modified or abandoned the teaching of its
founder, the disciples of Epicurus at Athens preserved
their hereditary faith unsullied and unchangeld.- On the
other hand, in  the Roman empire, almost every great
character, almost every effort in  the cause of liberty,
emanated from  the ranks of stoicism, while Epicureanismi was continually identified with corruption and with
tyranny.  The intuitive school, not having a clear and
simple  external standard, has often  proved  somewhat
liable to  assimilate with superstition and mysticism, to
become fantastic, unreasoning, and unpractical, while the
prominence accorded to interest, and the constant intervention  of calculation  in  utilitarian  systems, have  a
tendency to depress the ideal, and give a sordid and unSee the forcible passage in the life of Epicurus by Diogenes Lairtlus.
So MIackintosh:' It is remarkable that, while, of the three professors who
sat in the Porch from Zeno to Posidonius, every one either softened or
exaggerated the doctrines of his predecessor, and while the beautiful and
reverend philosophy of Plato had in his own Academy degenerated into a
scepticism which did not spare morality itself, the system of Epicurus
remained without change; his disciples continued for ages to show personal honour to his memory in a manner which may seem unaccountable
among those who were taught to measure propriety by a calculation of
palpable and outward usefulness.'-Dissertatioln on.Ethical Plzlosopliy, p. 85,
ed. 1836. See, too, Tennemann (Manuel de la PPhilosoMhie, ed. Cousin,
tome i. p. 211).




NATURAL HIISTORY OF 3MORALS.               135
heroic ply to the character.  The first, dwelling on the
moral initiative, elevates the tone and standard  of life.
The second, revealing the influence of surrounding circumstances upon character, leads to the most important
practical reforms.1   Each school has thus proved in some
sense at once the corrective and the complement of the
other.  Each, when pushed to its extreme results, produces
evils which necessitate the reappearance of its rival.
Having now considered at some length the nature and
tendencies of the theories according to which men test
and  classify their moral feelings, we may pass to  an
examination  of the  process according  to  which  these
feelings are developed, or, in other words, of the causes
that lead societies to elevate their moral standard and
determine their preference of some particular kinds of
virtues. The observations I have to offer on this subject
will be of a somewhat miscellaneous character, but they
will all, I trust, tend to show tile nature of the changes
which constitute moral history, and they will furnish us
with some general principles which  may be applied in
detail in the succeeding chapters.
It is sufficiently evident, that in proportion to the high
organisation of society, the amiable and the social virtues
will be cultivated at the expense of the heroic and the
1 Thus e.g. the magnificent chapters of tHelvetius on the moral elfects of
despotism, form one of the best modern contributions to political ethics.
We have a curious illustration of the emphasis with which this school
dwells on the moral importance of institutions in a memoir of MI. De Tracy,
On the best Plan of National Ecldcation, which appeared first towards the
close of the French Revolution, and was reprinted during the Restoration.
The author, who was one of the most distinguished of the disciples of
Condillac, argued that the most efficient of all ways of educating a people
is, the establishment of a good system of police, for the constant association
of the ideas of crime and punishment in the minds of the masses is the
one effectual method of creating moral habits, which will continue to act
when the fear of punishment is removed.




13G        IHISTO1RY OF EUROPEAN hIORALS.
ascetic.  A courageous endurance of suffering is probably
the first form  of human  virtue, the  one  conspicuous
instance in savage life of a course of conduct opposed
to natural impulses, and pursued through a belief that it
is higher or nobler than the opposite.  In a disturbed,
disorganised and warlike society, acts of great courage
and  great endurance are very frequent, and determine
to  a very  large extent the course of events; but in
proportion to the organisation of communities the occasions for their display, and  their influence when displayed, are alike restricted.  ]3esides this the tastes and
habits of civilisation, the innumerable inventions designed
to promote comfort and diminish pain, set the current
of society in a direction altogether different from heroism
and somewhat emasculate, though they refine and soften,
the character.  Asceticism  again —including  under this
term, not merely the monastic system, but also all efforts
to withdraw from the world in order to cultivate a high
degree of sanctity-belongs naturally to a society which
is somewhat rude, and in which isolation is frequent and
easy.  WNhen men become united in very close bonds of
co-operation, when industrial enterprise  becomes very
ardent, and the prevailing impulse is strongly towards
material wealth  and  luxurious  enjoyments, virtue  is
regarded chiefly or solely in the light of the interests of
society, and this tendency is still further strengthened by
the educational influence of legislation, which imprints
moral distinctions very deeply on the mind, but at the
same time accustoms men to measure them solely by an
external and utilitarian standard.l  Tlhe first table of the
1 A most momentous intellectual revolution is at present taking place in
England. The ascendency in literary anld philosophical questions which
belonged to the writers of books is manifestly passing in a very great degree to
weekly and even daily papers. which have long been supreme in politics,




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.                        137
law gives way to the second. Good is not loved for
itself, but as the means to an end.  All that virtue which
[s required to form  upright and benevolent men is in the
highest degree useful to society, but the qualities which
constitute a saintly or spiritual character as distinguished
from   one  that is simply moral and  amiable, have  not
the same  direct, uniform  and manifest tendency to  the
promotion  of happiness, and  they  are  accordingly undervaluLed.1  In savage life the animal nature being supreme, these higher qualities  are  unknown.  In  a very
elaborate material civilisation the prevailing  atmosphere
is  not favourable  either  to  their  production  or their
appreciation.  Thleir place has usually been in an intermediate stage.
On the other hand, there are certain virtues that are
the   natural  product  of  a   cultivated  society.    Independently  of  all local and  special circumstances the
transition  of men from  a barbarous or semi-civilised to
a highly  organised  state necessarily  brings with  it the
and have begun within the last ten years systematically to treat ethical and
philosophical questions. F1rom their immense circulation, their incontestable
ability and the power they possess of continually reiterating their distinctive
doctrines, from the impatience, too, of long and elaborate writings, which
newspapers generate in the public, it has come to pass that these periodicals
exercise probably a greater influence than any other productions of the day,
in forming the ways of thinking of ordinary educated Englishmen. The
many consequences, good and evil, of this change it will be the duty of future
literary historians to trace, but there is one which is, I think, much felt in
the sphere of ethics. An important effect of these journals has been to
evoke a very large amount of literary talent in the lawyer class. Mlen
whose professional duties would render it impossible for them to write long
boolis, are quite capable of treating philosophical subjects in the form of
short essays, and have in fact become the chief writers in these periodicals.
There has never, I think, before, been a time when lawyers occupied such
an important literary position as at present, or whenlegal ways of thinking had
so great an influence over English philosophy; and this fact has been eminently favourable to the progress of utilitarianism.
1 There are some good remarks on this point in the very striking chapter
on the present condition of Christianity in Wilberforce's Practical View.




138         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
destruction or abridgment of the legitimate sphere of
revenge, by the transfer of the office of punishinent from
the wronged person to a passionless tribunal appointed
by society;1 a growing substitution of pacific for warlike
occupations, the introduction of refined and intellectual
tastes which gradually  displace amusements that derive
their zest from their barbarity, the rapid multiplication of
ties of connection between all classes and nations, and
above all, the strengthening of the imagination by intellectual culture.  This last faculty, considered as the power
of realisation, forms the chief tie between our moral and
intellectual natures.  In order to pity suffering we must
realise it, and the intensity of our compassion is usually and
chiefly proportioned to the vividness of our realisation.
The most frightful catastrophe in South America, an earth —
quake, a shipwreck, or a battle, will elicit less compassion
than the death of a single individual who has been brought
prominently  before our eyes.  To this cause must be
ascribed the extraordinary measure of compassion usually
bestowed upon a conspicuous condemned criminal, the
affection and enthusiasm  that centre upon sovereigns, and
many of the glaring inconsistencies of our historical judgments.  The recollection of some isolated act of magnanimity displayed by Alexander or Cmsar moves us more
than the thought of the 30,000 Thebans whom the Macedonian sold as slaves, of the 2,000 prisoners he crucified
at Tyre, of tle 1,100,000 men on whose corpses the Roman
rose to fame. Wrapt in the pale winding-sheet of general
1 See Reid's.Essays on the Active Powlers, iii. 4.
2 I say usually proportioned, because it is, I believe, possible for men to
realise intensely suffering, and to derive pleasure from that veiy fact. This
is especially the case with vindictive cruelty, but it is not, I think, altogether
confined to that sphere. This question we shall have occasion to examine
when discussing the gladiatorial shows. Most cruelty, however, springs
from callousness, which is simply dulness of imagination.




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MIORALS.           139
terms the greatest tragedies of history evoke no vivid
images in our minds, and it is only by a great effort of
genius that an historian can galvanise them into life. The
irritation displayed by the captive of St. Helena in his
bickerings with his gaoler affects most men more than the
thought of the nameless thousands whom his insatiable
egotism had hurried to the grave.  Such is the frailty of
our nature that we are more moved by the tears of some
captive princess, by some trifling biographical incident
that has floated-down the stream  of history, than by the
sorrows of all the countless multitudes who perished beneath the sword of a Tamerlane, a ]3ajazet, or a Zenghis
Khan.
If our benevolent feelings are thus the slaves of our
imaginations, if an act of realisation is a necessary antecedent and condition of compassion, it is obvious that any
influence that augments the range and power of this
realising faculty is favourable to the amiable virtues,
and it is equally evident that education has in the highest
degree this effect. To an uneducated man all classes,
nations, modes of thought  and existence foreign to his
own; are unrealised, while every increase of knowledge
brings with it an increase of insight, and therefore of
sympathy.  But the addition to his knowledge is the
smallest part of this change.  The realising faculty is itself
intensified.  Every book he reads, every intellectual
exercise in which he engages, accustoms him  to rise
above the objects' immediately present to his senses, to
extend his realisations into new spheres, and reproduce in
his imagination the thoughts, feelings, and characters of
others, with a vividness inconceivable to the savage.
Hence, in a great degree, the tact with which a refined
mind learns to discriminate and adapt itself to the most
delicate shades of feeling, and hence too the sensitive




140        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MiORALS.
humanity with which, in proportion to their civilisation,
men realise and recoil from cruelty.
We have here, however, an important distinction to
draw.  Under the name of cruelty are comprised two
kinds of vice, altogether different in their causes and in
most of their consequences.  There is a cruelty which
springs from  callousness and brutality, and there is the
cruelty of vindictiveness.  The first belongs chliefly to
hard, dull, and somewhat lethargic characters, it appears
most frequently in strong and conquering  nations and
in temperate climates, and it is dclue in a very great degree
to defective realisation.  The second is rather a feminine attribute, it is usually displayed in oppressed and
suffering communities, in passionate natures, and in hot
climates.  Great vindictiveness is often united with great
tenderness, and great callousness with great magnanimity, but a vindictive nature is rarely magnanimous, and
a brutal nature is still more rarely tender.  The ancient
Romans exhibited a remarkable combination of great callousness and great magnanimity, while by a curious
contrast the modern Italian character verges manifestly
towards the opposite combination. Both forms of cruelty
are, if I mistake not, diminished with advancing civilisation, but by cifferent causes and in different degrees.
Callous cruelty disappears before the sensitiveness of a
cultivated imagination.  Vindictive cruelty is diminished
by tlhe substitution of a penal system for private revenge.
The same intellectual culture that facilitates the realisation of suffering, and therefore produces compassion,
facilitates also the realisation of character and opinions,
and therefore produces charity.  The great majority of
uncharitable judgments in the world may be traced to a
deficiency of imagination.  The chief cause of sectariani
animosity, is the incapacity of most men to conceive hos



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.          141
tile systems in the light in which they appear to their
adherents, and to enter into the enthusiasm they inspire.
The acquisition of this power of intellectual sympathy
is a common accompaniment of a large and cultivated
mind, and wherever it exists, it assuages the rancour of
controversy.  The severity of our judgment of criminals
is also usually excessive, because the imagination finds
it more easy to realise an action than a state of mind.
Any one can conceive a fit of drunkenness or a deed of
violence, but few persons who are by nature very sober
or very calm can conceive the natural disposition that
predisposes to it. A good man brought up among all the
associations of virtue reads of some horrible crime, his
imagination exhausts itself in depicting its circumstances,
and' he then estimates the guilt of the criminal, by asking
himself,' How guilty should I be, were I to perpetrate
such an act?' To realise with any adequacy the force of
a passion we have never experienced, to conceive a type
of clharacter radically different from our own, above all, to
form any just appreciation of the lawlessness and obtuseness of moral temperament, inevitably generated by a
vicious education, requires a power of imagination which
is among the rarest of human endowments. Even in
judging our own conduct, this feebleness of imagination is
sometimes shown, and an old man recalling the foolish
actions, but having lost the power of realising the feelings,
of his youth, may be very unjust to his own past. That
which makes it so difficult for a man of strong vicious passions to unbosom himself to a naturally virtuous man, is
not so much the virtue as the ignorance of the latter.  It
is the conviction that he cannot possibly understand the
force of a passion he has never felt. That which alone
renders tolerable to the mind the thought of judgment
by an all-pure Being, is the union of the attribute of




142        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
omniscience with that of purity, for perfect knowledge implies a perfect power of realisation. The further our analysis
extends, and the more our realising faculties are cultivated,
the more sensible we become of the influence of circumstances both upon character and upon opinions, and of the
exaggerations of our first estimates of moral inequalities.
Strong antipathies are thus gradually softened down. Men
gain much in charity, but they lose something in zeal.
NVe may push, I think, this vein of thought one step
farther.  Our imagination, which governs our affections,
is in its earlier and feebler stages wholly unable to
grasp ideas, except in a personified and concrete form,
and the power of rising to abstractions is one of the best
measures of intellectual progress.  The beginning of
writing is the hieroglyphic or symbolical picture, the beginning of worship is fetishism or idolatry, the beginning
of eloquence is pictorial, sensuous, and metaphorical, the
beginning of philosophy is the myth.  The imagination
in its first stages concentrates itself on individuals; gradually by an effort of abstraction it rises to an institution
or well-defined organisation; it is only at a very advanced stage that it can grasp a moral or intellectual
principle.  Loyalty, patriotism, and attachment to a cosmopolitan cause are therefore three forms of moral enthusiasm respectively appropriate to three successive stages
of mental progress, and they have, I think, a certain
analogy to idolatrous Aworship, church feeling, and moral
culture, which are the central ideas of three stages of
religious history.
The reader will readily understand that generalisations
of this kind can pretend to nothing more than a general
and approximate truth.  Our knowledge of the laws of
moral progress is like that of the laws of climate.  We
lay down general rules about the temperature to be




THE NArTURkL HISTORY OF MIORALS.          143
expected as we approach or recede from. the equator, and
experience shows that they are substantially correct; but
yet an elevated plain, or a chain of mountains, or the
neighbourhood of the sea, will often in some degree
derange our calculations. So, too, in the history of moral
changes, innumerable special agencies, such as religious or
political institutions, geographical conditions, traditions,
antipathies, and affinities, exercise a certain retarding,
accelerating, or deflecting influence, and somewhat modify
the normal progress.  The proposition for which I am
contending is simply that there is such a thing as a
natural history of morals, a defined and regular order, in
which our moral feelings are unfoldedl; or, in other
words, thllat there are certain groups of virtues vwhich
spring splontaneously out of the circumstances and mental
conditions of an uncivilisedl people, and that there are
others which are the normal and appropriate products of
civilisation.  The virtues of uncivilised men are recognised as virtues by civilised men, but they are neither
exhibited in the same perfection, or given the same position in the scale of duties.  Of these moral changes none
are more obvious than the gradual decadence of heroism
both active and passive, the increase of compassion and
of charity, and the transition from  the enthusiasm  of
loyalty to those of patriotism and liberty.
Another form  of virtue which usually increases with
civilisation is veracity, a term which must be regarded as
including somlething more than the simple avoidance of
direct falsehood.  In the ordinary intercourse of life it is
readily understood that a man is offending against trutl,
not onlly when hlie utters a deliberate falsehood, but also
when in his statement of a case he suppresses or endeavours to conceal essential facts, or makes positive assertions
without having conscientiously verified their grounds.
11




144        IIISTORiY OF EUROPEAN MORIALS
The earliest formn in which the duty of veracity is enforced is probably tlhe observance of vows, which occupy
a position of much prominence in youthful religions.
With the subsequent progress of civilisation, we find the
successive inculcation of three forms of veracity, which
may be termed respectively industrial, political, and philosophical. ]By tle first I understand that accuracy of
statement or fidelity to engagements which is commonly
meant when we speak of a truthful man. Though in
some cases sustained by the strong sense of honour which
accompanies a military spirit, this form  of veracity is
usually the special virtue of an industrial nation, for although industrial enterprise affords great temptations to
deception, mutual confidence, and therefore strict truthfulness, are in these occupations so transcendently important thlat they acquire in the minds of men a value
they had never before possessed.  Veracity becomes
the first virtue in the moral type, and no character is
regarded with any kind of approbation in which it is
wanting.  It is made more than any other the test distinguishing a good froml  a bad man.  We accordingly
find that even where the impositions of trade are very
numerous, the supreme excellence of veracity is cordially
admitted in theory, and it is one of the first virtues that
every man aspiring to moral excellence endeavours to
cultivate.   This constitutes probably the chief moral
superiority of nations pervaded by a strong industrial
spirit over nations like the Italians, the Spaniards, or the
Irish, among whom  that spirit is wanting.  The usual
characteristic of the latter nations is a certain laxity or
instability of character, a proneness to exaggeration, a
want of truthfulness in little things, an infidelity to engagements from which an Englishman, educated in the habits
of industrial life, readily infers a complete absence of
moral principle.  But a larger philosophy and a deeper




THE NATURAL HI1STORIY OF MORALS.           145
experience dispel his error.  ie finds that where the
industrial spirit has not penetrated, truthfulness rarely
occupies in the popular mind the same relative position
in the catalogue of virtues.  It is not reckoned among
the fundamentals of'morality, and it is possible and even
common to find in these nations-what would be scarcely
possible in an industrial society —men who are habitually
dishonest and untruthful in small things, and whose lives
are nevertheless influenced by a deep religious feeling,
and adorned by the consistent practice of some of tlh
most difficult and most painful virtues. Trust in Providence, content and resignation in extreme poverty and
suffering, the most genuine amiability and the most sincere
readiness to assist their brethren, an adherence to their
religious opinions which no persecutions and no bribes can
shake, a capacity for heroic, transcendent, and prolonged
self-sacrifice, miay be found in some nations in men who
are habitual liars and habitual cheats.
The promotion of industrial veracity is probably the
single form  in which the growth of nmanufactures exercises a favourable influence upon morals.  It is possible,
however, for it to exist in great perfection without any
corresponding growth of political veracity, or in other
words, of that spirit of impartiality which in matters
of controversy desires that all opinions, arguments, and
facts should be fully and fairly stated.  This habit of
what is commonly termed'fair play' is especially the
characteristic of free communities, and it is pre-eminently
fostered by political life.  The practice of debate creates
a sense of the injustice of suppressing one side of a case,
which gradually extends through all forms of intellectual
Kife, and becoimes an essential element in the national
character.  ]3ut beyond all this there is a still higher
forlm  of intellectual virtue.   By enlarged intellectual




146        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
culture, especially by philosophic studies. men come at
last to pursue truth for its own sake, to esteem it a duty
to emancipate themselves from party spirit, prejudices,
and passion, and through love of truth to cultivate a
judicial spirit in controversy.  They aspire to the intellect not of a sectarian but of a philosopher, to the
intellect not of a partisan but of a statesman.
Of these three forms of a truthful spirit the two last
may be said to belong exclusively to a highly civilised
society.  The last especially can hardly be attained by
any but a cultivated mind, and is one of the latest flowers
of virtue that bloom  in the human heart.  The growth
however, both of political and philosophical veracity has
been unnaturally retarded by the opposition of theologians, who, while exercising a very beneficial influence in
many spheres of morals, have in this proved formidable
adversaries to progress, for they made it during many
centuries a main object to suppress all writings opposed
to their views, and when this power had escaped their
grasp. they proceeded to discourage in every way impartiality of mind and judgment, and to associate it with
the notion of sin.
To the observations I have already made concerning the
moral effects of industrial life, I shall at present add but
twao.  The first is that an industrial spirit creates two
wholly different types of character-a thrifty character and
a speculating character. Both types grow out of a strong
sense of the value and a strong desire for the attainment of material comforts, but they are profoundly
different both in their virtues and their vices.  The chief
characteristic of the one type is caution, that of the
other enterprise. Thriftiness is one of the best regulators
of life.  It prodluees order, sobriety, moderation, selfrestraint, patient industry, and all that cast of virtues




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.            147
which is designated by the term respectability; but
it has also a tendency to form  contracted and ungenerous natures, incapable of enthusiasm or lively sympathy.  The speculating character, on the other hand,
is restless, fiery, and uncertain, very liable to fall into
great ancd conspicuous vices, impatient of routine, but
by no means unfavourable to strong feelings, to great
generosity or resolution.  Which of these two forms
the industrial spirit assumes depends upon local circumstances. Thriftiness flourishes chiefly among men who are
placed outside the great stream  of commerce, and in
positions where wealth is only to be acquired by slow
and steady industry, while the speculating character is
most common in the great centres of enterprise and of
wealth.
In the next place, it may be remarked that industrial
habits bring forethought into a new  position in the
moral type.  In early stages of theological belief, men
regarding every incident that happens to them as the
result of a special divine decree, sometimes esteem it a
test of faith and a form  of duty to take no precautions
for the future, but to leave questions of food and clothing to Providential interposition.  On the other hand,
in an industrial civilisation, prudent forethought is regarded not simply as lawful, but as a duty, and a duty of
the very highest order.  A good man of the industrial
type deems it a duty not to marry till he has ensured the
maintenance of a possible family; if he possesses children,
he regulates his expenses not simply by the relation
of his income to his immediate wants, but with a constant view to the education of his sons, to the portioning of his daughters, to the future necessities and careers
of each member of his family.  Constant forethought
is the guiding principle of his whole life. No single




148        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORA.-LS.
circumstance is regarded as a better test of the civilisation
of a, people than the extent to which it is diffused among
them.  The old doctrine virtually disappears, and is interpreted to mean nothing more than that we should
accept with resignation what no efforts and no foreth!ought could avert.
This clange is but one of several influences which, as
civilisationl advances, diminish the spirit of reverence
among mankind.  Reverence is one of those feelings
whiclh, in. utilitarian systems, would occupy at best a
very ambiguous position; for it is extremely questionable
whether the great evils that have grown out of it in the
form of religious superstition and political servitude have
not made it a source of more unhappiness thlan happiness.
Yet, however doubtful may be its position if estimated
by its bearing on happiness and on progress, there are
few persons who are not conscious that no character cani
attain a supreme degree of excellence in which a reverential spirit is wantingc.  Of all the forms of moral goodness it is that to which the epithet beautifiul may be most
emplhatically applied.  Yet the habits of advancing civilisation are, if I mistake not, on the whole inimical to its
growth.  For reverence grows out of a sense of constant
dependence.  It is fostered by that condition of religious
thought in lwhich men believe that each incident that
befalls them is directly and specially ordained, and when
every event is therefore fraught with a moral import.  It
is fostered by that condition of scientific knowledge in
which every portentous natural phenomenon is supposed to
be the result of a direct divine interposition, and awakens
in consequence emotions of humility and of awe.  It is
fostered in that stage of political life when loyalty or
reverence for the sovereign is the dominating passion,
when an aristocracy, branching forth from  the throne,




THE NATURAL HISTOlRY  OF MORALS.           149
spreads habits of deference and subordination through
every village, when a revolutionary, a democratic, and
a sceptical spirit are alike unknown. Every great clhange,
either of belief or of circumstances, brings with it a
change of emotions.. The self-assertion of liberty, the
levelling of democracy, the dissectilng-knife of criticism,
the economical revolutions that reduce the relations of
classes to simple contracts, the agglomeration of population, and the facilities of locomotion that sever so
many ancient ties, are all incompatible with the type of
virtue which existed before the power of tradition was
broken, and when the chastity of faith was yet unstained. Benevolence, uprightness, enterprise, intellectual
honesty, a love of freedom, and a hatred of superstition
are multiplyiTng around us, but we look in vain for that
most beautiful character of the past, so distrustful of self,
and so trustful of others, so rich in self-denial and modesty,
so simple, so earnest, and so devout, which even when,
Ixion-Iike, it bestowed its affections upon a, cloud, made
its very illusions the source of some of the purest virtues
of our nature.  In a few minds, the contemplation of the
sublime order of nature produces a reverential feeling,
but to the great majority of mankiDnd it is an incontestable thllough mournful fact, that the discovery of controlling
and unchanging law deprives phenomena of their moral
significance, and nearly all the social and political spheres
in which  reverence was fostered have passed away.  Its
most beautiful displays are not in nations like the Americans or the modern Frencl, who have throwrn themselves
most fully into the tendencies of this age, but rather in
secluded regions like Styria or the Tyrol.  Its artistic
expression is found in no work of modern genius, but in
the medimval cathedral, which, mellowed but not impaired
by time, still gazes on us in its deathlcss beauty through




1z3        IHISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
the centuries of the past.  A superstitious age, like every
other phase of hulman history, has its distinctive virtues,
which must necessarily decline before a new stage of progress can be attained.
The virtues and vices growing out of the relation
between the sexes are difficult to treat in general terms,
both on account of the obvious delicacy of the subject,
and also because their natural history is extremely obscured by special causes.  In the moral evolutions we
have as yet examined, the normal influences are most
powerful, and the importance of derangin(g and modifying influences is altogether subsidiary.  The expansion
of our amiable virtues, the decline of heroism and loyalty,
and the growth of industrial habits spring out of changes
which necessarily take place under almost all forms of
civilisation,l and tlhe broad features of the movement are
tlerefore in almost all nations substantially the same.
But in the history of sensuality, special causes, such as
slavery, religious doctrines or laws affecting  marriage,
have been the most powerful agents.   The immense
changes effected in this field by the Cllristian religion
I shall hereafter examine.  In the present chapter I shall
content myself with two or three very general remarks
relating to the nature of the vice, and to the effect of
different stages of civilisation upon its progress.
There are, I conceive, few greater fallacies than are
involyed in the method so popular among modern writers
of judging the sensuality of a nation by its statistics of illegitimate births.  Independently of the obvious defect of
this method in excluding  simple prostitution from  our
comparison, it altogether ignores the fact that a large
number of illegitimate births arise from  causes totally
The principal exception being where slavery, coexisting with advanced
civilisation, retards or prevents the growth of industrial habits.




THE NATURAL TILSTORY 0o1' MORALS.          151
different from  the great violence of sensual passions.
Such, for example, is the notion prevailing in  many
country districts of England, that the marriage ceremony has a retrospective  virtue, cancelling previous
immorality; and such too is the custom  so general
among some classes on. the Continent of forming permanent connections without the sanction either of a
legal or a religious ceremony.  However deeply such
facts may be reprehended and deplored, it would be
obviously absurd to infer from them  that the nations
in which  they  are most prominent are most conspicuous for the uncontrolled violence of their sensual
passions.  In Sweden, which long ranked lowest in the
moral scale, if measured by the number of illegitimate
birthls, the chief cause appears to have been the difficulties with which legislators surrounded marriage.l  Even
in displays of actual and violent passion, there are distinctions to be drawn which statistics are wholly unable
to reach.  The coarse, cynical, and ostentatious sensuality
which forms the most repulsive feature of the French
character, the dreamy, languid, and Tsthetical sensuality
of the Spaniard or the Italian, the furtive and retiring
sensuality of some northern nations, though all forms of
the same vice, are widely different feelings, and exercise
widely differelit effects upon the prevailing disposition.
In'addition to the very important influence upon
public morals whichl climate, I think, undoubtedly exercises in stimulating or allaying the passions, it has a
powerful indirect action upon the position, character, and
tastes of women, by determining the prevalence of indoor
or out-of-door life, and also the classes among  whom  the
gift of beauty is diffused.  In northern countries the
t See Mr. Laing's Travels in Sweden. A similax cause is said to have a
imlilar effect in Bavaria.




152        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
prevailing cast of beauty depends rather on colour than
on form. It consists chiefly of a freshness and delicacy of
complexion which severe labour and constant exposure
necessarily destroy, and which is therefore rarely found
in the highest perfection among the very poor.  But the
southern type is essentially democratic.  The fierce r'ays
of thle sun only mellow and mature its charms.  Its muost
perfect examples may be found in the hovel as in the
palace, and the effects of this diffuision of beauty may
be traced both in the manners and the morals of the
people.
It is probable that the observance of this form of virtue
is naturally most strict in a rude and semni-civilised but not
barbarous people, and that a very refined civilisation is
not often favourable to its growth.  Sensuality is the vice
of young men and of old nations. A languid epicureanism
is the normal condition of nations whlich have attained a
hig'h intellectual or social civilisation, but v-which, through
political causes, have no adequate sphere for the exertion
of their energies.  The temptation arising' from the great
wvealth of some, and from the feverish longing for luxury
and exciting pleasures in others, which exists in all large
towns, has been peculiarly fatal to female virtue, and the
whole tendency of the public amusements of civilisation is
in the same direction.  The rude combats which form the
chief enjoyments of barbarians produce cruelty.  The
dramatic and artistic tastes and the social habits of refined
men produce sensuality.  Education raises many poor
women to a stage of refinerlen t at lakes them suitable
companions for men of a higher rank, and not suitable for
[hose of their own.  Industrial pursuits have indeed a
favourable influence in promoting habits of self-restraint,
and especially in chlecking the licence of military life, but
on the other hand, they greatly increase temptation by




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF' MORALS.           153
encourarging postponement of marriage, and in communities, even more than in individuals, moral inequalities are
much more due to differences of temptation than to differences of self-restraint.  In large bodies of men an increase of temptation always brincs with it an- increase,
though not necessarily a proportionate increase, of vice.
Among the checks on excessive multiplication, the historical influence of voluntary continence has been, it must be
feared, very small.  Physical and moral evils have alone
been decisive, and as these form the two opposite weights,
we unhappily very frequently find that the diminution of
the one has been followed by the increase of the other.
The nearly universal custom  of early marriages among
tile Irish peasantry has alone rendered possible that high
standard of female chastity, that intense and jealous sensitiveness respecting female honour, for wlich, amnong, many
failings and some vices, the Irish poor have long been
pre-eminent in Europe; but these -very marriages are the
most conspicuous proofs of the national improvidence,
and one of the most fatal obstacles to industrial prosperity.  Had the Irish peasants been less chaste, they
would have been more prosperous.  Had that fearful
famine, which in the present century desolated the land,
fallen upon a people who thought more of accumulating
subsistence than of avoiding sin, multitudes migoht now be
living who perished by literal starvation on the dreary
hills of Limerick or Skibbereen.
The example of Ireland furnishes us, however, with a
remlarkable instance of the manner in which the influence
of a moral feeling may act beyond the circumstances that
gave it birth.  There is no fact in Irish history more
singular than the complete, and, I believe, unparalleled
absence among the Irish priesthood of those moral scandals which in every continental country occasionally prove




154        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
the danger of vows of celibacy.  The unsuspected purity
of the Irish priests in this respect is the more remarkable,
because, the government of the country being Protestant,
there is no special inquisitorial legislation to ensure it,
because of the almost unbounded influence of the clergy
over their parishioners, and also because if any just cause
of suspicion existed, in the fierce sectarianism  of Irish
public opinion, it would assuredly be magnified.  Considerations of climate are quite inadequate to explain this
fact, but the chief cause is, I think, sufficiently obvious.
The habit of marrying at the first development of the
passions has produced among the Irish peasantry, from
whom the priests for the most part spring, an extremely
strong feeling of the iniquity of irregular sexual indulgence, which retains its power even over those who are
bound to perpetual celibacy.
It will appear evident from  the foregoing considerations, that while the essential nature of virtue and vice is
unaltered, there is a perpetual, and in some branches an
orderly and necessary change, as society advances, both
in the proportionate value attached to different virtues in
theory, and in the perfection in which they are realised in
practice.  It will appear too, that while there may be in
societies such a thing as moral improvement, there is
rarely or never, on a large scale, such a thing as unmixed
improvement.  We may gain more than we lose, but we
always lose something.  There are virtues which are continually dying away with advancing civilisation, and even
the lowest stage possesses its distinctive excellence. There
is no spectacle more piteous or more horrible to a good
man than that of an oppressed nationality writhing in
anguish beneath a tyrant's yoke; but there is no condition in which passionate, unquestioning self-sacrifice and
heroic courage, and the true sentiment of fraternity are




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MOPRALS.             155
more grandly elicited, and it is probable that the triumph
of liberty will in these forms not only lessen the moral
performances, but even weaken the moral capacities of
mankind.  War is no doubt a fearful evil, but it is the
seed-plot of magnanimous virtues, which in a pacific age
must Wither and decay.  Even the gambling-table fosters
among its more skilful votaries a kind of moral nerve, a
capacity for bearing losses with calmness, and controlling
the force of the desires, which is scarcely exhibited in
equal perfection in any other sphere.
There is still so great a diversity of civilisation in
existing nations that traversing tracts of space is almost
like traversing tracts of time, for it brings us in contact
with living representatives of nearly every phase of past
civilisation.  B3ut these differences are rapidly disappearing before the unparalleled diffusion and simplification of
knowledge, the still more amazincg progress in means
of locomotion, and  the political and military causes
that are manifestly converting Europe into a federation
of vast centralised and democratic States.  Even to those
who  believe  that the  leadinc  changes are on  the
whole beneficial, there is much that is melancholy in
this revolution.  Those small States which Nwill soon
have disappeared from  the map of Europe, besides their
vast superiority to most great empires in financial prosperity, in the material well-being of the inhabitants, andin many cases in political liberty, pacific tastes, and
intellectual progress, form  one of the chief refuges of
that spirit of content, repose, and retrospective reverence
which is pre-eminently wanting in modern civilisation,
andl their security is in every age one of the least
equivocal measures of international morality.  The monastic system, however pernicious when enlarged to excess, has undoubtedly contributed to the happiness of the




156       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
world by supplying an asylum especially suited to a certain
type of character; and that vindictive and short-sighted
revolution which is extirpating it from Europe is destroying one of the best correctives of the excessive industrialism of our age. It is for the advantage of a nation that
it should attain the most advanced existing type of
progress, but it is extremely questionable whether it is
for the advantage of the community at large that all
nations should attain the same type, even when it is the
most advanced. The influence of very various circumstances is absolutely necessary to perfect moral development. Hence, one of the great political advantages of class
representation, which brings within the range of politics
a far greater variety both of capacities and moral qualities
than can be exhibited when one class has an exclusive
or overwhelmingly preponderating influence, and also of
heterogeneous empires, in which different degrees of
civilisation produce different kinds of excellence which
react upon and complete one another.  In the rude work
of India and Australia a type of character is formed
which England could ill afford to lose.
The remarks which I have now made will be sufficient,
I hope, to throw some light upon those great questions
concerning the relations of intellectual and moral progress
which have attracted in late years so large an amount of
attention.  It has been contended that the historian of
human progress should concentrate his attention exclusively on the intellectual elements; for there is no such
thing as moral history, morals being essentially stationary,
and the rudest barbarians being in this respect as far
advanced as ourselves.  In opposition to this view, I have
maintained that while what may be termed the primal elements of morals are unaltered, there is a perpetual change
in the standard which is exacted, and also in the relative




TI-E NATURIAL IIISTORY OF IMORIALS.        157
value attached to particular virtues, and that these changes
constitute one of the most important branches of general
history.  It has been contended by other writers, that
although such changes do take place, andcl although they
play an extremely great part in the world; they must be
looked upon as the results of intellectual causes, changes
in knowledge producing changes in morals.  In this view,
as we have seen, there is a considerable element of truth,
but it can only, I think, be accepted with great qualification.  It is one of the plainest of facts that neither
the individuals nor the ages that have been most distinguished for intellectual achievements have been most
distinguished  for moral excellence, and that a high
intellectual and material civilisation has often coexisted
with much  depravity.  In  some respects the conditions of intellectual growth are not favourable to moral
growth. The ag,,lomeration of men in great cities —-which
are always the centres of progress and enlightenment —is
one of the most important causes of material and intellectual advance; but great towns are the peculiar seed-plots
of vice, and it is extremely questionable whether they
produce any special-and equivalent efflorescence of virtues,
for even the social virtues are probably more cultivated
in small populations, where men live in more intimate
relations.  Many of the most splendid outbursts of moral
enthusiasm may be traced to an overwhelmning force of
conviction rarely found in very cultivated minds, whicl
are keenly sensible to possibilities of error, conflicting arguments, and qualifying circumstances.  Civilisation has on
the whole been more successful in repressing crime tlzan
in repressing vice.  It is very favourable to the gentler,
claritable, and social virtues, and, where slavery does not
exist, to the industrial virtues, and it is the especial nurse
of the intellectual virtues; but it is in general not equally




153       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
favourable to the production of self-sacrifice, enthusiasm,
reverence, or chastity.
The moral clhanges, however, which are effected by civilisation may ultimately be ascribed chiefly to intellectual
causes, for these lie at the root of the whole structure of civilised life. Sometimes, as we have seen, intellectual causes
act directly, but more frequently they have only an indirect influence, producing habits of life which in their turn
produce new conceptions of duty. The morals of men are
more governed by their pursuits than by their opinions. A
type of virtue is first formed by circumstances, and men
afterwards make it the model upon which their theories are
framed.  Thus geographical or other circumstances that
make one nation military and another industrial, will produce in each a realised type of excellence, and corresponding conceptions about the relative importance of different
virtues radically different from those which are produced
in the other, and this may be the case although the
amount of knowledge in the two comnmunities is substantially equal.
Having discussed these questions as fully as the nature
of my subject requires, I will conclude this chapter by
noticing a few very prevalent errors in the moral judgments of history, and will also endeavour to elucidate
some important consequences that may be deduced from
the nature of moral types.
It is probable that the moral standard of most men is
much lower in political judgments than in private matters
in which their own interests are concerned.  There is
nothing more common than for men who in private life
are models of the most scrupulous integrity to justify or
excuse the most flagrant acts of political dishonesty and
violence; and we should be altogether mistaken if we
argued rigidly from such approvals to the general moral




TIHE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.            159
sentiment of those who utter them.  Not unfrequently
too, by a curious moral paradox, political crimes are
closely connected with national virtues.  A people who
are submissive, gentle, and loyal, fall by reason of these
very qualities under a despotic government; but this uncontrolled power has never failed to exercise a most
pernicious influence on rulers, and their numerous acts
of rapacity and aggression being attributed in history
to the nation they represent, the national character is
wholly misinterpreted.' There are also particular kinds
both of virtue and of vice which appear prominently
before the world, while others of at least equal influence
almost escape the notice of history.  Thus, for example, the sectarian animosities, the horrible persecutions,
the blind hatred of progress, the ungenerous support of
every galling disqualification and restraint, the intense
class selfishness, the obstinately protracted  defence of
every intellectual and political superstition, the childish
but whimsically ferocious quarrels about minute dogmatic
distinctions, or dresses, or candlesticks, which constitute
together the main features of ecclesiastical history, might
naturally though very unjustly lead men to place the
ecclesiastical type in almost the lowest rank, both intellectually and morally.  These are, in fact, the displays
of ecclesiastical influence which stand in bold relief in
the pages of history.  The civilising and moralising influence of the clergyman in his parish, the simple, unostentatious, unselfish zeal with which he educates the
ignorant, guides the erring, comforts the sorrowing, braves
the horrors of pestilence, and sheds a hallowing influence
over the dying hour, the countless ways in which, in his
little sphere, he allays evil passions, and softens manners,
1 This has been, I thinkl especially the case with the Austrians.
12




160        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
and elevates and purifies those around him-all these
things, though very evident to the detailed observer, do
not stand out in the same vivid prominence in historical
records, and are continually forgotten by historians.  It
is always hazardous to argue from  the character of a
corporation to the character of the members who compose
it, but in no other case is this method of judgment so
fallacious as in the history of ecclesiastics, for there is no
other class whose distinctive excellences are less apparent,
and whose mental and moral defects are more glaringly
conspicuous in corporate action. In different nations,
again, the motives of virtue are widely different, and
serious misconceptions arise from the application to one
nation of the measure of the other.  Thus the chief
national virtues of the French people result from anl
intense power of sympathy, which is also the foundation
of some of their most beautiful intellectual qualities,
of their social habits, and of their unrivalled influence- in
Europe. No other nation has so habitual and vivid
a sympathy for great struggles for freedom beyond its
border. No other literature exhibits so expansive and
ecumenical a genius, or expounds so skilfully or appreciates so generously foreign ideas.  In no other land
would a disinterested war for the support of a suffering
nationality find so large an amount of support.  The
national crimes of France are many and grievous, but
much will be forgiven her because she loved much. The
Anglo-Saxon nations, on the other han d, though sometimes
roused to strong but transient enthusiasm, are habitually
singularly narrow, unappreciative, and unsympathetic.
The great source of their national virtues is the sense
of duty, the power of pursuing a course which they
believe to be right, independently of all considerations of
sympathy or favour, of enthusiasm or success. Other




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.          161
nations have far surpassed them in many qualities that are
beautiful, and inl some qualities that are great. It is the
merit of the Anglo-Saxon race that beyond all others it
has produced men of the stamp of a Washington or a
llampclen; men careless indeed for glory, but very careful
of honour; who made the supreme majesty of moral
rectitude the guiding principle of their lives, who proved
in the most trying circumstances that no allurements of
ambition, and no storms of passion, could cause them to
deviate one hair's breadth from the course they believed
to be their duty. This was also a Roman characteristic
-especially that of Marcus Aurelius.  The unwearied,
unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England against
slavery may probably be regarded as among the three
or four perfectly virtuous acts recorded in the history of
nations.
Although it cannot be said that any virtue is the negation of another, it is undoubtedly true that virtues are
naturally grouped according to principles of affinity or
congruity, which are essential to the unity of the type.
The heroical, the amiable, the industrial, the intellectual
virtues form in this manner distinct groups; and in some
cases the development of one group is incompatible, not
indeed with the existence, but with the prominence of
others. Content cannot be the leading virtue in a society
animated by an intense industrial spirit, or submission
or tolerance of injuries in a society formed upon a military type, or intellectual virtues in a society where a
believing spirit is made the essential of goodness, yet
each of these conditions is the special sphere of some particular class of virtues. The distinctive beauty of a
moral type depends not so much on the elements of
which it is composed, as of the proportions in which
those elements are combined. The characters of Socrates,




162        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
of Cato, of Bayard, of Fenelon, and of St. Francis Assisi
are all beautiful, but they differ generically, and not
simply in degrees of excellence. To endeavour to impart to Cato the distinctive charm of St. Francis, or to St.
Francis that of Cato, would be as absurd as to endeavour
to unite in a single statue the beauties of the Apollo and
the Laocoon, or in a single landscape the beauties of the
twilitght and of the meridian sun. Take away pride from
the ancient Stoic or the modern Englishman, and you
would have destroyed the basis of many of his noblest
virtues, but humility was the very principle and root of
the moral qualities of the ascetic. There is no quality
that is virtuous in a woman that is not also virtuous in
a man, yet that disposition or hierarchy of virtues which
constitutes a perfect woman would be wholly unsuited
for a perfect man. The moral is in this respect like the
physical type.  The beauty of man is not the beauty of
wYoman, or the beauty of the child as the beauty of
the adult, or the beauty of an Italian as the beauty of
an Englishwoman. All types of character are not good, as
all types of countenance are not beautiful; but there are
many distinct casts of goodness, as there are many distinct casts of beauty.
This most important truth Piay be stated in a somewhat different form.  Whenever a man is eminently
deficient in any virtue, it of course follows that his
character is imperfect, but it does not necessarily follow
that he is not in other respects moral and virtuous.
There is, however, usually some one virtue, which I may
term rudimentary, which is brought forward so prominently before the world, as the first condition of moral
excellence, that it may be safely inferred that a man
who has absolutely neglected it is entirely indifferent to
moral culture. Rudimentary virtues vary in different ages,




THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 3MORALS.         163
nations, and classes.  Thus, in the great republics of antiquity patriotism  was rudimentary, for it was so assiduously cultivated, that it appeared at once the most obvious
and the most essential of duties.  Among ourselves much
private virtue may coexist with complete indifference to
national interests.'In the monastic period, and in a
somewhat different form in the age of chivalry, a spirit
of reverential obedience was rudimentary, and the basis
of all moral progress; but we may now frequently find a
good man without it, his nmoral energies having been
cultivated in other directions.  Common truthfulness and
honesty, as I have already said, are rudimentary virtues in
industrial societies, but not in others.  Chastity, in England at least, is a rudimentary female virtue, but scarcely
a rudimentary virtue among men, and it has not been in
all ages, and is not now in all countries, rudimentary
among women. There is no more important task devolving upon a moral historian, than to discover in each
period the rudimentary virtue, for it regulates in a great
degree the position assigned to all others.
From the considerations I have urged, it will appear
that there is considerable danger in proposing too absolutely a single character, however admirable, as the
mnodel to which all men must necessarily conform. A
character may be perfect in its own kind, but no character can possibly embrace all types of perfection; for,
as we have seen, the perfection of a type depends not
only upon the virtues that constitute it, but also upon
the order and prominence assigned to them. All that
can be expected in an ideal is, that it should be perfect
in its own kind, and should exhlibit the type most needed
in its age, and most widely useful to mankind.  The
Christian type is the glorification of the amiable, as the
Stoic type was that of the heroic qualities, and this is one




164        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
of the reasons why Christianity is so much more fitted
than Stoicism to preside over civilisation, for the more
society is organised and civilised, the greater is the scope
for the amiable, and the less for the heroic qualities.
The history of that moral intolerance which endeavours
to reduce all characters to a single type has never, I think,
been examined as it deserves, and I shall frequently have
occasion to advert to it in the following pages.  No one
can have failed to observe how common it is for men to
make their own tastes or excellences the measure of all
goodness, pronouncing all that are broadly different from
them to be imperfect or low, or of a secondary value.
And this, which is usually attributed to vanity, is probably in most cases much more due to feebleness of
imagination, to the difficulty most men have in conceiving in their minds an order of character fundamentally
different from their own. A good man can usually sympathise much more with a very imperfect character of his
own type than with a far more perfect one of a different
type.  To this cause, quite as much as to historical causes
or occasional divergencies of interest, may be traced the
extreme difficulty of effecting cordial international friendships, especially in those cases when a difference of race
coincides with the difference of nationality. Each nation
has a distinct type of excellence, each esteems the virtues
in which it excels, and in which its neighbours are often
most deficient, incomparably the greatest. Each regards
with especial antipathy the vices from which it is most
free, and to which its neighbours may be most addicted.
Hence arises a mingled feeling of contempt and dislike
from which the more enlightened minds are indeed soon
emancipated, but which constitutes the popular sentiment.
The type of character of every individual depends
partly upon innate temperament and partly upon external




THIIE NATURAL HIISTORY OF MORALS.         165
circumstances.  A warlike, a refined, an industrial society,
each evokes and requires its specific qualities, and produces its appropriate type.  If a man of a different type
arise, if, for example, a man formed by nature to exhibit to the highest perfection the virtues of gentleness or
meekness, be born in the midst of a fierce military society,
he will find no suitable scope for action, he will jar with
his age, and his type will be regarded with disfavour. And
the effect of this opposition is not simply that he will not
be appreciated as he deserves, he will also never succeed in
developing his own distinctive virtues as they would have
been developed under other circumstances.  Everything
will be against him-the force of education, the habits
of society, the opinions of mankind, even his own sense
of duty. All the highest models of excellence about
him being formed on a different type, his very efforts
to improve his being will dull the qualities in which
nature intended him to excel.  If, on the other hand, a
man with naturally heroic qualities be born in a society
which pre-eminently values heroism, he will not only be
more appreciated, he will also, under the concurrence of
favourable circumstances, carry his heroism  to a far
higher point than would otherwise have been possible.
Hence changing circumstances produce changing types,
and hence, too, the possibility of moral history and the
necessity of uniting it with general history. Religions,
considered as moral teachers, are realised and effective
only when their moral teaching is in conformity with
the tendency of their age.  If any part of it is not so,
that part will be either openly abandoned, or refined
away, or tacitly neglected. Among the ancients, the
co-existence of the Epicurean and Stoical schools, which
offered to the world two entirely different archetypes of
virtue, secured in a very remarkable manner the recogni



.166       IIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
tion of different kinds of excellence; for although each
of these schools often attained a pre-eminence, neither
ever succeeded in wholly destroying or discrediting the
other.
Of the two elements that compose the moral condition
of mankind, our generalised knowledlge is almost restricted to one.  We know much of the ways ill which
political, social, or intellectual causes act upon character,
but scarcely anything of the laws that govern innate disposition, of the reasons and extent of the natural moral
diversities of individuals or races. I think, however, that
mhost persons who reflect upon the subject will conclude
that the progress of medicine, revealing the physical causes
of different moral predispositions, is likely to place a very
large measure of knowledge on this point within our
reach.  Of all the great branches of human knowledge
medicine is that in which the accomplished results are
most obviously imperfect and provisional, in which the
field of unrealised possibilities is most extensive, and
from which, if the human mind were directed to it, as it
has been during the past century to industrial inventions,
and especially to overcoming space, the most splendid
results might be expected.  Our almost absolute ignorance of the causes of some of the most fatal diseases, and
the empirical nature of nearly all our best medical treatment, have been often recognised.  The medicine of inhalation is still in its infancy, and yet it is by inhalation
that Nature produces most of her diseases, and effects
most of her cures. The medical powers of electricity,
which of all known agencies bears most resemblance to
life, are almost unexplored.  The discovery of anmstlhetics has in our own day opened out a field of inestimable importance, and the proved possibility, under
certain physical conditions, of governing by external sug



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS.            167
gestions the whole current of the feelings and emotions,
may possibly contribute yet further to the alleviation of suffering, and perhaps to that euthanasia which Bacon proposed to physicians as an end of their art.  But in the
eyes both of the philanthropist and of the philosopher,
the greatest of all results to be expected in this, or perhaps
any other field, are, I conceive, to be looked for in the
study of the relations between our physical and our moral
natures.  He who raises moral pathology to a science,
expanding, systematising, and applying many fragmentary
observations that have been already made, will probably
take a place among the master intellects of mankind.
The fastings and bleedings of the medimval monk, the
medicines for allaying or stimulating the sensual passionS,
the treatment of nervous diseases, the moral influences of
insanity and of castration, the researches of phrenology,
the moral changes that accompany the successive stages
of physical developments, the instances of diseases which
have altered, sometimes permanently, the whole complexion of the character, and have acted through the character upon all the intellectual judgments,1 are examples
of the kind of facts with which such a science would deal.
Mind and body are so closely connected, that even those
who most earnestly protest against materialism readily
admit that each acts continually upon the other.  Tlhe
sudden emotion that quickens the pulse, and blanches or
flushes the cheek, and the effect of fear in predisposing to
an epidemic, are familiar instances of the action of the
mind upon the body, and the more powerful and permanent influence of the body upon the disposition is attested
by countless observations.  It is probable that this action
extends to all parts of our moral constitution, that every
I See some remarlable instances of this in Cabanis, Rapports dc Physique
t du Moral de l'Hlomme.




168        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
passion or characteristic tendency-has a physical predisposing cause, and that if we were acquainted with these,
we might treat by medicine the many varieties of moral
disease as systematically as we now treat physical disease.
In addition to its incalculable practical importance, such
knovledge would have a great philosophical value, throwing a new light upon the filiation of our moral qualities,
enabling us to treat exhaustiveJy the moral influence of
climate, and withdrawing the great question of the influence of race from the impressions of isolated observers
to place it on the firm basis of experiment. It would thus
form the complement to the labours of the historian.
Such discoveries are, however, perhaps far from  attainment, and their discussion does not fall within the
compass of this work. My present object is simply to
trace the action of external circumstances upon morals, to
examine what have been the moral types proposed as ideal
in different ages, to what degree they have been realised
in practice, and by what causes they have been modified,
impaired, or destroyed.




THE PAGAN EMP1IRE.              1U
CHAPTER II
THE PAGAN EMPIRE.
ONE of the first facts that must strike a student who
examines the ethical teaching of the ancient civilisations
is how imperfectly that teaching was represented, and
how feebly it was influenced by the popular creed. The
moral ideals had at no time been sought in the actions of
the gods, and long before the triumph of Christianity,
polytheism had ceased to have any great influence upon
the more cultivated intellects of mankind.
In Greece we may trace from the earliest time the
footsteps of a religion of nature, wholly different from the
legends of the mythology. The language in which the
first Greek dramatists asserted the supreme authority and
universal providence of Zeus was so emphatic, that the
Christian fathers commonly attributed it either to direct
inspiration or to a knowledge of the Jewish writings,
while later theologians of the school of Cudworth have
argued from it in favour of the original monotheism of
our race. The philosophers were always either contemptuous or hostile to the prevailing legends. Pythagoras
is said to have declared that he had seen Hesiod tied to
a brass pillar in hell, and Homer hung upon a tree surrounded by serpents, on account of the fables they had
invented about the gods.l  Plato, for the same reason
1 Diog. Laert. Pythag.




170         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
banished the poets from  his republic.  Stilpo turned to
ridicule the whole system  of sacrifices,l and was exiled
from Athens for denying that the Athene of Phidias was
a goddess.2   Xenophanes remarked  that each  nation
attributed to the gods its distinctive national type, the
gods of the 2Ethiopians being black, the gods of the
Thracians fair and blue-eyed.3  Diagoras and Theodorus
are said to have denied, and Protagoras to have questioned,
the existence of the gods,4 while the Epicureans deemed
them whollyindiff'erent to human affairs, and the Pyrrhonists
pronounced our faculties absolutely incapable of attaining any sure knowledge, either human or divine.  The
Cynic Antisthenes said that there were many popular gods,
but only one god of nature.5  The Stoics, reproducing an
opinion which was supported by Aristotle and attributed
to Pythagoras,6 believed in an all-pervading soul of nature,
but, unlike some modern schools which have adopted this
view, they asserted in emphatic language the doctrine of
Providence, and the self-consciousness of the Deity.
In the Roman republic and empire, a general scepticism
had likewise arisen among the philosophers as the first fruit
of intellectual development, and the educated classes were
speedily divided between avowed or virtual atheists, like
the Epicureans,7 and pure theists, like the Stoics and the
Platonists.   The first, represented by such  writers as
Plutarch, De Profectibus in VTirt.    2 Diog. Laert. StUpo.
S Clem. Alexand. Strom. vii.     4 Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, i. 1.
5 Lactant. Inst. Div. i. 5.
o' Pythlagoras ita definivit quid esset Deus: Animus qui per universas
mundi partes, omnemque naturam commeans atque diffusus, ex quo omnia
qum nascuntur animalia, vitam capiunt.'-Ibid. Lactantius in this chapter
has collected several other philosophic definitions of the Divinity. See too
Plutarch, De Placit. Pidlos.  Tertullian explains the stoical theory by an
ingenious illustration:' Stoici enim volunt Deum sic per materiem decucurrisse quomodo mel per favos.'-Tert. De Anin2a.
7 As Cicero says;  Epicurus re tollit, oratione relinquit, deos.' —De Nat,
Deor. i. 44.




THE PAGAN  EMPIRE.                        171
Lucretius  and  Petronius, regarded  the  gods simply  as
the creations of fear, denied every form of Providence,
attributed the world to a concurrence of atoms, and life
to spontaneous generation, and regarded it as the chief
end of philosophy to banish as illusions of the imagination
every form  of religious belief.  The others formed a more
or less pantheistic conception of the Deity, asserted the
existence of a Providence,1 but treated with great contempt the prevailing legends which they endeavoured in
various ways to explain.  The first systematic theory of
explanation appears to have been that of the Sicilian Euhemerus, whose work was translated by Ennius.  He pretended that the gods were originally kings, whose history
and genealogies he  professed  to  trace, and  who  after
death had been deified by mankind.2   Another attempt,
which in the first period of Roman scepticism  was more
generally popular, was that of some of the Stoics, who
regarded  the  gods as personifications  of the  different
attributes of the Deity, or of different forces of nature.
Thus Neptune was the sea, Pluto was fire, Hercules represented the strength of God, Minerva Iis wisdom, Ceres His
fertilising energy.3  More than:a hundred years before the
empire, Varro had declared that' the soul of the world is
1 Sometimes, however, they restricted its operation to the great events of
life. As an interlocutor in Cicero says:' Magna dii curant, parva negligunt.'
-Cic. De N2atur. D)eor. ii. 66. Justin AMartyr notices (Trypho. i.) that some
philosophers maintained that God cared for the universal or species, but not for
the individual. Seneca maintains that the Divinity has determined all things
by an inexorable law of destiny, which Hie has decreed, but which He Himself
obeys. (De Provident. v.)
2 See on this theory Cicero, De orNatir. Deor. i. 42; Lactantius, Inst.
Div. i. 11.
3 Diog. Latrt. Fit. Zeno. St. Aug. _De Civ. Dei, iv. 11. iMaximus of Tyre
Dissert. x. (in some editions xxix.) ~ 8. Seneca, Deo Benfcciis, iv. 7-8. Cic.
De Nahtur. Deor. i. 15. Cicero has devoted the first two books of this work
to the stoical theology. A full review of the allegorical and mythical interpretations of paganism is given by Eusebius, Evang. plrzplaor. lib. iii.




17f2        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
God, and that its parts are true divinities.'  Virgil and
Manilius described, in  lines of singular beauty, that
universal spirit, the principle of all life, the efficient cause
of all motion, which permeates and animates the globe.
Pliny said that' the world and sky, in whose embrace all
things are enclosed, must be deemed a god, eternal, immense, never begotten, and never to perish. To seek
things beyond this is of no profit to man, and they transcend the limits of his faculties.' 2 Cicero had adopted the
higher Platonic conception of the Deity as mind freed
from  all taint of matter,3  while  Seneca celebrated  in
magnificent language'Jupiter the guardian and ruler of
the universe, the soul and spirit, the lord and master of
this mundane sphere,... the cause of causes, upon
whom all things hang.... Whose wisdom oversees the
world that it may move uncontrolled in its course,..
fronm whom all things proceed, by whose spirit we
live,... who comprises all we see.' 4  Lucan, the great
poet of stoicism, rose to a still higher strain, and to
one which still more accurately expressed the sentiments
of his school, when he described Jupiter as that majestic, all-pervasive  spirit, whose throne  is virtue and
the universe.5   Quintilian defended the subjugation of
the world beneath the sceptre of a single man, on the
ground that it was an image of the government of God.
Other philosophers contented themselves with asserting
1 St. Aug. De Civ. vii. 5.          2 Plin. Hist. XNat. ii. 1.
3  Nec vero Deus ipse qui intelligitur a nobis, alio modo intelligi potest
nisi mens soluta qumdam et libera, segregata ab omni concretione mortali,
omnia sentiens et movens, ipsaque proedita motu sempiterno.'- Tusc. Qucest.
i. 27.
4 Senec. Quaest. Arit. ii. 45.' Estne Dei sedes, nisi terra et pontus et aer
Et ccelum et virtus? Superos quid qumerimus ultra?
Jupiter est quodcumque vides, quodcumque moveris.'
Plharsal. ix.




THIE PAGAN  EMPIRE.                        173
the supreme authority of Jupiter Maximus, and reducing
the  other divinities to mere  administrative  and angelic
functions, or, as the Platonists expressed it, to the position
of danmons. According to some of the Stoics, a final
catastrophe would consume the universe, the resuscitated
spirits of men and all these minor gods, and the whole
creation being absorbed into the great parent spirit, God
would be all in all. The very children and old women
ridiculed Cerberus and the Furies1 or treated them as
mere metaphors of conscience.2   In the deism  of Cicero
the popular divinities were discarded, the oracles refuted
and ridiculed, the whole system  of divination pronounced
a political imposture, and the genesis of the miraculous
traced  to  the  exuberance  of the  imagination, and  to
certain diseases of the judgment.3 Before the time of
Constantine, numerous books had been written against
the oracles.4   The greater number of these had actually
ceased, and the ablest writers justly saw  in this cessation
an evidence of the declining credulity of the people, and
a proof that the oracles had been a fruit of that credulity.5
1'Queve anus tam excors inveniri potest qua illa, qum quondam credebantur apud inferos portenta extimescat?'-Cic. De Nat..Deor. ii. 2.'Esse aliqu.os Manes et subterranea regna...
Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum  ore lavantur.' —Juv. Sat. ii. 149, 152.
See on this subject a good review by the Abb6 Freppel, Les P&'res apostoliques, leqon viii.
2 Cicero, De Leg. i. 14; Macrobius, In Sorm. Scip. i. 10.
3 See his works De Divinatione and De Nat. Deorum, which form a curious
contrast to the religious conservatism of the De Legibus, which was written
chiefly from a political point of view.
4 Eusebius Prcep. Evang. lib. iv.
5 The oracles first rave their answers in verse, but their bad poetry was
ridiculed, and they gradually sank to prose, and at last ceased. Plutarch
defended the inspiration of the bad poetry on the ground that the inspiring
spirit availed itself of the natural faculties of the priestess for the expression of its infallible truths-a theory which is still much in vogue among
biblical critics, and is, I believe, called dynamical inspiration. See Fontenelle, list. des Oracles (lst ed.), pp. 292-293.




174           HISTORY  OF, EUROPEAN MORALS.
The Stoics holdintg, as was their custom, aloof from
direct religious discussion, dissuaded their disciples from
consulting them, on thle ground that the gifts of fortune
were of no account, and that a good  man should be
content with  his  conscience, making   duty  and  not
success the object of his life.'  Cato wondered that two
augurs  could  meet with  gravity.2   A  Roman  general
named Sertorius made the forgery of auspicious omens a
continual resource in warfare.3   The tRoman wits made
divination the favourite subject of their ridicule.4   The
denunciation which the  early Greek moralists launched
against the popular ascription of immoral deeds to the
gods was echoed by a long series of later philosophers,5
while Ovid made these fables the theme of his inocking
ifetamzorploses, and in his most immoral poem  proposed
Jupiter as a model of vice.  With an irony not unlike that
of Isaiah, Horace  described the carpenter deliberating
whether he should convert a shapeless log into a bench or
into a god.6  Cicero, Plutarch, Maximus of Tyre, and Dio
Chrysostom either denounced idolatry or defended the use
of images simply on the ground that they were signs and
symbols of the Deity,7 well suited to aid the devotions of
1 See the famous description of Cato refusing to consult the oracle of
Jupiter Ammon, in Lucan, Plhars. ix.; and also Arrian, ii. 7.  Seneca
beautifully says,' Vis deos propitiare? bonus esto. Satis illos coluit quisquis imitatus est.' —Ep. xcv.
2 Cicero, De Divin. ii. 24.
3 Aulus Gellius, roct. Att. xv. 22.
4 See a long string of witticisms collected by Legendre, Traite' de I'Opinion, ou Me17moires pour servir a l'tlistoire de l'Esprit Ihumain (Venise, 1735),
tome i. pp. 386-387.
5 See Cicero, -De Natura.Deoorum; Seneca, De Brev. Vit. c. xvi.; Plin.
Jtist. Ncat. ii. 5; Plutarch, De Superstitione.
8         Olihm truncus erain ficulnus, inutile lignum,
Curm faber, incertus scamnum faceretne Priapuml,
Maluit esse Deum.'-Sermn. I. viii. 1-3.
7 There is a very curious discussion on this subject, reported to have
taken place between Apollonius of Tyana and an Egyptian priest. The




THE PAG AN  EMPIIRE.                      175
the ignorant.  Seneca  and the whole school of Pythagoras objected to the sacrifices.
These examples will be sufficient to show how  widely
the philosophic classes in Rome were removed from  the
professed religion of the State, and how  necessary it is
to seek elsewhere the sources of their moral life.  But the
opinions of learned men never reflect faithfully those of
the vulgar, and the chasm  between the two classes was
even wider than at present before the dawn of Christianity
and the invention of printing.  The atheistic enthusiasm
of Lucretius and the sceptical enthusiasm  of some of the
disciples of Carneades were isolated phenomena, and the
great majority of the ancient philosophers, while speculating with the utmost freedom  in private, or in writings
that were read by the few, countenanced, practised, and
even defended the religious rites that they despised.  It
was believed that many diflerent paths adapted to different
nations and grades of knowledge converge to the same Divilnity, and that the most erroneous religion is good if
it, formns good dispositions and inspires virtuous actions.
The oracle of Delphi lhad said that the best religion is
that of a man's own  city.  Polybius and Dionysius of
former defended the Greek fashion of worshipping the Divinity under the
form of the human image, sculptured by Phidias and Praxiteles, this beino
the noblest form we can conceive, and therefore the. least inadequate to tile
Divine perfections. The latter defended the Egyptian custom of worshipping animals, because, as he said, it is blasphemous to attempt to conceive an
iluage of the Deity, and the Egyptians therefore concentrate the imagination
of the worshipper on objects that are plainly merely allegorical or symbolical,
and do not pretend to offer any such imag'e (liNlos. Apoll. of Tyanac, vi. 19).
Pliny shortly says,'Effigiem Dei formamcque qumrere imlbecillitatis humana
reor' (liist. VNt. ii. 5). See too Max. Tyrius, Diss. xxxviii. There was a legend
that Nu uma forbade all idols, and that for 200 years they were unknown in
Rome (Plutarcl, LZfe of 2Vuma). Dio Chrysostom said that the Gods need
no statues or sacrifices, but that by these means we attest our devotion to
them (Or at. xxxi.). On the vanity of rich idols, see Plutarchl De Sup;er.sitione; Seneca, Ep. xxxi.
i Lact. IZnst. Div. vi. 25.
13




176         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
Halicarnassus, who regarded all religions simply as political
agencies, dilated in rapturous terms upon the devotion of
the Romans and the comparative purity of their creed.'
Varro openly professed the belief that there are certain
religious truths which it is expedient that the people
should regard as false.2  The academic Cicero and the
Epicurean Cmsar were both high officers of religion. The
Stoics taught that every man should duly perform  the
religious ceremonies of his country.3
But the Roman religion, even in its best days, though an
admirable system of mloral discipline, was never an independent source of moral enthusiasm.  It was the creature
of the State, and derived its inspiration from political feeling. The Roman gods were not, like those of the Greeks,
the creations of an unbridled and irreverent fancy, nor,
like those of the Egyptians, representations of the forces
of nature;, they were for the most part simple allegories,
frigid personifications of different virtues, or presiding
spirits imagined for the protection of different departments of industry.  The religion established the sanctity
of an.oath, it gave a kind of official consecration to certain
virtues, and commemorated special instances in which
they had been displayedl; its local character strengthened
patriotic feeling, its worship of the dead fostered a vague
belief in the immortality of the soul,4 it sustained the
supremacy of the father in the family, surrounded marriacre with many imposing solemnities, and created simple
and reverent characters profoundly submissive to an overDion. Halic. ii.; Polyb.,i. 56.
2 St. Aug. De Civ. Dei, iv. 31.    3 Epictetus, Enchir. xxxix.
4 Cicero, speaking of the worship of deified mcn, says,'indicat omnium
quidem animos immortales esse, sed fortium bonorumque divinos.' —D
Leg. ii. 11. - The Roman worship of the dead, which was the centre of the
domestic religion, has been recently investigated with much ability by M.
Coulanges (La Cite antique).




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                       177
ruling Providence and scrupulously observant of sacred
rites. But with all this it was purely selfish. It was simply
a method of obtaining prosperity, averting calamity, and
reading the future. Ancient Rome produced many heroes,
but no saint. Its self-sacrifice was patriotic, not religious.
Its religion was neither an independent teacher nor a
source of inspiration, although its rites mingled with and
strengthened some of the best habits of the people.
But these  habits, and  tile  religious reverence  with
which  they were connected, soon disappeared amid the
immorality and  decomposition  that marked the closing
years of the republic and the dawn of the empire. The
stern simplicity of life which the censors had so zealously
and often so tyrannically enforced,' was exchanged for a
luxury which first appeared after the return of the army
of Manlius from Asia,2 increased to immense proportions
after the  almost simultaneous  conquests of Carthage,
Corinth, and Macedonia,3 received an additional stimulus
from  the example of Antony,4 and at last, under the
empire, rose to excesses which the wildest oriental orgies
have never surpassed.5  The complete subversion of the
social and political system  of the republic, the anarchy
of civil war, the  ever increasing concourse of strangers,
bringing with them  new  philosophies, customs, and gods,
On the minute supervision exercised by the censors on all the details of
domestic life, see Aul. Gell. Noct. ii. 24; iv. 12, 20.
2 Livy, xxxix. 6.
8 Yell. Paterculus, i. 11-13; Eutropius, iv. 6. Sallust ascribed the decadence of Rome to the destruction of its rival, Carthag'e.
4 Plutarch, De Adulatore et Amico.
5 There is much curious information about the growth of Roman luxury
in Pliny (Hist. racct. lib. xxxvl.). The movement of decomposition has been
lately fully traced by Mommsen (Hist. of Romze); D11llinger (Jeaw and Gentile); Denis (list. des Iclees morales dans l'Antquitd); Pressense (Hist. des
trois 1renmiers Sicles); in the histories of Champagny, alnd in the beautiful
closing chapters of the Ap6tres of Renan.




178         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3iORALS.
had dissolved or effaced all the old bonds of virtue.  The
simple juxtaposition of many forms of worship effected
what could not have been effected by the most sceptical
literature or the most audacious philosophy.  The moral
influence of religion was completely annihilated. The
feeling of reverence was extinct. Augustus solemnly degraded the statue of Neptune because his fleet had been
wrecked.'  When Germanicus died, the populace stoned
or overthrew the altars of the gods.2  The idea of sanctity was so far removed from  the popular divinities, that
it became a continual complaint that prayers were offered
which the most depraved  would  blush  to  pronounce
aloud.3  Amid the corruption of the empire, we meet
with many noble efforts of reform made by philosophers
or by emperors, but we find not a trace of the moral influence of the old religion.  The apotheosis of the emperors consummated its degradation. The foreign gods
were identified with those of Rome,  and all their immoral legends associated with the national creed.4  The
theatre greatly extended the area of scepticism.  Cicero
mentions the assenting plaudits with which the people
heard the lines of Ennius, declaring that the gods, though
real beings, take no care for the things of man.5 Plutarch
tells of a spectator at a theatre rising up with indignation
after a recital of the crimes of Diana, and exclaiming
to the actor,' May you have a daughter like her whom
1 Sueton. Aug. xvi.                       2 Ibid. Calig. v.
8 Perseus, Sat. ii.; Horace, Ep. i. 10, vv. 57-60.
4 See, on the identification of the Greek and Egyptian myths, Plutarch's
De Iside et Osiride. The Greek and Roman gods were habitually regarded
as identical, and Ctesar and Tacitus, in like manner, identified the deities of
Gaul and Germany with those of their own country. See Dollin:er, Jew
and Gentile, vol. ii. pp. 160-165.
5'Ego deftm genus esse semper dixi et dicam ccelitum;
Sed eos non curare opinor quid agat hornminum genus.'
Cicero adds:' magno plauslu loquitur assentiente populo.'-De.Divin. ii. 50.




THE PAGAN  EMPIRE.                      179
you have described.' l St. Augustine and other of the
fathers long after ridiculed the pagans who satirised in
the theatres the very gods they worshipped in the temples.2  Men were still profoundly superstitious, but they
resorted to each new  religion as to a charm  or talisman
of especial power, or a system  of magic revealing the
future.  There existed, too, to  a very large extent, a
kind of superstitious scepticism  which occupies a very
prominent place in religious history.  There were multitudes who, declaring that there were no gods, or that
the gods never interfered with human affairs, professed
with the same breath an absolute faith in all portents,
auguries, dreams, and  miracles.  Innumerable  natural
objects, such as comets, meteors, earthquakes, or monstrous births, were supposed to possess a kind of occult
or magical virtue, by which they foreshadowed, and in
some cases influenced, the destinies of men.  Astrology,
which is the special representative of this mode of thought,
rose to great prominence. The elder Pliny notices that in
his time, a belief was rapidly gaining ground, both among
the learned and among the vulgar, that the whole destiny
of man is determined by the star that presides over his
nativity; that God, having ordained this, never interferes
again with human affairs, and that the reality of the portents is due to  this preordainment.3   One of the later
1 Plutarch, De Superstitione.
2 St. Aug. De Civ. Dei, vi. (6; Tertul. Alol. 15; Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, iv.
3'Pars alia et hane pellit, astroque suo eventus assignat, nascendi legibus; semelque in omnes futuros unquaml D)eo decretum; in reliquum vero
otium datum. Sedere ccepit sententia hlec pariterque et eruditrum vulgus
et rude in eamn cursu vadit. Ecce fulgurumn monitus, oraculorum proescita,
aruspicum predicta, atque etiam parva dictu in auguriis sternumenta et
ofl'ensiones pedum.'-H-ist. Nat. ii. 5. Pliny himself expresses great doubt
about astrology, giving many examples of men with different destinies, who
had been born at the same time, and therefore under the same stars. (vii.
50.) Tacitus expresses complete doubt about the existence of Providence..Am, vi. 22.)




180        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
historians of the empire remarks, that numbers who denied
the existence of any Divinity, believed nevertheless that
they could not safely appear in public, or eat, or bathe,
unless they had first carefully consulted the almanack to
ascertain the position of the planet Mercury, or how far
the moon was from the Crab.' Except perhaps among the
peasants in the country districts, the Roman religion, in
the last years of the republic, and in the first century of the
empire, scarcely existed, except in the state of a superstition, and he who would. examine the true moral influences
of the time must turn to the great schools of philosophy
which had been imported from Greece.
The vast place which the rival systems of Zeno and
Epicurus occupy in the moral history of mankind, and
especially in the closing years of the empire of paganism,
may easily lead us to exaggerate the creative genius of
their founders, who in fact did little more than give definitions or intellectual expression to types of excellence that
had at all times existed in the world.  There have ever
been stern, upright, self-controlled, and courageous men,
actuated by a pure sense of duty, capable of high efforts
of self-sacrifice, somewhat intolerant of the frailties of
others, somewhat hard and unsympathising in the ordinary
intercourse of society, but rising to an heroic grandeur
as the storm lowered upon their path, and more ready to
relinquish life than the cause they believed to be true.
There have also always been men of easy tempers and
of amiable dispositions, gentle, benevolent, and pliant,
cordial friends and forgiving enemies, selfish at heart, yet
ever ready, when it is possible, to conciliate their gratifications with those of others, averse to all enthusiasm,
mysticism, utopias, and superstition, with little depth of
1 Ammlianus Marcellinus, xxviii. 4.




THIE PAGAN EMPIRE.                 181
character or capacity for self-sacrifice, but admirably fitted
to impart and to receive enjoyment, and to render thle
course of life easy andcl harmonious. The first are by
nature Stoics, and the second Epicureans, and if they proceed to reason about the summumn bonum or the affections,
it is more than probable that in each case their characters
will determine their theories.  The first will estimate
self-control above all other qualities, will disparage the
affections, and will enldeavour to separate widely the
ideas of duty and of interest, while the second will
systematically prefer the amiable to the heroic, and the
utilitarian to the mystical.
Buit while it is undoubtedly true that in these matters
character usually determines opinion, it is not less true
that character is itself in a great measure governed by
national circumstances,.  Tlhe  refined, artistic, sensual
civilisations of Greece and Asia Minor might easily produce fine examples of the Epicurean type, but Rome was
from the earliest times pre-eminently the home of stoicism.
iLong before the Romans had begun to reason about
phlilosophy, they had exhibited it in action, and in their
speculative days it was to this doctrine that the noblest
minds naturally tended.  A great nation engaged in perpetual wars in an a age when success in warfare depended
neither upon wealth nor upon mechanical genius, but
upon the constant energy of patriotic enthusiasm, and
upon the unflinchling maintenance of military discipline,
the whole force of the national character tended to the
production of a single definite type.  In the absolute
authority accorded to the father over the children, to the
husband over the wife, to the master over the slave, we
may trace the same habits of discipline that proved so
formidable in the field. Patriotism and military honour
were indissolubly connected in the Roman mind. They




182        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
were the two sources of national enthusiasm, the chief
ingredients of the national conception of greatness. They
determined irresistibly the moral theory which was to
prove supreme.
Nlow war, which brings with it so many demoralising
influences, has, at least, always been the great school of
heroism.  It teaches men how to die.  It familiarises the
mind with the idea of noble actions performed under
the influence, not of personal interest, but of honour
and of enthusiasm.  It elicits in the highest degree
strength of character, accustoms men to the abnegation
needed for simultaneous action, compels them to repress
their fears, and establish a firm control over their affections. Patriotism, too, leads them to subordinate their
personal wishes to the interests of the society in which
they live. It extends the horizon of life, teaching men
to dwell among the great men of the past, to derive their
moral strength from the study of heroic lives, to look
forward continually, through the vistas of a distant future.
to the welfare of an organisation which will continue
when they have passed away. All these influences were
developed in Roman life to a degree which can now never
be reproduced. War, for the reasons I have stated, was
far more than at present the school of heroic virtues.
Patriotism, in the absence of any strong theological passion,
had assumed a transcendent power. The citizen, passing
continually from political to military life, exhibited to
perfection the moral effects of both.  The habits of
command formed by a long period of almost universal
empire, and by the aristocratic organisation of the city,
contributed to the elevation, and also to the pride, of the
national character.
It will appear, I think, sufficiently evident, from these
considerations, that the circumstances of the Roman people




TIIE PAGAN EMPIRE.                183
tended inevitably to the production of a certain type of
character, which, in its essential characteristics, was the
type of stoicism. In addition to the predisposition which
leads men in their estimate of the comparative excellence of different qualities to select for the highest
eulogy those which are most congruous to their own
characters, this fact derives a great importance from the
large place which the biographical element occupied in'
ancient ethical teaching.  Among Christians the ideals
have commonly been either supernatural beings or men
who were in constant connection with supernatural beings,
and these men have usually been either Jews or saints,
whose lives had been of such a nature as to isolate them
from most human sympathies, and to efface as far as
possible the national type.  Among the Greeks and
RBomans the examples of virtue were usually their own
fellow-countrymen; men who had lived in the same
moral atmosphere, struggled for the same ends, acquired
their reputation in the same spheres, exhibited in all
their intensity the same national characteristics as their
admirers. History had assumed a didactic character it
has now almost wholly lost. One of the first tasks of
every moralist was to collect traits of character illustrating the precepts he enforced.  Valerius Maximus represented faithfully the method of the teachers of antiquity
when he wrote his book giving a catalogue of different
moral qualities, and illustrating each by a profusion of
examples derived from  the history of his own or of
foreign nations.'Whenever,' said Plutarch,'we begin
an enterprise, or take possession of a charge, or experience a calamity,- we place before our eyes the example
of the greatest men of our own or of bygone ages, and
we ask ourselves how Plato or Epaminondas, Lycurgus
or Agesilaus, would have acted. Looking into these




184         HISTORY OF'EUROPEAN MORALS.
personages as into a faithful mirror, we can remedy our
defects in word or deed..... Whenever any perplexity
arrives, or any passion disturbs the mind, the student of
philosophy pictures to himself some of those who have
been celebrated for their virtue, and the recollection sustains his tottering steps and prevents his fall.' 1
Passages of this kind continually occur in the ancient
moralists,2 and they show  how naturally the highest type
of national excellence determined the prevailing school
of moral philosophy, and also how the influence of the
heroic period of national history would act upon the
best minds in the subsequent and wholly different phases
of development.  It was therefore not surprising that
during the empire, though the conditions of national life
were profoundly altered, stoicism  should still be the
philosophical religion, the great source and regulator of
moral enthusiasm.  Epicureanism   had  indeed  spread
widely in the empire,3 but it proved little more than a
principle of disintegration or an apology for vice, or at
best the religion  of tranquil and indifferent natures
animated by no strong moral enthusiasm.  It is indeed
true that Epicurus had himself been a man of the most
blameless character, that his doctrines were at first carefully distinguished from  the coarse sensuality  of the
Cyrenaic school which had preceded them, that they admitted in theory almost every form  of virtue, and that
the school had produced many disciples who, if they had
not attained the highest grades of excellence, had at least
1 De Profectibus in V't. It was originally the custom at Roman feasts
to sing to a pipe the actions and the virtues of the greatest men. (Cie.
Tusc. Qucest. iv.)
2 See for examples Epictetus, Eacli. lii. Seneca is full of similar exhortations.
3 According to Cicero, the first Latin work on philosophy was by the
Epicurean Amafanius. (Tusc. Qu.,st. iv.)




THE PAGAN  EMPIRE.                        185
been men  of harmless lives, intensely devoted  to their
master, and  especially noted  for the warmth  and constancy of their friendships.1   But a school which placed
so high a value on ease and pleasure was eminently unfit
to struggle against the fearful difficulties that beset the
teachers of virtue amid the anarchy of a military despotism,
and the virtues and the vices of the Rotomans were alike fatal
to its success.  All the great ideals of Roman excellence
belonged to a different type.  Such men as a Decius or a
Regulus would have been impossible in an Epicurean society,
for even if their actuating emotion was no nobler than a
desire for posthumous fame, such a desire could never
grow powerful in a moral atmosphere charged with the
shrewd, placid, unsentimental utilitarianism. of Epicurus.
On the other hand, the  distinctions the Epicureans had
drawn between more or less refined pleasures and their
elevated conceptions of what constitutes the true happiness of men, were unintelligible to the Romans, who knew
how  to sacrifice enjoyment, but who, when pursuing it,
gravitated naturally to the coarsest forms.  The mission
1 On the great perfection of the character of Epicurus, see his life by
Diogenes Laertius, and on the purity of the philosophy he taught and the
degree in which it was distorted and misrepresented by his Roman followers,
Seneca,.De Fitca B2eatc, c. xii. xiii. and.Ep. xxi. Gassendi, in a very interesting little work entitled Pkhilosoplice Epicur-i Syntagma, has abundantly
proved the possibility of uniting Epicurean principles with a high code
of morals. But probalbly the llost beautiful picture of the Epicurean
system is the first book of the -De Finzibs, in which Cicero endeavours to
paint it as it would have been painted by its adherents. When we remember that the writer of this book was one of the most formidable and
unflinching opponents of Epicureanism in all the ancient world, it must be
owned that it would be impossible to find a grander example of that noble
love of truth, that sublime and scrupulous justice to opponents, which was
the pre-eminent glory of ancient philosophers, and which, after the destruc-,tion of philosophy, was for many centuries almost unknown in the world.
It is impossible to doubt that Epicureanism was logically compatible with
a very nigh degree of virtue. It is, I thinkl equally impossible to doubt
that its practical tendency was to vice.




186        HISTOiRY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
of Epicureanism  was therefore chiefly negative.  The
anti-patriotic tendency of its teaching contributed to that
destruction of national feeling which was necessary tothe rise of cosmopolitanism, while its strong opposition to
theological beliefs, supported by the genius and enthusiasm of Lucretius, told powerfully upon the decaying
faith.
Such being the functions of Epicureanism, the constructive or positive side of ethical teaching devolved almost
exclusively upon Stoicism; for although there were a few
philosophers who expressed themselves in strong opposition to some portions of the stoical system, their efforts
usually tended to no more thani a modification of its
extreme and harshest features.  The Stoics asserted two
cardinal principles —that virtue was the sole legitimate
object to be aspired to, and that it involved so complete
an ascendancy of the reason as altogether to extinguish
the affections.  The Peripatetics and many other philosophers, who derived their opinions chiefly from Plato,
endeavoured to soften down the exaggeration of these
principles.  They admitted that virtue was an object
wholly distinct from interest, and that it should be the
leading motive of life; but they maintained that happiness was also a good, and a certain regard for it legitimate.
They admitted that virtue consisted in the supremacy of
the reason over the affections, but they allowed the
exercise of the latter within restricted limits.  The main
distinguishing features, however, of stoicism, the unselfish
ideal and the controlling reason, were acquiesced in, and
each represents an important side of the ancient conception
of excellence which we must now proceed to examine.
In the first we may easily trace the intellectual expression of the high spirit of self-sacrifice which the
patriotic enthusiasm had elicited. The spirit of patriotism




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.               187
has this peculiar characteristic, that while it has evoked
acts of heroism which are both very numerous and very
sublime, it has done so without presenting any prospect
of personal immortality as a reward.  Of all the forms of
human heroism, it is probably the most unselfish. The
Spartan and the Roman died for his country because he
loved it. The martyr's ecstacy of hope had no place in
his dying hour. He gave up all he had, he closed his
eyes, as he believed, for ever, and he asked for no reward
in this world or in the next. Even the hope of posthumous fame-the most refined and supersensual of all that
can be called reward-could exist only for the most conspicuous leaders. It was examples of this nature that
formed the culminations or ideals of ancient systems of
virtue, and they naturally led men to draw a very clear
and deep distinction between the notions of interest and
of duty. It may indeed be truly said, that while the conception of what constituted duty was often very imperfect
in antiquity, the conviction that duty, as distinguished
from  every modification of selfishness, should be the
supreme motive of life, was more clearly enforced among
the Stoics than in any later society.
The reader will probably have gathered fiom the last
chapter that there are four distinct motives which moral
teachers may propose for the purpose of leading men to
virtue. They may argue that the disposition of events is
such that prosperity will attend a virtuous life, and adversity a vicious one —a proposition they may prove by
pointing to the normal course of affairs, and by asserting
the existence of a special Providence in behalf of the
good in the present world, and of rewards and punishments in the future. As far as these latter arguments are
concerned, the efficacy of such teaching rests upon the
firmness with which certain theological tenets are held,




188          HISTORY  OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
while the force of the first considerations will depend upon
the degree and manner in which  society is organised, for
there are undoubtedly some conditions of society in which
a perfectly upright life has not even a general tendency
to prosperity. The peculiar circumstances and dispositions of individuals will also influence largely the way in
which  they receive such  teaching, and, as  Cicero  observed,' what one utility has created, 6tnother will often
destroy.'
They may argue; again, that vice is to the mind what
disease is to the body, and that a state of virtue is in consequence a state  of health.   Just as bodily  health  is
desired for its own sake, as being the absence of a painful,
or at least displeasing state, so a well-ordered and virtuous
mind may be valued for its own sake, and indlependently
of all the external good to which it may lead as being a
condition of happiness; and a mind distracted by passion
and vice may be avoided, not so much because it is an
obstacle in the pursuit of prosperity, as because it is in
itself essentially painful and disturbing.  This conception
of virtue and vice as states of health or sickness, the one
being in itself a good, and the other in itself an evil, was
a fundamental proposition in the ethics of Plato.'  It was
Mr. Grote gives the following very clear summary of Plato's ethical
theory, which he believes to be original:-' Justice is in the mind a
condition analogous to good health and strength in the body. Injustice is
a condition analogous to sickness, corruption, impotence in the body...
To possess a healthy body is desirable for its consequences as a means
towards other constituents of happiness, but it is still more desirable in
itself as an essential element of happiness per se, i.e., the negation of sickness,
which would of itself make us miserable.... In like manner, the just mind
blesses the possessor twice: first and chiefly by bringing  to him happiness
in itself; next, also, as it leads to ulterior happy results. The unjust mind
is a curse to its possessor in itself, and apart from results, though it also
leads to ulterior results which render it still more a curse to him.'-Grote's
Plato, vol. iii. p. 131. Plutarch, says Aristo of Chio, defined virtue as' the
health of the soul.' (De Virtute Morali.)




TIlE PAGAN EMPIIRE.                  189
admitted, but only to a subsidiary place, by the Stoics,1
and has passed more or less into  all the succeeding
systems.  It is especially favourable to large and elevating conceptions of self-culture, for it leads men to dwell
much less upon isolated acts of virtue or vice than upon
the habitual condition of mind from which they spring.
It is possible, in the third place, to argue in favour of
virtue by offering as a motive that sense of pleasure which
follows the deliberate performance of a virtuous act.
This emotion is a distinct and isolated gratification following a distinct action, and may therefore be easily
separated from  that habitual placidity of temper which
results from  the extinction of vicious and perturbing
impulses.  It is this theory  which  is implied in  the
common exhortations to  enjoy' the  luxury of doing
good,' and though especially strong in acts of benevolence, in which case sympathy  with  the happiness
created intensifies the feeling, this pleasure attends every
kind of virtue.
These three motives of action have all this common
characteristic, that they point as their ultimate end to
the happiness of the agent.  The first seeks that happiness in external circumstances; the second and third in
psychological conditions. There is, however, a fourth
kind of motive which ml-ay be urged, and which is the
peculiar characteristic of the intuitive school of moralists
and the stumblingblock of its opponents. It is asserted that
we are so constituted, that the notion of duty furnishes in
itself a natural motive of action of the highest order, and
wholly distinct from all the refinements and modifications
of self-interest.  The  coactive force of this motive is
1'Beata est ergo vita conveniens naturse sum; quae non aliter contingere
potest quam si prinium sana mens est et in perpetua possessione sanitatis
sue.'-Seneca, De Vita  Beata, c. iii.




190         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
altogether independent of surrounding circumstances, and
of all forms of belief.  It is equally true for the man who
believes and for the man who rejects the Christian faith, for
the believer in a future world and for the believer in the
mortality of the soul.  It is not a question of happiness
or unhappiness, of reward or punishment, but of a generically different nature.  Men feel that a certain course
of life is the natural end of their being, and they feel
bound, even at the expense of happiness, to pursue it.
They feel that certain acts are essentially good and noble,
and others essentially base and vile, and this perception
leads them to pursue the one and to avoid the other, irrespective of all considerations of enjoyment.
I have recurred to these distinctions, which were more
fully discussed in the last chapter, because the school of
philosophy we are reviewing furnishes the most perfect of
all historical examples of the power which the higher of
these motives can exercise over the mind. The coarser
forms of self-interest were in stoicism  absolutely condemned. It was one of the first principles of these philosophers that all things that are not in our power should
be esteemed indifferent; that the object of all mental
discipline should be to withdraw the mind from  all the
gifts of fortune, and that prudence must in consequence
be altogether excluded from the motives of virtue.  To
enforce these principles they continually dilated upon the
vanity of human things, and upon the majesty of the independent mind, and they indulged, though scarcely more
than other sects, in many exaggerations about the impassive tranquillity of the sage.1  In the Roman empire
1 The famous paradox that'the sage could be happy even in the bull
of Phalaris,' comes from the writings not of Zeno but of Epicurusthough the Stoics adopted andl greatly admired it. (Cic. Tusc. ii. See
Gassendi, PIilos. jElicuuri S/zntagnma, pars iii. c. 1.)




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                 191
stoicism flourished at a period which, beyond almost any
other, seemed most unfavourable to such teaching. There
were reigns when, in the emphatic words of Tacitus,'virtue was a sentence of death.' In no period* had
brute force more completely triumphed, in none was the
thirst for material advantages more intense, in very few
was vice more ostentatiously glorified. Yet in the midst
of all these circumstances the Stoics taught a philosophy
which was not a compromise, not an attempt to moderate
the popular excesses, but which in its austere sanctity
was the extreme antithesis of all that the prevailing
examples and their own interests could dictate.  And
these men were no impassioned fanatics, fired withi the
prospect of coming glory.  They were men from whose
motives of action the belief in the immortality of the soul
was resolutely excluded.  In the scepticism that accompanied the first introduction of philosophy into Rome, in
the dissolution of the old fables about Tartarus and the
Styx, and the dissemination of Epicureanism among the
people, this doctrine, notwithstan'ding the beautiful reasonings of Cicero and the religious faith of a few  who
clung like Plutarch to the mysteries in which it was perpetuated, had sunk very low.  An interlocutor in Cicero
expressed what was probably a common feeling, when he
acknowledged that, with the writings of Plato before him,
he could believe and realise it; but when he closed the
book, the reasonings seemed to lose their power, and the
world of spirits grew pale and unreal.1  If EnniuLs could
elicit the plaudits of a theatre when he proclaimed that
the gods took no part in human affairs, Cmsar could assert'1 Sed nescio quomodo dumr lego assentior; cum posui librum et mecum:
ipse de immortalitate animorum coepi cogitare, assensio omnis illa elabitur.'
-Cic. Tusc. i.
14




192          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
in the senate, without scandal and almost without dissent,
that death was the end of all things.  Pliny,' perhaps the
greatest of all the Roman  scholars, adopting the sentiment of all the school of Epicuirus, describes the belief in
a future life as a form  of madness, a  puerile and a pernicious illusion.2  The opinions of the Stoics were wavering and uncertain.  Their first doctrine was that the soul
of man has a future and independent, but not an eternal
existence, that it survives until the conflagration that was
to  destroy the world, when all finite things would  be
absorbed in the all-pervading soul of nature. Clhrysippus,
however, restricted  to the best and  noblest souls this
future existence, which Cleanthes had awarded to all,8 and
among the Roman Stoics even this was greatly doubted.
The belief that the human soul is a detached fragment of
the Deity, naturally led to the belief that after death it
would be reabsorbed in the parent Spirit.  The doctrine
that there is no real good but virtue:deprived the Stoics
of the argument for a future world derived  from  unrequited merit and unpunished crimes, and the earnestness with which they contended that a good man should
act irrespectively of reward, inclined them, as it is said
to have inclined some Jewish thinkers,4 to the denial of
1 Sallust, CGtilina, cap. ii.
2 See that most impressive passage (Hist. Naf. vii. 56). The notion of
the sleep of annihilation as the happiest end of man is a favourite thought
Df Lucretius. Thus:'Neque igitur mors est
-Quancloquidem natura animi mortalis habetur.'-iii.
this mode of thought has been recently expressed in MIr. Swinburne's
very beautiful poem on The Garden of PProserpine.
3 Diog. Lairtius. The opinion of Chrysippus seems to have prevailed,
and Plutarch (De Tlacit. Philos.) speaks of it as that of the school. Cicero
sarcastically says,'Stoici autem usuraml nobis largiuntur tanquam cornicibus; diu miansuros aiunt animos, semper negant.' —Tusc. Disp. lib. i.
4 It has been very frequently asserted that Antigonus of Socho having
taught that virtue should be practised for its own sake, his disciple, Zadok,




TIlE  PAGAN  EMPIRE.                         193
the existence of the reward.'  Panxtius, the founder of
Roman  stoicism, maintained  that the soul perished with
the body,2 and  his opinion  was followed  by Epictetus3
and Cornutus.4   Seneca contradicted himself on the subject.5   Marcus Aurelius never rose beyond  a vague and
mournful aspiration.  Those  who  believed  in  a  future
world believed it faintly and uncertainly, and even when
they accepted it as a fact, they shrank from  proposing it
as a motive.   The whole system  of stoical ethics, which
carried  self-sacrifice  to  a  point that has scarcely  been
equalled, and exercised an influence which has rarely been
surpassed, was evolved without'any assistance from the
doctrine of a future life.6 Pagan antiquity has bequeathed
us few nobler treatises of mlorals than the' De Officiis' of
Cicero, which was avowedly an expansion of a work of
Panmtius.7   It has left us no grander example than that of
Epictetus,  the sickly, deformed slave of a master who was
notorious for his barbarity, enfranchised late in life, but
the founder of the Sadducees, inferred the non-existence of a future world;
but the evidence for this whole story is exceedingly unsatisfactory. The
reader may find its history in a very remarkable article by Mr. Twisleton
on Sadducees, in Smith's Biblical Dictionary.
1 On the stoical opinions about a future life see Martin, La Vie future
(Paris, 1858); Courdaveaux, De l'lmnortalitd de l'?me dacns le StocisnLe
(Paris, 1857); and Alger's C0ritical Hist. of the Doctrine of a Future Life
(New York, 1866).
2 His arguments are met by Cicero in the Tusculans.
3 See a collection of passages from his discouises collected by I. Courdaveaux, in the introduction to his French translation of that book.
4 Stobhus, Eclog. P/hysic. lib. i. cap. 52.
5 In his consolations to MIarcia, he seems to incline to a belief in the
immortality, or at least the future existence, of the soul. In many other
passages, however, he speaks of it as annihilated at death.
6'Les stoiciens ne faisaient aucunement dependre la morale de la perspective des peines ou de la remuneration dans une. vie future... La
croyance h l1immolrtalit de 1'ame n'appartenait done, selon leur maniere de
voir, qu'a la physique, c'est-h-dire a la psychologie.'-Degerando, list. de
la Philos. tome iii. p. 56.
7'Panetius igitur, qui sine controversin de ofllciis accuratissime disputavit, quemque nos, correctione quadam adhibita, potissimum secuti sumus.'
-De O0ic. iii. o.




194           HIISTORY  OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
soon driven into exile by Domitian, who, while sounding
the very abyss of human misery, and looking forward to
death as to simple decomposition, was yet so filled with
the sense of the Divine presence, that his life was one
continued hymn to Providence, and his writings and his
example, which appeared to his contemporaries almost the
ideal of human  goodness, have  not lost their consoling
power through all the ages and the vicissitudes they have
survived.'
There was, however, another form  of immortality which
exercised a much greater influence among  the  Roman
moralists.  The desire for reputation, and especially for
posthumous  reputation -that'last infirmity  of noble
minds'2 —assumed  an extraordinary prominence among
the springs of Roman heroism, and was also the origin
of that theatrical and  overstrained  phraseology which
the greatest of ancient moralists rarely escaped.3 But
we should be altogether in error if we inferred, as some
have done, that paganism  never rose to the conception
of virtue concealing itself firom  the world, and consenting
1 MarcUs Aurelius thanks Providence, as for one of the great blessings of
his life, that he had been made acquainted with the writings of Epictetus.
The story is well known how the old philosopher warned his master, who was
beating him, that he would soon break his leg, and when the leg was broken,
calmly remarked,'I told you you.t would do so.' Celsus quoted this in
opposition to the Christians, asking,'Did your leader under suffering ever
say anything so noble?'. Origen finely replied,'He did what was still
nobler —Ie kept silence.' A Christian anchorite (some say St. Nilus, who
lived in the beginning of the fifth century) was so struck with the Enchiridion of Epictetus, that he adapted it to Christian use.  The conversations of Epictetus, as reported by Arrian, are said to have been the
favourite reading of Toussaint l'Ouverture.
2 Tacitus had used, this expression before Milton:'Quando etiam sapientibus cnpido glorim novissima exuitur.' —list. iv. 6.
3 Two remarkable instances have come down to us of eminent writers
begging historians to adorn and even exaggerate their acts. See the very
curious letters of Cicero to the historian Lucceius (bL. cd -Divers. v. 12.);
and of the younger Pliny to Tacitus (Ep. vii. 33). Cicero has himself
confessed that he was too fond of glory.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                     195
voluntarily to degradation.  No  characters were more
highly appreciated in antiquity than those of men who,
through a sense of duty, opposed the strong current of
popular favour; of men like Fabius, who consented for
the sake of their country to incur the reputation that
is'most fatal to a soldier;l of men like Cato, who remained unmoved among' the scoffs, the insults, and the
ridicule of an angry crowd.2  Cicero, expounding the
principles of stoicism, declared that no one has attained
to true philosophy who has not learnt that all vice
should be avoided,'though it were concealed from  the
eyes of gods and men,' 3 and that no deeds are more laudable than those which are done without ostentation, and far
from'the sight of men.4  The writings of the Stoics are
crowded with sentences to the same effect.'Nothing for
opinion, all for conscience.''lie who wishes his virtue
to be blazed abroad is not labouring for virtue but for
fame.' 6   No one is more virtuous than the man who.sacrifices the reputation  of a good  man  rather than
sacrifice his conscience.' 7' I do not shrink from praise,
but I refuse to make it the end and term  of right.' 8'If
you do anything to please men, you have fallen from
your estate.' 9'Even a bad reputation nobly earned is
pleasing.' 10'A great man is not the less great when he
lies vanquished and prostrate in the dust.' 11  Never forget
that it is possible to be at once a divine man, yet a man
unknown to all the world.' 12'That which is beautiful is
l' Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem
Non ponebat enim rumores ante salutem.'-Ennius.
2 See the beautiful description of Cato's tranquillity under insults. Seneca, De Ira, ii. 33; De Const. Sap. 1, 2.
3 De Offiiis, iii. 9.               4 Tusc. ii. 2t6,
5 Seneca, De Vit. Beat. c. xx.      6 Seneca, EPp. cxiii.
7 Seneca, Ep. lxxxi.                8 Perseus, Sat. i. 45-47.
9 Epictetus, Enchl. xxiii.         10 Seneca, De Ira, iii. 41.
I1 Seneca, Cons. ad Helv. xiii.'2 Marc. Aur. vii. 67.




198         HISTORY OF ETUROPEAN MORALS.
beautiful in itself; the praise of manl adds nothing to its
quality.' 1  Marcus Aurelius, following an example that
is ascribed to Pythagoras, made it a special object of
mental discipline, by continually meditating on death, and
evoking, by an effort of the imagination, whole societies
that had passed away, to acquire a realised sense of the
vanity of posthumous fame.  The younger Pliny painted
faithfully the ideal of stoicism when he described one of
his friends as a man' who did nothing for ostentation, but
all for conscience; who sought the reward of virtue in
itself, and not in the praise of man.' 2 Nor were the Stoics
less emphatic in distinguishing the obligation from  the
attraction of virtue.  It was on this point that they separated fronm the more refined Epicureans, who were often
willing to sublimate to the highest degree the kind of
pleasure they proposed as an object, provided only it
were admitted that pleasure is necessarily the ultimate
end of our actions.  But this the Stoics firmly denied.'Pleasure,' they arguedc,'is the companion, not the guide,
of our course.' 3'We do not love virtue because it gives
us pleasure, but it gives us pleasure because we love it.' 4
The wise man will not sin, though both gods and men
should overlook the deed, for it is not through the fear of
punishmelt or of shanme that he abstains from  sin.  It is
from the desire and obligation of what is just and good.' 5' To ask to be paid for virtue is as if the eye demanded a
recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking.'6   In
doing good, man' should be like the vine which has produced grapes, and asks for nothing more after it has pro1 iMarc. Aur. iv. 20.           2 Pliny, Ep. i. 22.
3  Non dux, sed comes voluptas.' —Seneca, De Fit. Beat. c. viii.
4'Voluptas non est merces nec causa virtutis sed accessio; nec quia delectat placet sed quia placet delectat.'-Ibid. c. ix.
5 Perigrinus apud Aul. Gellius, xii. 11. Perig-rinus was a Cynic, but his
doctrine on this point was identical with that of the Stoics.
6 Marc. Aurel. ix. 42.




THE PAGAN EMsPIRE.                197
duced its proper fruit.'l  IHis end, according to these
teachers, is not to find peace either in life or in death.
It is to do his duty, and to tell the truth.
The second distingouishinc feature  of stoicism I have
noticed was the complete suppression of the affections to
make way for the absolute ascendency of reason.  There
are two great divisions of character corresponding very
nearly to the stoical and epicurean temperaments I have
described-that in which the will predominates, and that
in which the desires are supreme.i A good, man of the
first class is one whose will, directed by a sense of
duty, pursues the course he believes to be right, in spite
of strong temptations to pursue an opposite course, arising
either fiom  his own passions and tendencies, or from
the circumstances that surround him.  A good man of
the second class is one who is so happily constituted
that his sympathies and desires instinctively tend to virtuous ends.  The first chariacter is tlhe only one to which
we can, strictly speaking, attach the idea of merit, and it
is also the only one which is capable of rising to high
efforts of continuous and heroic self-sacrifice; but on the
other h and there is a charm in the spontaneous action of
the unforced desires which disciplined virtue can perhaps
never attain.  The man who is consistently generous
through a sense of duty, when his natural temperament
impels him to avarice, and when every exercise of benevolence causes him  a pang, deserves in the very highest
degree our admiration; but he whose generosity costs him
no effort, but is the natural gratification of his affections,
attracts a far larger measure of our love. Corresponding to
these two casts of character, we find two distinct theories
of education, the aim of the one being chiefly to strenglthen
the will, and that of the other to guide the desires.  The
I Mlarc. Aurel. v. 6.




198          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
principal examples of the first are the Spartan and stoical
systems of antiquity, and, with some modifications, the
asceticism of the middle ages. The object of these systems
was to enable men to endure pain, to repress manifest
and  acknowledged desires, to relinquish enjoyments, to
establish  an absolute empire over their emotions.   On
the other hand, there is a method of education which
was never more prevalent than in the present day, which
exhausts its efforts in making virtue attractive, in associating  it with  all the charms of imagination  and  of
prosperity, and in thus insensibly drawing the desires in
the wished for direction. As the first system is especially
suited to a disturbed and military society, which requires
and elicits strong efforts of the will, and is therefore the
special sphere of heroic virtues, so the latter belongs
naturally to a tranquil and highly organised civilisation,
which is therefore very favourable to the amiable qualities,
and it is probable that as civilisation advances, the heroic
type will, in consequence, become more and more rare,
and a kind  of self-indulgent goodness more common.
The circumstances of the ancient societies led them  to the
former type, of which the Stoics furnished the extreme
expression in their doctrine, that the affections are of the
nature of a disease1- a doctrine which they justified by the
same kind of arguments as those which are now  often
employed by metaphysicians to prove that love, anger and
Seneca, however, in one of his letters (Ep. lxxv.), subtilises a good
deal on this point. lie draws a distinction between affections and maladies.
The first, he says, are irrational, and therefore reprehensible, movements of
the soul, which if repeated and unrepressed, tend to form an irrational and
evil habit, and to this last he in this letter restricts the term disease. He
illustrates this distinction by observing that colds and any other slight
ailments, if uncheclred and neglected, may produce an organic disease.
The wise man, he says, is wholly free from moral disease, but no man can
completely emancipate himself from affections, though he should make this
his constant object.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                 199
the like, call only be ascribed by a figure of speech to
the Deity. Perturbation, they contended, is necessarily
imperfection, and none of its forms can in consequence
be ascribed to a perfect being. We have a clear intuitive
perception that reason is the highest, and should be the
directing, power of an intelligent being; but every act
which is performed at the instigation of the emotions is
withdrawn from the empire of reason. Hence it was inferred that while the will should be educated to act
habitually in the direction of virtue, even the emotions
that seem most fitted to second it should be absolutely
proscribed.  Thus Seneca has elaborated at length the
distinction between clemency and pity, the first being
one of the highest virtues, and the latter a positive vice.
Clemency, he says, is an habitual disposition to gentleness
in the application of punishments.  It is that moderation
which remits something of an incurred penalty, it is the
opposite of cruelty, which is an habitual disposition to
rigour.  Pity, on the other hand, bears to clemency the
same kind of relation as superstition to religion. It is
the weakness of a feeble mind that flinches at the sight
of suffering.  Clemency is an act of judgment,' but pity
disturbs the judgment.  Clemency adjudicates upon the
proportion between suffering and guilt.  Pity contemplates only suffering, and gives no thoughts to its cause.
Clemency, in the midst of its noblest efforts, is perfectly
passionless; pity is unreasoning emotion. Clemency is
an essential characteristic of the sage, pity is only suited
for weak women and for diseased minds.' The sage will
console those who weep, but without weeping uwith them;
he will succour the shipwrecked, give hospitality to the
proscribed, and alms to the poor,... restore the son
to the mother's tears, save the captive from  the arena,
and even bury the criminal; but in all his mind and




200        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
his countenance will be alike untroubled.  He will feel
no pity. He will succour, he will do good, for he is born
to assist his fellows, to labour for the welfare of mankind,
and to offer to each  one' his part.... His countenance
and his soul will betray no emotion as he looks upon
the withered  legs, the  tattered rags, the bent and
emaciated frame of the beggar. But he will help those
who are worthy, and, like the gods, his leaning will be
towards the wretched.... It is only diseased eyes that
grow moist in beholding tears in other eyes, as it is no
true sympathy, but only weakness of nerves, that leads
some to laugh always when others laugh, or to yawn
when others yawn.'l
Cicero, in a sentence which might be adopted as the
motto of stoicism, said that Homer'attributed human
qualities to the gods; it would have been better to have
imparted divine qualities to men.' The remarkable passa ge
I have just cited serves to show the extremes to which the
Stoics pushed this imitation.  And indeed, if we compare
the different virtues that have flourished among Pagans and
Christians, we invariably find that the prevailing type of
excellence among the former is that in which the will and
judgment, and among the latter, that in which the emotions are most prominent.  Friendship rather than love,
hospitality rather than charity, magnanimity rather than
tenderness, clemency rather than sympathy, are the characteristics of ancient goodness. The Stoics, who carried the
suppression of the emotions farther than any other school,
laboured with great zeal to compensate the injury thus
done to the benevolent side of our nature, by greatly enlarging the sphere of reasoned and passionless philanthropy.
They taught, in the most emphatic language, the fraternity
1 De Clern. ii. 6. 7.




THE PAGAN EIPIRE.                        201
of all men, and the consequent duty of each man consecrating his life to the welfare of others.  They developed
this general doctrine in a series of detailed precepts, which,
for the range, depth, and beauty of their charity, have
never been surpassed.  They even extended their compassion to crime, and adopting the paradox of Plato, that
all guilt is ignorance,1 treated it as an involuntary disease,
and declared that the only legitimate ground of punishment is prevention.2   But however fully  they  might
recognise in theory their principles with the widest and
most active benevolence, they could not wholly counteract the practical evil of a system  which  declared war
against the whole emotional side of our being, and reduiced human  virtue  to  a  kind  of majestic  egotism;
proposing as examples such men  as Anaxagoras, who
when told that his son had  died, simply observed,'I
never supposed that I had  begotten  an  immortal,' or
as Stilpo, who when his country had been ruined, his
native city captured, and his daugl-hters carried away as
slaves or as concubines, boasted that he had lost nothing,
for the sage is independent of circumstances.3  The framework or theory of benevolence might be there, but the
animating spirit was absent.  MAen who taught that the
husband or the father should look with perfect indifference onl the death of his wife or his child, and that the
1'Peccantes vero quid habet cur oderit cuml error illos in hujusmodi
delicta compellat.'-Sen. De Ira, i. 14. This is a favourite thought of Marcus Aurelius, to which he reverts again and again. See, too, Arrian, i. 18.
2'Ergo ne homini quidem nocebimus quia peccavit sed ne peccet, nec
unquam ad prmteritum sed ad futurum pcena referetur.' —Ibid. ii. 31. In
the philosophy of Plato, on the other hand, punishment was chiefly expiatory and purificatory. (Lerminier, Introd. a li'listoire dut D}roit, p. 123.)
3 Seneca, De Constant. Sap. v. Compare and contrast this famous sentence
of Anaxagoras with that of one of the early Christian hermits. Some one
told the hermit that his father was dead.' Cease your blasphemy,' he
answered;'my father is immortal.'-Socrates, Eccl. HTist. iv. 23.




202          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
philosopher, though he may shed tears of pretended sympathy in order to console his suffering friend, must suffer
no real emotion to penetrate his breast,l could never
found a true or lasting religion of benevolence.   Men
who refused to recognise pain and sickness as evils were
scarcely likely to be very eager to relieve them in others.
In truth, the Stoics, who taught that all virtue was conformity to nature, were, in this respect, eminently false to
their own principle.  Human nature, as revealed to us by
reason, is a composite thing, a constitution of many parts
differing in kind and dignity, a hierarchy in which many
powers are intended to co-exist, but in different positions
of ascendency or subordination.   To make the higher
part of our nature our whole nature is not to restore but
to mutilate humanity, and this mutilation has never been
attempted  without producing grave evils.   As philanthropists, the Stoics, through their passion for unity, were
led to the extirpation of those emotions which nature
intended as the chief springs of benevolence.  As speculative philosophers, they were entangled by the same desire in a long train of pitiable paradoxes.   Their famous
doctrines that all virtues are equal, or, more correctly,
are the same, that all vices are equal, that nothing is
an evil which  does not affect our will, and that pain
and bereavement are, in consequence, no ills,2 though
partially explained away and frequently disregarded by
the Roman. Stoics, were yet sufficiently prominent to give
1 Epictetus, Esch. 16. 18.
2 The dispute about whether anything but virtue is a good, was, in
reality, a somewhat childish quarrel about words; for the Stoics, who indignantly denounced the Peripatetics for maintaining the affirmative, admitted
that health, friends, &'., should be sought, not as' goods' but as'preferables.' See along discussion on this uatter in Cicero (De Finib. lib. iii. iv.).
The stoical doctrine of the equality of all vices was formally repudiated by
Marcus Aurelius, who maintained (ii. 10) with Theophrastus, that faults
of desire were worse than faults of anger. The other Stoics, while dog



THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                        203
their teaching  something  of an unnatural and  affected
appearance. Prizing only a single object, and developing
only a single side of their nature, their minds became
narrow  and  their views  contracted.  Thus, while  the
Epicureans, urging men to study nature in order to banish
superstition, endeavoured to correct that ignorance  of
physical science which was one of the chief impediments
to  the progress of the ancient mind, the Stoics for the
most part disdained a study which was other than the
pursuit of virtue.'  While the Epicurean poet painted in
magnificent language the perpetual progress of mankind,
the Stoic was essentially retrospective, and exhausted his
strength in vain efforts to restore the simplicity of a by —
gone age.  While, too, the school of Zeno produced many
of the best and greatest men who have ever lived, it must
be acknowledlged that its records exhibit a rather unusual
number of examples of high professions falsified in action,
and of men who, displaying in some forms the most undoubted and transcendent virtue, fell in others far below
the average of mankind.  The elder Cato, who, though not
a philosopher, was a model of philosophers, was conspicuous
for his inhumanity to his slaves.2   Brutus was one of the
matically asserting the equality of all virtues as well as the equality of all
vices, in their particular judgments graduated their praise or blame much
in the same way as the rest of the world.
1 See Seneca (.Ep. lxxxix.). Seneca himself, however, has devoted a
work to natural history, but the general tendency of the school was certainly to concentrate all attention upon morals, and all, or nearly all the
great naturalists were Epicureans. Cicero puts into the mouth of the Epicurean the sentence,' Omnium autem rerum natura cognita levamur superstitione, liberamur mortis metu, non conturbamur ignoratione yerum' (De
Fin. i.); and Virgil expressed an eminently Epicurean sentin:ent in his
famous lines:-'Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Quique metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.'
2 Plutarch, Cato Major.




204        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
most extortionate usurers of his time, and several citizens of
Salamis died of starvation, imprisoned because they could
not pay the sum he demanded.l   No one eulogised more
eloquently the austere simplicity of life which stoicism
advocated than Sallust, who in a corrupt age was notorious for his rapacity.  Seneca himself was constitutionally
a nervous and timid man, endeavouring, not always with
success, to support himself by a sublime philosophy. He
guided, under circumstances of extreme difficulty, the
cause of virtue, and his death is one of the noblest
antiquity records; but his life was deeply marked by the
taint of flattery, and not free from the taint of avarice,
and it is unhappily certain that, after its accomplishment,
he lent his pen to conceal or varnish one of the worst
crimes of Nero.  The courage of Lucan failed signally
under torture, and the flattery which he bestowed upon
Nero, in his'Pharsalia,' ranks with the Epigrams of
Martial as probably the extreme limits of sycophancy to
which Ioman literature descended.
While, too, the main object of the Stoics was to popularise philosophy, the high standard of self-control they
exacted rendered their system exceedingly unfit for the
great majority of mankind, and for the ordinary condition
of affairs.  Life is history, not poetry.  It consists mainly
of little things, rarely illumnined by flashes of great heroism,
rarely broken by great dangers, or demanding great
exertions. A moral system, to govern society, must accommodate itself to common characters and mingled
motives. It must be capable of influencing natures that
can never rise to an heroic level.  It must tincture,
modify, and mitigate where it cannot eradicate or transform.  In Christianity there are always a few persons
seeking by continual and painful efforts to reverse or ex1 Cicero, Ad Attic. vi. 2.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                205
tinguish the ordinary feelings of humanity, but in the great
majority of cases the influence of the religious principle
upon the mind, though very real, is not of a nature to cause
any serious strain or struggle.  It is displayed in a certain
acquired spontaneity of impulse. It softens the character,
purifies and directs the imagination, blends insensibly with
the habitual modes of thought, and, without revolutionising, gives a tone and bias to all the forms of action.
[But stoicism was simply a school of heroes.  It recognised no gradations of virtue or vice.  It condemned
all emotions, all spontaneity, all mingled motives, all the
principles, feelings, and impulses upon which the virtue
of common men mainly depends. It was capable of
acting only on moral natures that were strung to the
highest tension, and it was therefore naturally rejected by
the multitude.
The central conception of this philosophy of selfcontrol was the dignity of man.  Pride, which looks
within, making man seek his own approbation, as distinguished from vanity, which looks without, and shapes its
conduct according to the opinions of others, was not
only permitted in stoicism, it was its leading moral agent.
The sense of virtue, as I have elsewhere observed, occupies in this system much the same place as the sense of
sin in Christianity.  Sin, in the conception of the ancients,
was simply disease, and they, deemed it the part of a wise
man to correct it, but not to dwell upon its circumstances.
In the many disquisitions which Epictetus and others
have left us concerning the proper frame of mind in
which man should approach death, repentance for past
sin has absolutely no place, nor do the ancients appear to
have ever realised the purifying and spiritualising influence it exercises upon the character. " And while the
reality of moral disease was fully recognised, while an




206        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
ideal of lofty and indeed unattainable excellence was continually proposed, no one doubted the essential excellence of human nature, and very few doubted the possibility of man acquiring by his own will a high degree of
virtue.  In this last respect there was a wide difference
between the teaching of the Roman moralists and of the
Greek poets.1  Homer continually represents courage,
anger, and the like, as the direct inspiration of Heaven.
2Eschylus, the great poet of fatalism, regards every
human passion as but a single link in the great chain
of causes forged by the inexorable will of Zeus.  There
are,, indeed, few  grander things in poetry than his
picture of the many and various motives that urged
Clytemnestra to the slaughter of Agamemnon-revenge
for her murdered daughter, love for  Egisthus, resentment at past breaches of conjugal duty, jealousy of
Cassandra, all blending in that fierce hatred that nerved
her arm against her husband's life; while above all this
tumult of passion the solemn song of Cassandra proclaimed that the deed was but the decree of Heaven,
the harvest of blood springing from  the seed of crime,
the accomplishment of the ancient curse that was destined
to cling for ever to the hapless race of Atreus. Before
the body of the murdered king, and in presence of the
wildest paroxysms of human passion, the bystanders
bowed their heads, exclaiming,' Zeus has willed itZeus the supreme Ruler, the god who does all; for what
can happen in the world without the will of Zeus?'
But conceptions of this kind had little or no place
in the philosophy of Rome.  The issue of human enter1 This contrast is noticed and largely illustrated by Ml. fAontee in his
interesting little work Le Stoi'cisme t Rome, and also by Legendre in his'?aite de 1'Optinion, ou Memoires pour servir a I'kistoire de Resprit humamn
(Venise, 1735).




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                       207
prises and the disposition  of the gifts of fortune were
recognised as under the control of Providence; but man
was master of his own  feelings, and  was capable  of
attaining such excellence that he.might even challenge
com nparison with the gods.  Audacious as such sentiments
may now  appear, they were  common to most schools
of Roman  moralists.'We  boast justly  of our own
virtue,' said the eclectic Cicero,' which we could not do
if we derived it from  the Deity and not from  ourselves.''All mortals judge that fortune is to be received from the
gods and wisdom from ourselves.' 1 The Epicurean Horace,
in his noblest ode, described the just man, confident in
his virtue, undaunted amid the crash of worlds, and he
tells us to pray only for those things which Jupiter gives
and takes away.'lHe gives life, he gives wealth; an
untroubled mind I secure for myself.'2'The calm  of a
mind blest in the consciousness of its virtue.' was the
expression of supreme felicity the Epicureans had derived
from thleir master.3   Lucretius, in a magnificent passage,
designates Epicurus as a god, and boasts that the popular
divinities dwindle into insignificance before him.  Ceres,
hle says, gave men corn, and Bacchus wine, but Epicurus
the principles of virtue.  Hercules conquered monsters,
Epicurus conquered vice.4'Pray,' said Juvenal,'for a
healthy mind  in a heajlthy body.  Ask for a brave soul
unscared by death....  But there are things you can
1' Atque hoc quidema omnes mortales sic habent... commoditatem prosperitatemlque vitte a diis se habere, virtutem autem nemo unquam acceptam
deo retulit. Nimirum recte. Propter virtutem eniml j ure laudamur et
virtute recte gloriamur. Quod non contingeret bi id donum a deo, lon a
nobis haberemus.'-Cicero, De 2Natt. Deor. iii. 36.
2 Ep.i. 18.
s Seneca, E1). lxvi.
4 Lucretius, v. It was a Greek proverb, that Apollo begat Esculapius
to heal the body, and Plato to heal the soul. (Legendre, Traite de 1' Opinion,
tome i. p. 197.)
15




208         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
give yourself.'l'Misfortune, and losses, and calumny,'
said Seneca,'disappear before virtue as the taper before
the sun.'2'In one point the sage is superior to God.
God owes it to His nature not to fear, but the sage
owes to himself.  Sublime condition! he joins the frailty
of a man to the security of a god.'3'Except for immortality,' he elsewhere writes,' the sage is like to God.'4'It is the characteristic of a wise man,' added Epictetus,'that he looks for all his good and evil from  himself. 5  As
far as his rational nature is concerned, he is in no degree
inferior to the gods.' 6
There were, however, other veins of thought exhibited
in stoicism  which greatly modified and sometimes positively contradicted this view of the relations of man to
the Deity.  The theology of the Stpoics was an ill-defined,
uncertain, and  somlewhat inconsistent Pantheism; the
Divinity was especially worshipped under the two aspects
of Providence and moral goodness, and the soul of man
was regarded as'a detached fragment of the Deity,' 7 or
as at least pervaded and accompanied by a divine energy.'There never,' said Cicero,'was a great man without
an inspiration from  on high.'8'Nothing,' said Seneca,'is closed to God.  He is present in our conscience.  He
intervenes in our thoughts.' 9'I tell thee, Lucilius,' he
elsewhere writes,'a  sacred spirit dwells withil us, the
1'Orandaum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano,
Forteml posee anitmurm mortis terrore carentern...
3Monstro, quod ipse tibi possis dare.' —Juvenal, Siat. x. 350.
M3arcus Aurelius recommends prayer, but only that we may be freed fiom
evil desires. (ix. 11.)
2 Seneca, Ep. lxvi.               3 Ibid. Ep. liii.
4 De Const. Sap. viii,             5 Ench. xlviii.
6 Arrian, i. 12.
7 Arrian, ii. 8. The same doctrine is strongly stated in Seneca,.Ep. xcii.
8 Cicero, De Nat. Deor. ii. 66.
9 Ep. lxxxiii. Somewhat similar sentiments are attributed to Thales and
Bion (Diog. Laert.).




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                   209
observer and the guardian of our good and evil deeds... To man is good without God.  Who save by Iis
assistance can rise above fortune?  Hie gives noble and.
lofty counsels.  A  God (what God I know not) dwells
in every good man.'1' Offer to the God that is in thee,'
said Marcus Aurelius,'a manly being, a citizen, a soldier
at his post ready to depart from life as soon as the
trumpet sounds.' 2' It is sufficient to believe in the Genius
who is within us, and to honour him by a pure worship.' 3
Passages of this kind are not unfrequent in Stoical
writings. A[ore commonly, however, virtue is represented
as a human act imitating God.  This was the meaning of
the Platonic maxim,' follow God,' which the Stoics continually repeated, which they developed in many passages
of the most touching and beautiful piety, and to which
they added the duty of the most,absolute and unquestioning submission to the decrees of Providence.  Their doctrine on this latter point harmonised well with their anti
pathy to the emotional side of our being.'To weep, to
complain, to groan, is to rebel;'4' to fear, to grieve, to be
angry, is to be a deserter.'5' iemember that you are
but, an actor, acting whatever part the Master has ordained. It may be short or it may be long. If He wishes
you to represent a poor man, do so heartily; if a cripple,
or a magistrate, or a private man, in each case act your
part with honour.' 6'Never say of anything that you have
lost it, but that you have restored it: your wife and child
die-you have restored them; your farm is taken from
you —that also is restored.  It is seized by an impious
1 PEp. xli. There are some beautiful sentiments of this kind in Plutarch's
treatise, De erea lN7uJinis Vidclicta. It was a saying of Pythagoras, that
we become better as we approach the gods.'
2 Marc. Aur. iii. 5.    -           3Marcus Aurelius.
4 Seneca, YPr/f. Nat. Qucest. iii.  -   Marc. Aur. x. 25.
6 Epict. Enlz. xvii.




210          hIISTORIY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
man.  What is it to you by whose instrumentality He
who gave it reclaims it.'"   God does not keep a good
man in prosperity; He tries, He strengthens him, He prepares him, for Himself.'2'Those whom  God approves,
whom He loves, He hardens, He proves, He exercises; but
those whom He seems to indulge and spare, He preserves
for future ills.'3  With a beautiful outburst of submissive
gratitude, Marcus Aurelius exclaims,' Some have said,
oh, dear city of Cecrops!-but thou, canst thou not say,
oh, dear city of Jupiter?... All that is suitable to
thee, oh, world, is suitable to me.'4
These passages, which might be indefinitely multiplied,
serve to show  how  successfully the Stoics laboured, by
dilating upon the conception of Providence, to mitigate the
arrogance which  one aspect of their teaching  unquestionably displayed.  But in this very  attempt another
danger was incurred, upon which a very large proportion
of the moral systems of all ages have been wrecked.  A
doctrine which thus enjoins absolute submission to the
decrees of Providence,5 which proscribes the affections,
and which represents its disciples as altogether independent of surrounding circumstances, would in most conditions of society have led necessarily to quietism, and proved
absolutely incompatible with active virtue. Fortunately,
however, in the ancient civilisations the idea of virtue bad
from  the earliest times been so indissolubly connected
with that of political activity, that the danger was for a
1 Epict. EZnclh. xi.              2 Seneca, De Prov. i.
3 Ibid. iv.                       4 i'arc. Aurel. ii. 2, 3.
5 The language in which the Stoics sometimes spolike of the inexorable
determination of all things by Providence would appear logically inconsistent with free will. In fact, however, the Stoics asserted the latter doctrine in unequivocal language, and in their practical ethics even exaggerated
its power. Aulus Gellius (Noct. Att. vi. 2) has preserved a passage in which
Chrysippus exerted his subtlety in reconciling the two things. See, too
Arrian, i. 17.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                      211
long period altogether avoided.  The state occupied in
antiquity a prominence in the thoughts of men, which it
never has attained in modern times.  The influence  of
patriotism thrilled through every fibre of moral and intellectual life.  The most profound philosophers, the purest
moralists, the most sublime poets, had been soldiers or
statesmen.  Hence arose the excessive predominance occasionally accorded to civic virtues in ancient systems of
ethics, and also not a few of their most revolting paradoxes. Plato advocated community of wives mainly on
the ground that the children produced would be attached
more exclusively to their country.1  Aristotle may be
almost said to have made the difference between Greek
and barbarian the basis of his moral code.  The Spartan
legislature was continually extolled as an ideal, as the
Venetian constitution by the writers of the seventeenth
century.  On the other hand, the contact of the spheres
of speculation and of political activity exercised in one
respect a very beneficial influence upon ancient philosophies.  Patriotism  almost always occupied a prominence
in the scale of duties, which forms a striking contrast to
the neglect or discredit into which it has fallen among
modern  teachers.  We do indeed  read of an  Anaxagoras pointing to Heaven as to his true country, and
pronouncing exile to be no evil, as the descent to the infernal regions is the same from  every land;2 but such
i We have an extremely curious illustration of this mode of thought in
a speech of Archytas of Tarentum on the evils of sensuality, which Cicero
has preserved. He considers the greatest of these evils to be that the vice
predisposes men' to unpatriotic acts.'Nullam capiitaliorem pestem quam
corporis voluptatem hominibus dicebat a natura datam..... line patrite
proditiones, hino rerum publicarum eversiones, hinc cure hostibs elan-.
destina colloquia nasci,' etc.-Cicero, De &nect. xiL
2 Diog. Laert. Anax.




212         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3MORALS.
sentiments, though not unknown among the Epicureans
and the Cynics, were diametrically opposed to the prevailing tone. Patriotism was represented as a moral duty,
and a duty of the highest order.  Cicero only echoed
the common opinion of antiquity in that noble passage,
in which he asserts that the love we owe our country is
even holier and more profound than that we owe our
nearest kinsman, and that he can have no claim to the
title of a good man who  even hesitates to die in its
behalf.1
A necessary consequence of this prominence of patriotism was the practical character of most ancient ethics.
We find, indeed, moralists often exhorting men to moderate their ambition, consoling them under political adversity, and urging that there are some circumstances under
which an upright man should for a time withdraw from
public affairs;2 but the general duty of taking part in
political life was emphatically asserted, and the vanity of
the quietist theory of life not only maintained, but somewhat exaggerated.  Thus Cicero declared that' all virtue
is in action.'3  The younger Pliny mentions that he once
lamented to the stoic Euphrates the small place which
his official duties left for philosophical pursuits; but
Euphrates answered that the discharge of public affairs
and the administration of justice formed a part, and the
most important part, of philosophy, for he who is so
engaged is but practising the precepts of the sclools.4
It was a fundamental maxim of the Stoics that humanity is
1 Cari sunt parentes, cari liberi, propinqui; familiares: sed omnes omnium
caritates patria una complexa est; pro qua quis bonus dubitet mortem oppetere si ei sit profuturus?' —De Offic. i. 17.
2 See Seneca, Consol. ad Jelviam and De Otio Sapcien.; and Plutarch, De
E,~xilio. The first of these works is the basis of one of the most beautiful
Compositions in the English language, Bolingbroke's Reftections on Exile.
3 De Officiis.                     4 Epist. i. 10.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.'213
a body in whicli each limb should. act solely and con-~
tinually with  a view  to the interests of the whole.
Marcus Aurelius, the purest mind of the sect, was for
nineteen years the active ruler of the whole civilised globe.
Thrasea, Helvidius, Cornutus, and a crowd of others who
had adopted stoicism  as a religion, lived, and in many
cases died, in obedience to its precepts, struggling for the
liberties of their country in the darkest hours of tyranny.
Men who had formed such highl conceptions of duty,
who had bridled so completely the tumult of passion,
and whose lives were spent in a calm  sense of virtue
and  of dignity, were little  likely to be assailed  by
the superstitious fears that are the nightmare of weaker
men.  The preparation for death was deemed one of the
chief ends of philosophy.'  The thought of a coming
change assisted the mind in detaching itself from  the
gifts of fortune, and the.extinction of all superstitious
terrors completed the type of self-reliant majesty which
stoicism  had chosen for its ideal.  But while it is certain that no philosophers expatiated upon death with a
grander eloquence, or met it with a more placid courage,
it can hardly be denied that their constant disquisitions
forced it into an unhealthy prominence, and somewhat
discoloured their whole view  of life.'The Stoics,' as
Bacon has said,'bestowed too much cost on death, and
by their preparations made it more fearful.'2  There is a
profound wisdom  in the maxims of Spinoza, that'the
proper study of a wise man is not how to die, but how to
live,' and that'there is no subject on which the sage
will think less than death.'3  A  life of active duty is
the best preparation for the end, and so large a part of
1'Tota enimn philosopl'lorunu vita, ut ait idern commentatio mortis est.'Cicero, Tuse. i.
2 Essay on Death.              3 Spinoza, EtAhis, iv. 67.




214         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN M3OPtALS.
the evil of death lies in its anticipation, that an attempt to
deprive it of its terrors by constant meditation almost
necessarily defeats its object, while at the same time
it forms an unnaturally tense, feverish, and tragical character, annihilates the ambition and entliusiasm  that are
essential to human progress, and not unfrequently casts a
chill and a deadness over the affections.
Among the many half-pagan legends that were connected with Irelancd during the middle ages, one of the
most beautiful is that of the islands of life and of death.
In a certain lake in Munster, it is said there were two
islands; into the first death could never enter, but age
and sickness, and the weariness of life, and the paroxysms
of fearful suffering were all known there, and they did
their work till the inhabitants, tired of their inmmortality,
learned to  look upon  the opposite island as upon a
haven of repose: they launched  their barks upon its
gloomy waters; they touched  its shore and they were
at rest.l
This legend, which is far more akin to the spirit of
paganism than to that of Christianity, and is in fact only
another form  of the myth of Tithonus, represents with
great fidelity the aspect in which death was regarded by
the exponents of stoicism.  There was much difference
of opinion and of certitude in the judgments of the ancient
philosophers concerning the future destinies of the soul,
but they were unanimous in regarding death simply as a
natural rest, and in attributing the terrors that were connected with it to a diseased imagination.  Death, they
said, is the only evil that does not afflict us when present.
I Camden. AMontalembert notices a similar legend as existing in Brittany
(ILes Moines d'Occiclent, tome ii. p. 287). Procopius (De Bello Goth. iv. 20)
says that it is impossible for men to live in the west of Britain, alnd that
the district is believed to be inhabited by thesouls of the dead.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                 215
While we are death is not, when death has come we are
not.  It is a false belief that it only follows, it also precedes, life. It is to be as we were before we were born.
The candle which has been extinguished is in the same
condition as before it was lit, and the dead man as
the man unborn.  Death is the end of all sorrow.  It
either secures happiness or ends suffering.  It frees the
slave from his cruel master, opens the prison doors, calms
the qualms of pain, closes the struggles of poverty. It is
the last and best boon of nature, for it frees man from all
his cares. It is at worst but the close of a banquet we
have enjoyed.  Whether it be desired or whether it be
shunned, it is no curse and no evil, but simply the resolution of our being into its primitive elements, the law of
our nature to which it is our duty cheerfully to conform.
Such were the leading topics that were employed in
that beautiful literature of' Consolations,' which the
academic Crantor is said to have originated, and which
occupies so large a place in the writings of Cicero,
Plutarch, and the Stoics.  Cicero, like all the school of
Plato, added to these motives a very firm  and constant
reference to the immortality of the soul. Plutarch held
the same doctrine with equal assurance, but he gave it a
much less conspicuous position in his'Consolations,' and
he based it not upon philosophical grounds, but upon the
testimonies of the oracles, and upon the mysteries of
]Bacchus.1  Among the Stoics the doctrine shone with a
faint and uncertain  light, and was seldom  or never
adopted as a motive.  But that which is most impressive
to a student who turns from the religious literature of
Christianity to tlhe pagan philosophies, is the complete
absence in the latter of all notion concerning the penal
1 In his De Si'a Numinis Vindicta and his Consolatio ad Uxorren




216         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
character of death. Death, according to Socrates,1 either
extinguishes life or emancipates it from  the thraldom  of
the body.  Even in the first case it is a blessing, in the
last it is the greatest of boons.'Accustom yourself,' said
Epicurus,' to the thought that death is indifferent; for
all good and all evil consist in feeling, and what is death
but the privation of feeling.'2' Souls either remain after
death,' said Cicero,'or they perish in death.  If they
remain they are happy; if they perish  they are not
wretched.' 3  Seneca, consoling Polybius concerning the
death of his brother, exhorts his friend to think,'if the
dead have any sensations, then my brother, let loose as it
were fronm a lifelong prison' and at last enjoying his liberty,
looks down from a loftier height on the wonders of nature
and on all the deeds of men, and sees more clearly those
divine things which he had so long sought in vain to
understand.  But why should I be afflicted for one who
is either happy or is nothing.  To lament the fate of one
who is happy is envy; to lament the fate of a nonentity
is mladness. 4
But while the Greek and Roman philosophers were on
this point unanimous, there was a strong opposing current
in the popular mind.  The Greek word for superstition
signifies literally' fear of the gods,' or dmnons, and the
philosophers sometimes represent the vulgar as shuddering at the thought of death, through dread of certain endless sufferings to which it would lead them. The Greek
mythology contains many fables on the subject.   The
early Greek vases occasionally represent scenes of infernal
I In the Plaedon. passin. See, too, Marc. Aurelius, ii. 12.
2 See a very striking letter of Epicurus quoted by Diogenes Laert. in his
life of that philosopher. Except a few sentences, quoted by other writers,
these letters were all that was known of the works of Epicurus, till the
recent discovery of one of his treatises at Herculaneum.
" Tusc. Queast. i.                4 Consol. ad Polyb. xxvii.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                     217
torments, not unlike those of medimval frescoes.1  The
rapture with which Epicureanism   was received, as liberating the human mind from the thraldom  of superstitious
terrors, shows how galling must have been the yoke.  In
the poem  of Lucretius, in occasional passages of Cicero
and other Latin moralists, above all, in the treatise of
Plutarch' On Superstition,' we may trace the deep impression these terrors had made upon the populace, even during
the later period of the republic, and during the empire.
To destroy them was represented as the highest function
of philosophy.  Plutarch denounced them  as the worst
calumny  against the Deity, as more  pernicious than
atheism, as the evil consequences of immoral fables, and
he gladly turned to other legends which taught a different
lesson.  Thus it was related that when, during a certain
festival at Argos, the horses that were to draw the statue
of Juno to the temple were detainedcl, the sons of t-he
priestess yoked themselves to the car, and their mother,
admiring their piety, prayed the goddess to reward them
with whatever boon was the best for man.  Her prayer
was answered —they sanl asleep  and  died.2   In  like
manner the architects of the great temple of Apollo at
Delphi prayed the god to select that reward which was
best.  The oracle told them in reply to spend seven days
in rejoicing, and on the following night their reward
would come.  They too died in sleep.3  The swan was
consecrated to Apollo because its dying song was believed to spring' from a prophetic impulse.4  The Spanish
1 MIaury, Rlist. cles Religions dce la Grece camtnque, tom. i. pp. 582-588. M.
Ravaisson in his MBemoir on Stoicism (Acad. des InSCeritions et B1elles-lettrcs,
tom. xxi.) has enlarged on the terrorism of paganism, but has, I think,
exaggerated it. PReligions which selected games as the natural form of
devotion can never have had any very alarming character.
2 Plutarch, Ad Apollonitum.                Ibid.
4 Cic. Tusc. Quezst. i.




218          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
Celts raised temples, and sang hymns of praise to death.1
No philosopher of antiquity ever questioned that a good
man, reviewing his life, might look upon it without shame
and even with positive complacency, or that the reverence with -which imen regard heroic deaths is a foretaste
of the sentence of the Creator. To this confidence may be
traced the tranquil courage, the complete absence of all
remorse, so conspicuous in the closing hours of Socrates,
and of innumerable others of the sages of antiquity. There
is no fact in religious history more startling than the radical change that has in this respect passed over the character of devotion.  It is said of Chilon, one of the seven
sages of Greece, that at the close of lhis career he gathered
his disciples around him, and congratulated himself that
in a long life he could recall but a single act that saddened  his dying hour.   It was that, in a perplexing
dilemma, he had allowed his love of a friend in some
slight degree to obscure his sense of justice.2  The writings
of Cicero in his old age are full of passionate aspirations
to a future world, unclouded by one regret or by one
fear.  Seneca died tranquilly, bequeathing to his friends'the most precious of his possessions, the image of his
life.' 3   Titus on his deathbed declared that he could
remember only a single act with which to reproachl  himself.4  On the last night in which Antoninus Pius lived,
the tribune came to ask for the pass-word of the nigrht.
1 Philost. Apoll. of Tyan. v. 4. Hence their passion for suicide which
Silius Italicus commemorates in lines which I think very beautifLul:-'Prodiga gens animre et properare facillima mortem,
Namque ubi transcendit florentes viribus animas
Impatiens mevi, spernit novisse senectam
Et fati modus in dextra est.'
Valerius Maximus (ii. vi. ~ 12) speaks of Celts who celebrated the birth of
men with lamentation, and their deaths with joy.
2 Aulus Gellius, Noctes, i. 3.      3 Tacitus, Alnnales, xv. 62.
4 Sueton. Titus, 10.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                       219
The dying emperor gave him'c quanimitas.' 1 Julian, the
last great representative of his expiring creed, caught up
the  same  majestic strain.  Amid the  curses of angry
priests, and the impending ruin of the cause he loved, he
calmly died in the consciousness of his virtue; and his
death, which is among the most fearless that antiquity
records, was the last protest of philosophic paganism
against the new doctrine that had arisen.2
It is customary with many writers, when exhibiting the
many points in which the ancient philosollphers anticipated
Christian ethics, to represent Christianity as if it were
simply a development or authoritative  confirmation  of
the highest teaching of paganism, or as if the additions
were at least of such a nature that there is but little doubt
that the best and purest spirits of the pagan world, had
they known them, would have gladly welcomed them.
But this conception, which  contains a large amount of
truth if applied to the teaching of many Protestants, is
either grossly exaggerated or absolutely false if applied to
that of the patristic period or of medimval Catholicism.
On the very subject which the philosophers deemed the
most important their unanimous  conclusion  was  the
extreme antithesis of the teaching of Catholicism.  The
philosophers taught that death is' a law and not a punishment;' 3 the fathers taught that it is a penal infliction introduced into the world on account of the sin of Adam,
I Capitolinus, Antoninus.
2 See the beautiful account of his last hours given by Ammianus Marcellinus and reproduced by Gibbon. There are some remiarks well worth
reading about the death of Julian, and the state of thought that rendered
such a death possible, in Dr. Newman's Discourses on University Education,
lect. ix.
3'Lex non pcena mors' was a favourite saying among the ancients. On
the other hand, Tertullian very distinctly enunciated the patristic view,'Qui
autem primordia hominis novimus, audenter determinamus morterm  non ex
natura secutamu hominem sed ex culpa.' —De Animan, 52.




220        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
which was also the cause of the appearance of all noxious
plants, of all convulsions in the material globe, and as
was sometimes asserted even of a diminution of the light
of the sun. The first taught that death was the end of
suffering; they ridiculed as the extreme of folly the notion
that physical evils could await those whose bodies had
been reduced to ashes, and they dwelt with emphatic
eloquence upon the approaching, and as they believed
final, extinction of superstitious terrors.  The second
taught that death to the vast majority of the human
race is but the beginning of endless and excruciating
tortures-tortures before which the most ghastly of terrestrial sufferings dwindle into insignificance-tortures
which no courage could defy-which none but an immortal being could endure.  The first represented man
as pure and innocent until his will has sinned; the
second represented him as under a sentence of condemnation at the very'moment of his birth.'No funeral
sacrifices,' said a great writer of the first school,'are
offered for children who die at an early age, and none
of the ceremonies practised at the funerals of adults are
performed at their tombs, for it is believed that infants
have no hold upon earth or upon terrestrial affections....
The law forbids us to honour them because it is irreligious
to lament for those pure souls who have past into a better
life and a happier dwelling-place.' 1'Whosoever shall
tell us,' said a distinguished exponent of the patristic
theology,' that infants shall be quickened in Christ who
die without partaking in His Sacrament, does both contradict the Apostle's teaching and condemn the whole
Church... And he that is not quickened in Christ
must remain in that condemnation of which the Apostle
speaks, "by one man's offence condemnation caine upon
1 Plutarch, Ad Uxorenm.




THE PAGAN ESMPIRE.          221
all men to condemnation.  To which condemnation infants are born liable as all the Church believes."' 1  The
one school endeavoured to plant its foundations in the
moral nature of mankind, by proclaiming that man can
become acceptable to the Deity by his own virtue, and
by this alone, that all sacrifices, rites, and forms are
indifferent, and that the true worship of God is the recognition and imitation of His goodness. According to the
other school, the most heroic efforts of human virtue are
insufficient to avert a sentence of eternal condemnation,
unless united with an implicit belief in the teachings of
the Church, and a due observance of the rites it enjoins.  By the philosophers the ascription of anger and
vengeance to the Deity, and the apprehension of future
torture at His hands, were unanimously repudiated; 2 by
the priests the opposite opinion was deemed equally censurable.3
These are fundamental points of difference, for they
relate to the fundamental principles of the ancient philosophy.' The main object of the pagan philosophers was
to dispel the terrors the imagination had cast around
death, and by destroying this last cause of fear to secure
the liberty of man.  The main object of the Catholic
priests has been to make death in itself as revolting and
appalling as possible, and by representing escape from
its terrors as hopeless, except by complete subjection to
their rule, to convert it into an instrument of government.
By multiplying the dancing or warning skeletons, and
1 St. Augustine, Epist. 166.
2  At hoc quidem commune est omniunm philosophorum non eorum modo
qui deum nihil haberd ipsum; negotii dicunt, et nihil exhibere alteri; sed
eorum etiam, qui deum semper agere aliquid et moliri volunt, numquam
nec irasci deum nee nocere.'-Cic. De C)ffic. iii. 28.
3 See the refutation of the philosophic notion in Lactantius, De Ira
Dei.




222         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
other sepulchral images representing the loathsomeness
of death without its repose; by substituting inhumation
for incremation, and concentrating the imagination on
the  ghastliness of decay; above all, by peopling the
unseen world with demon  phantoms and with  excruciating tortures, the Catholic Church succeeded in making
death in itself unspeakably terrible, and in thus preparing
men for the consolations it could offer.  Its legends, its
ceremonies, its art,' its dogmatic teaching, all conspired
to this end, and the history of its miracles is a striking
evidence of its success.  The great majority of superstitions have ever clustered around two centres-the fear of
death and the belief that every phenomenon of life is the
result of a special spiritual interposition.  Among the
ancients they were usually of the latter kind.  Auguries,
prophecies, interventions in war, prodigies avenging the
neglect of some rite  or marking  some epoch  in the
fortunes of a nation or of a ruler, are the forms they
usually assumed.  In the middle ages, although these were
very common, the most conspicuous superstitions took
the form  of visions of Purgatory or Hell, conflicts with
visible demons, or Satanic miracles.  Like those mothers
who govern their children bypersuading them that the dark
is crowded with spectres that will seize the disobedient,
and who often succeed in creating an association of ideas
that the adult man is unable altogether to dissolve, the
Catholic priests resolved to base their power upon the
nerves; and as they long exercised an absolute control
1'Revelation,' as Lessingo observes in his essay on this subject,'has made
Death "the king of terrors," the awful offspring of sin and the dread way to
its punishment; though to the imagination of the ancient heathen world,
Greek or Etrurian, he was a youthful genius-the twin brother of Sleep, or
a lusty boy with a torch held downwards.'-Coleridge's Biogralrlia littera'iad
cap. xxii. note by Sarah Coleridge.




THE PAGAN EMPIRPE.                 223
over education, literature, and art, they succeeded in
comlfletely reversing the teaching of ancient philosophy,
and in making the terrors of death for centuries the
nightmare of the imagination.
There is indeed another side to the picture.  The
vague uncertainty with which the best pagan regarded
death passed away before the teaching of the Church,
and it was often replaced by a rapture of hope, which,
however, the doctrines of purgatory contributed at a later
period largely to quell.  But whatever may be thought
of the justice of the Catholic conception of death or of
its influence upon human happiness, it is plain that it is
radically different from that of the pagan philosophers.
That nman is not only an imperfect but a fallen being,
and that death is the penal consequence of his sins, were
doctrines profoundly new to mankind, and they have exercised an influence of the most serious character upon the
moral history of the world.
The wide divergence of the classical from  the catholic conception of death appears very plainly in the attitude which each system  adopted towards suicide. This
is perhaps the most striking of all the points of contrast between the teaching of antiquity, and especially of
the Roman Stoics, on the one hand, and of almost all
modern moralists on the other.  It is indeed true that
the ancients were by no  means unanimous in their
approval of the act.  Pythagoras, to whom  so many of
the wisest sayings of antiquity are ascribed, is stated to
have forbidden men'to depart from their guard or station in life without the order of their commander, that is,
of God.'1  Plato adopted similar language, though he
1'Vetat Pythagoras injussu imperatoris, id est Dei, de prsesidio et statione
vitse decedere.'-Cic. De Senec. xx. If we believe the very ultrustworthy
16




224           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
permitted suicide when the law  required it, and also when
men had  been  struck  down by  intolerable  caiamity, or
had  sunk  to  the  lowest depths  of poverty.1   Aristotle
condemned it on civic grounds, as being an injury to the
state.2   The roll of Greek suicides is not long, though it
contains some illustrious names, among  others those  of
Zeno and Cleanthes.3 In Rome, too, where suicide acquired
a greater prominence, its lawfulness  was by no  means
accepted as an axiom.   The story of Regulus, whether it
be a history or a legend, shows that the patient endurance
of suffering was once the Roman  ideal.4   Virgil painted
in the darkest colours the condition  of suicides in  the
future world.5   Cicero  strongly asserted  the doctrine  of
Pythagoras, though  he  praised  the  suicide  of  Cato.6
Apuleius, expounding the philosophy of Plato, taught that'the wise man never throws off his body except by the
will of God.'7   Cxsar, Ovid, and  others  urged  that in
extreme  distress it is easy to despise  life, and  that true
evidence of Diog. Laertius, (Pythagoras) the philosopher himself committed
suicide by starvation.
I See his Lawvs, lib. ix. In his Picwedon, however, Plato went further, and
condemned all suicide. Libanius says (-De Vita Stn) that the arguments
of the Phcedon prevented him  from  committing suicide after the death of
Julian. On the other hand, Cicero mentions a certain Cleombrotus, who
was so fascinated by the proof of tlhe immortality of the soul in the Pkicedoz
that he forthwith cast himself into the sea. And Cato, as is well known,
chose this work to study the night he committed suicide.
2 Arist. Ethic. v.
3 See a list of these in Lactantius' Inst. lDi,. iii. 18. 3Iany of these
instances rest on very doubtful evidence.
4 Adam Smith's Mloracl Sentiments, part vii. ~ 2.
s'Proxima deinde tenent mcesti loca qui sibi lethum,
Insontes peperere manu, lucemcjue perosi
Projicere animas. Quam vellent,ethere in alto
Nunc et pauperiem et duros perferre labores.' —zeid,' i.; 434-7.
6 Cicero has noticed suicide in his De Senectute, in the Somn. Scipionis,
and in the Tusculans.  Concerning the death of Cato, he says, that the
occasion was such as to constitute a divine call to leave life. —Tusc. i.
7 Apuleius, )e zPhilos. Pclat. lib. i




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                           225
courage  is shown  in  enduring  it.'  Amongr the  Stoics
themselves, the belief that no man may  shrink  from  a
duty coexisted with the belief that every man has a right
to  dispose of his own  life.   Seneca, who  emphatically
advocated  suicide, admits  that there  were  some  who
deemed it wrong, and he himself attempted to moderate
what he termed' the passion for suicide' that had arisen
among his disciples.2   Marcus Aurelius wavers a little on
the subject, sometimes asserting the right of every man to
leave  life when  he pleases, sometimes inclining  to  the
Platonic doctrine that man is a soldier of God, occupying
a post which  it is criminal to abandon.3   Plotinus and
Porphyry argued strongly against all suicide.4
1 ThusOvid: —
R Pebus in adversis facile est contemnere vitaam
YFortiter ille facit qui miser esse potest.'
See, too, Martial, xi. 56.
2 Especially.E. xxiv. Seneca desires that men should not commit suicide with panic or trepidation.  He says that those condemned to death
should await their execution, for' it is a folly to die through fear of death;'
and he recommends men to support old age as long as their faculties remain unimpaired. On this last point, however, his language is somewhat
contradictory. There is a good review of the opinions of the ancients in
general, and of Seneca in particular, on this subject in Justus Lipsius, MImdEcatio ad Sooicam7 P/ilosopliaen, lib. iii. dissert. 22, 23, from which I have
borrowed much.
3 In his iecditations, ix. 3, he speaks of the duty of patiently awaiting
death. But in iii. 1, x. 8, 22-32, he clearly recognises the right of suicide
in some cases, especially to prevent moral degeneracy. It must be remem-.bered that the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius were private notes for his
personal guidance, that all the Stoics admitted it to be wrong to commit
suicide in cases where the act would be an injury to society, and that this
consideration in itself would be sufficient to divert an emperor from  the
deed. Antoninus, the uncle, predecessor, and model of M. Aurelius, had
considered it his duty several times to prevent Hadrian from committing
suicide (Spartianus, Hacdrianus). According to Capitolinus, 3arcus Aurelius
in his last illness purposely. accelerated his death by abstinence. The duty
of not hastily, or through cowardice, abandoning a path of duty, and the
right of man to quit life when it appears intolerable, are combined
very clearly by Epictetus, Arrian, i. 9; and the latter is asserted in the
strongest manner, i. 24-25.
4 Porphyry,5 De Abst. Carnis, ii. 47i Plotinus 1st Enn. ix. Porphyry




226          HISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
But notwithstanding  these passages, there can be no
question that the ancient view of suicide was broadly and
strongly opposed to our own. A general approval of it
floated down through most of the schools of philosophy,
and even to those who condemned it, it never seems to
have assumed its present aspect of extreme enormity. This
was  in  the first instance due to  the ancient notion  of
death; and we have also to remember, that when a society
once learns to tolerate suicide, the deed, in ceasing to be
disgraceful, loses much of its actual criminality, for those
who are most firmly convinced that the stigma and suffering it now brings upon the family of the deceased do not
constitute his entire guilt, will readily acknowledge that
they greatly aggravate it. In the conditions of ancient
thought, this aggravation  did  not exist.  Epicurus exhorted  men'to  weigh  carefully, whether they would
prefer  death  to  -come  to  them, or would  themselves
go to death;'  and among his disciples, Lucretius, the
-illustrious poet of the sect, died by his own hand,2 as
did also  Cassius the  tyrannicide, Atticus  the  friend  of
Cicero,3 the voluptuary Petronius,4 and the philosopher
says (LZfe of Ptlownts) that Plotinus dissuaded him from suicide. There is
a good epitome of the arguments of this school against suicide in Macrobius.
In Sorn. &Sip. i.
I Quoted by Seneca, Ep. xxvi. Cicero states the Epiculrean doctrine tc
be,'Ut si tolerabiles sint dolores feralilus, sin minus Tquo animo e vita
cum ea non placet tanquam e theatro exeamus' (Doe Finib. lib. i.); and
again,'De Diis immortalibus sine ullo metu vera sentit. Non dubitat si
ita melius est de vita migrare.'-Ibid.
2 This is inoticed by St. Jerome.
3 Corn. Nepos, Atticus. I-e killed himself when an old man, to shorten
a hopeless disease.
4 Petronius, who was called the arbitrator of tastes (I elegantie arbiter'),
was one of the most famous voluptuaries of the reign of Nero. Unlike most
of his contemporaries, however, he was endowed with the most exquisite
and refined taste; his graceful manners fascinated all about him, and made
him in matters of pleasure the ruler of the court. Appointed Proconsul of
Bithynia, and afterwards Consul, he displayed the energies and the abilitiei




THE PAGAN EMPIiRE.                         227
Diodorus.1   Pliny  declared  it to  be one of the  points
in which  the  lot of man  is superior to  that of God,
that man  at  least has  the  power  of  flying  to  the
tomb,2 and he described it as one of the greatest proofs
of the bounty  of Providence, that it has filled the world
with  herbs, by  which  the  weary  may  find  a  rapid
and a painless death.3   One of the most striking  figures
that a  passing  notice  of Cicero  brings  before  us, is
that of iHegesias, who was  surnamed  by  the  ancients'the orator of death.' A conspicuous member of that
Cyrenaic  school which  esteemed  the  pursuit of pleasure the  sole end of a  rational being, he taught that
life  was so  full of cares, and  its pleasure  so fleeting
and so alloyed, that the happiest lot for man was death;
and such was the power of his eloquence, so intense was
the  fascination  he cast around  the tomb, that his disciples embraced with rapture the consequence of his doctrine, multitudes freed  themselves by  suicide  from  the
troubles of the world,  and the contagion was so great,
that Ptolemy, it is said, was compelled to banish the philosopher from  Alexandria.4
of a statesman. A court intrigue threw him out of favour; and believing that
his death was resolved on, he determined to anticipate it by suicide. Calling his friends about him, he opened his veins, shut them, and opened them
again; prolonged his lingering death till he had arranged his affairs; discoursed in his last moments, not about the immortality of the soul or the
dogmas of philosophers, but about the gay songs and epigrams of the hour;
and partaking of a cheerful banquet, died as recklessly as lie had lived.
(Tacit. Annal. xvi. 18-19.)  It has been a matter of much dispute whether
or not this Petronius was the author of the Satyricon, one of the most
licentious and repulsive workls in Latin literature.,
1 Seneca, De Vita Beata, xix.
2'Imperfectce vero in homine natures prmcipua solatia ne Deum quidenm
posse omnia; namque nee sibi potest mortem  consciscere si velit, quod
homini dedit optimum in tantis vitm poenis.'-IIist. Nat. ii. 5.
3 Hist. _Nat. ii. 63. We need not be surprised at this writer thus speaking
of sudden death,' Mortes repentins (hoc est summa vitre felicitas),' vii. 54.
4 ITsc. Qutest. lib. i. Another remarkable example of an epidemic of
suicide occurred among the young girls of Miletus. (Azdl. Gell. xv. 10.)




228         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
1But it was in the Roman Empire and among the Roman
Stoics that suicide assumed its greatest prominence, and
its philosophy was most fully elaborated.  From  an early
period, self-immolation, like that of Curtius or Decius, had
been esteemed in  some  circumstances a religious rite,
being, as has been well suggested, probably a lingering
remnant of the custom of human sacrifices,1 and towards
the closing days of paganism  many influences conspired
in the same direction.  The example of Cato, who, as I
have said, was the ideal of the Stoics, and whose dramatic
suicide was the favourite subject of their eloquence,2 the
indifference to death produced by the great multiplication
of gladiatorial shows, the many instances of barbarian
captives, who, sooner than slay their fellow-countrymen,
or minister to the pleasures of their conquerors, plunged
their lances into their own necks, or found other and
still more horrible roads to freedom,3 the custom of compelling political prisoners to execute their own sentence,
and, more than all, the capricious and atrocious tyranny of
the Cmsars,4 had raised suicide into an extraordinary prominence.  Few  things are more touching than the passionate joy with which, in the reign of Nero, Seneca clung
to it as the one refuge for the oppressed and the wronged,
the last bulwark of the tottering mind.' To death alone it
is due that life is not a punishment, that, erect beneath
the frowns of fortune, I can preserve my mlind unshaken
1 Sir Cornewall Lewis, On the Credibility of Ecarly Roman  History, vol. ii.
p. 430. See, too, on this class of suicides, Cromaziano, Istorica C0'itica del
Staicidio (Venezia, 1788), pp. 81-82. The real name of the author of this book
(which is, I think, the best history of suicide) was Buonafede. He was a
monlr. The book was first published at Lucca in 1701.
2 Senec. De Provid. ii.; Ep. xxiv.
3 See some examples of this in Seneca, Ep. lxx.
4 See a long catalogue of suicides arising from this cause in Cromaziano,
Ist. del Suicidio, pp. 112-114.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                 229
and master of itself.  I have one to whom I can appeal.
I see before me the crosses of many forms.... I see
the rack and the scourge, and the instruments of torture
adapted to every limb and to every nerve; but I also see
Death. She stands beyond my savage enemies, beyond my
haughty fellow-countrymen.  Slavery loses its bitterness
when by a step I can pass to liberty. Against all the injuries
of life, I have the refuge of death.' 1' Wherever you look,
there is the end of evils. You see that yawning precipice
— there you may descend to liberty. You see that sea,
that river, that well-liberty sits at the bottom.... Do
you seek the way to freedom?-you may find it in every
vein of your body.'2' If I can choose between a death of
torture and one that is simple and easy, why should I not
select the latter?  As I choose the ship in which I will
sail, and the house I will inhabit, so I will choose the
death by which I will leave life..... In no matter more
than in death should we act according to our desire.
Depart from life as your impulse leads you, whether it
be by the sword, or the rope, or the poison creeping
through the veins; go your way, and break the chains of
slavery. Man should seek the approbation of others in
iris life; his death concerns himself alone.  That is the
best which pleases him most.... The eternal law has
decreed nothing better than this, that life should have but
one entrance and many exits.  Why should I endure the
agonies of disease, and the cruelties of human tyranny,
when I can emancipate myself from all my torments, and
shake off every bond?  For this reason, but for this
alone, life can be esteemned no just cause of complaintthat no one is obliged to live.  The lot of man is happy,
because no one continues wretched but by his fault.  If
Consol. ad Mal c. c. x.         De Ira iii. 15.




930           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
life pleases you, live.  If not, you have a right to return
whence you came.'1
These passages, which  are  but a few  selected  out of
very many, will sufficiently show the passion with which
the most influential teacher of Roman stoicism  advocated
suicide.  As a general proposition, the law  recognised it
as a right, but two slight restrictions were after a time
impbsed.2   It had  become  customary  with  many  men
who were accused of political offences to commit suicide
before trial, in order to prevent the ignominious exposure
of their bodies and  the confiscation  of their goods; but
Domitian  closed  this  resource, by  ordaining  that the
suicide of an accused  person should entail the sanme consequences as his condemnation.   Hadrian  afterwards assimilated  the  suicide of a Roman  soldier to  desertion.3
1 Ep. lxx.
2 See D)onne's Biathanatos (London, 1700), pp. 50- 57. Gibbon's Decline
and Fall, ch. xliv. Blackstone, in his chapter on suicide, quotes the sentence
of the Roman lawyers on the subject:' Si quis impatientia doloris aut tsedio
vitre aut morbo anut furore aut pudore nlori maluit non animadvertatur in
eum.' Ulpian expressly asserts that their wills were recognised by law, and
numerous examples of suicides, notoriously prepared and publicly and gradually accomplished, prove the legality of the act in Rome. Suetonius, it is
true, speaks of Claudius accusing a man for having tried to kill himself
(Claud. xvi.), and Xiphilin says (lxix. 8) that Hadrian gave special permission
to the philosopher Euphrates to commit suicide,  on account of old age and
disease;' but in the first case it appears from the context that a reproach and
not a legal action was meant while Euphrates, I suppose, asked permission to
show his loyalty to the emperor, and not as a matter of strict necessity. There
were, however, some Greek laws condemning suicide, probably on civic
grounds. Josephus mentions (De Bell. Jud. iii. 8), that in some nations'the
right hand of the suicide was amputated, and that in Judea the suicide wa,
only buried after sunset.' A very strange law, said to have been derived
from Greece, is reported to have existed at Marseilles. Poison was kept by
the senate of the city, and given to those who could prove that they had
sufficient reason to justify their desire for death, and all other suicide was
forbidden. The law was intended, it was said, to prevent hasty suicide, and
to makle deliberate suicide as rapid and painless as possible. (Valer. Maximus, ii. 6, ~ 7.) In the reign of Terror in France, a law was made similar
to that of Domitian. (Carlyle's Hist. qf the'French Revolution, book v. c. ii.)
3 Compare with this a  ccrious' order of the day,' issued by Napoleon in




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                       231
With these exceptions, the liberty appears to have been
absolute, and the  act was committed  under the most
various motives.  The suicide of Otho, who is said to
have killed himself to avoid being a second time a cause
of civil war, was extolled as equal in grandeur to that of
Cato.l  In the Dacian war, the enemy having captured
a distinguished Roman general named Longinus, endeavoured to extort terms from Trajan. as a condition of his
surrender, but Longinus, by taking  poison, freecd  the
emperor from his embarrassment.2  On the death of Otho,
some of his soldiers, filled with grief and admiration, killed
themselves before his corpse,3 as did also a freedman of
Agrippina at the funeral of the empress.4  Before the
close of the republic, an enthusiastic partisan of one of
the factions in the chariot races flung himself upon the
pile on which the body of a favourite coachman was consumed, and perished in the flames.5  A Roman, unmenaced
in his fortune, and  standing high in  the favour of his
sovereign, killed himself under Tiberius, because he could
not endure to witness the crimes of the emlpire.6  Another, being afflicted by an incurable malady, postponed
his suicide till the death of Domitian, that at least he
might die free, and on the assassination of the tyrant,
1802, with the view of checkino the prevalence of suicide among his soldiers. (Lisle, Du S&uiicle, pp. 462-463.)
1 See Suetonius, Otho, c. x.-xi., and the very fine description in Tacitus,
EIist. lib. ii. c. 47-49. MIartial compares the death of Otho to that of Cato:
Sit Cato dum vivit, sane vel Cesare major
I)uni moritur, numquid major Othone fuit?'2    vi. i. 32.
2 Xiphilin, lxviii. 12.
3 Tacit. Hist. ii. 49. Suet. Ot1o, 12. Suetonius says that, in addition to
these, many soldiers who were not present killed themselves on hearing thle
news.
4 Ibid. Annal. xiv. 9.
5 Plin. Jidst..at. vii. 54. The opposite faction attributed this suicide to
the maddening effects of the perfumes burnt on the pile.
6 Tacit. Annal. vi. 26.




232        HIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
hastened cheerfully to the tomb.1  The Cynic Perigrinus
announced that, being weary of life, he would on a certain
day depart, and, in presence of a large concourse, he
mounted the funeral pile.2  Most frequently, however,
death was regarded as'the last physician of disease,'3 and
suicide as the legitimate relief from  intolerable suffering.'Above all things,' said Epictetus,'remember that the
door is open.  Be not more timid than boys at play.
As they, when they cease to take pleasure in their games,
declare that ththey will no longer play, so do you, when all
things begin to pall upon you, retire; but if you stay, do
not complain.'4  Seneca declared that he who awaits the
extremity of old age is not' far removed from a coward,''as he is justly regarded as too much addicted to wine
who drains the flask to the very dregs.''I will not relinquish old age,' he added,'if it leaves my better part
intact.  But if it begins to shake my mind, if it tears out
its faculties one by one, if it leaves me not life but breath,
I will depart from the putrid or tottering edifice.  I will
not escape by death from  disease as long as it may be
healed, and leaves my mind unimpaired.  I will not raise
my hand against myself on account of pain, for so to die
is to be conquered.  But if I know that I will suffer for
ever, I will depart, not through fear of the pain itself, but
because it prevents all for which I would live.'5'Just
as a landlord,' said Musonius,' who has not received his
rent, pulls down the doors, removes the rafters, and fills
up the well, so I seem to be driven out of this little body
when nature, which has let it to me, takes away, one by
one, eyes and ears, hands and feet.  I will not. therefore,
Plin..Ep. i. 12.
2 This history is satirically and unfeelingly told by Lucian. See, too,
Ammianus Marcellinus, xxix. 1.
Soplhocles.       4 Arrian, i. 24.      5 Seneca, Ep. viii.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                       283
delay  longer, but will cheerfully  depart  as  from   a
banquet.' 1
This conception of suicide as an euthanasia, an abridgment of the pangs of disease, and a guarantee against the
dotage of age, was not confined to philosophical treatises.
We have considerable evidence of its being frequently put
in practice.  Among those who thus abridged their lives
was Silius Italicus, one of the last of the Latin poets.2  The
younger Pliny describes in terms of the most glowing admiration the conduct of one of his friends, whIo, struck dcown
by disease, resolved calmly and deliberately upon the path
he should pursue. He determined, if the disease was only
dangerous and long, to yield to the wishes of his friends
and await the struggle; but if the issue was hopeless, to
die by his own hand.  Having reasoned on the propriety
of this course with all the tranquil courage of a Roman,
he summoned a council of physicians, and, with a mind
indifferent to either fate, he calmly awaited their sentence.3
The same writer mentions the case of a man who was
afflicted with a horrible disease, which reduced his body
to a mass of sores.  His wife being  convinced that it
was incurable, exhorted  her husband  to  shorten  his
sufferings; she nerved and encouraged him  to the effort,
and she claimed it as her privilege to  accompany him
to the grave. Husband and wife, bound together, plunged
into a lake.4   Seneca, in one of his letters, has left us a' Stobseus. One of the most deliberate suicides recorded nwas that of a
Greek woman of ninety years old.-Val. Maxim. ii. 6, ~ 8.
2 Plin. Ep. iii. 7. IIe starved himself to death.
3 Lib. i. Ep. xxii. Some of Pliny's expressions are remarkable: —' Id ego
arduum in primis et pr cipua laude dignum. puto, nam impletu quodamr et
instinctu procurrere ad mlortem commune cumn multis: deliberate vero et
causas ej us expendere utqcue suaserit ratio, vitse mortisque consilium suscipere
vel ponere ingentis est animi.' In this case the doctors pronounced that
recovery was possible, and the suicide was in consequence averted.
4 Lib. vi. Ep. xxiv.




234        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
detailed description of the death-bed of one of the Roman
suicides. Tullius Marcellinus, a. young man of remarkable
abilities and very earnest character, who had long ridiculed
the teachings of philosophy, but had ended by embracing
it with all the passion of a convert, being afflicted with a
grave and lingering though not incurable disease, resolved
at length upon suicide. He gathered his friends around
him, and many of them entreated him to continue in life.
Among them, however, was one stoical philosopher, who
addressed him in what Seneca terms the very noblest of
discourses.  He exhorted him not to lay too much stress
upon the question he was deciding, as if existence was
a matter of great importance.  He urged that life is a
thing we possess in common with slaves and animals, but
that a noble death should indeed be prized, and he concluded by recommending suicide.  Marcellinus gladly
embraced the counsel which his own wishes had anticipated. According to the advice of his friend, he distributed gifts among his faithful slaves, consoled them  on
their approaching bereavement, abstained during three
days from all food, and at last, when his strength had been
wholly exhausted, passed into a warm bath and calmly
died, describing with his last brieath the pleasing sensations that accompanied receding life.1
The doctrine of suicide was indeed the culminating
point of Roman stoicism. The proud, self-reliant, unbencling character of the philosopher, could only be
sustained when he felt that he had a sure refuge against
the extreme forms of suffering or of despair. Although
virtue is not a mere creature of interest, no great system
has ever yet flourished which did not present an ideal of
happiness as well as an ideal of duty. Stoicism taught men
1 Ep. I-XXvii. On the former career of Marcellinus, see Elp. xxix.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE,                 235
to hope little, but to fear nothing. It did not array death in
brilliant colours, as the path to positive felicity, but it endeavoured to divest it, as the end of suffering, of every terror.
Life lost much of its bitterness when men had found a
refuge from the storms of fate, a speedy deliverance from
dotage and pain. Death ceased to be terrible when it was
regarded rather as a remedy than as a sentence.  Life
and death in the stoical system were attuned to the same
key.  The deification of human virtue, the total absence
of all sense of sin, the proud stubborn will that deemed
humiliation the worst of stains, appeared alike in each.
The type of its own kind was perfect.  All the virtues
and all the majesty that accompany human pride, when
developed to the  highest point, and directed to the
noblest ends, were here displayed.  All those which accompany humility and self-abasement were absent.
I desire at this stage of our enquiry to pause for a
moment, in order to retrace briefly the leading steps of
the foregoing argument, and thus to bring into the clearest
light the connection wvich many details and quotations
may have occasionally obscured.  Such  a review  will
show at a single glance in what respects stoicism was
a result of the pre-existent state of society, and in what
respects it was an active agent, how far its influence was
preparing the way for Christian ethics, and how far it was
opposed to them.
We have seen, then, that among the Romans, as among
other people, a very clear and definite type of moral
excellence was created before men had formed any clear
intellectual notions of the nature and sanctions of virtue.
The characters of men are chiefly governed by their occupations, and the republic being organised altogether with
a view to military success, it had attained all the virtues
and vices of a military society.  We have seen, too, that




236        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
at all times, but most especially under the conditions of
ancient warfare, military life is very unfavourable to the
amiable, and very favourable to the heroic virtues.  The
Roman had learnt to value force very highly.  Being
continually engaged in inflicting pain, his natural or
i.nstinctive humanity was very low.  His moral feelings
were almost bounded by political limits, acting only, and
with different degrees of intensity, towards his class, his
country, and its allies.  Indomitable pride was the most
prominent element of his character.  A victorious army
which is humble, or diffident, or tolerant of insult, or
anxious to take the second place, is, indeed, almost a
contradiction of terms.  The spirit of patriotism, in its
relation to foreigners, like that of political liberty in its
relation to governors, is a spirit of constant and jealous
self-assertion; and although both are very consonant with
high morality and great self-devotion, we rarely find that
the grace of genuine humility can flourish in a society
that is intensely pervaded by their influence.  The kind
of excellence that found most favour in Roman eyes was
simple, forcible, massive, but coarse-grained.  Subtilty of
motives, refinements of feeling, delicacies of susceptibility,
were rarely appreciated.
This was the darker side of the picture.  On the other
hand, the national character being formed by a profession
in which mercenary considerations are less powerful, and
splendid examples of self-devotion more frequent, than in
any other, had early risen to an heroic level.  Death
being continually confronted, to meet it with courage
was the chief test of virtue.  The habits of men were unaffected, frugal, honourable, and laborious.  A stern discipline pervading all ages and classes of society, the will was
trainied, to an almost unexampled degree, to repress the
passions, to  endure suffering and opposition, to tend




THE PAGAN EMPIRIE.                237
steadily and fearlessly towards an unpopular end.  A
sense of duty was very widely diffused, and a deep attachment to the interests of tle city became the parent of
many virtues.
Such was the type of excellence the Roman people
had attained at a time when its intellectual cultivation
produced philosophical discussions, and when numerous
Greek professors, attracted partly by political events,
and  partly  by the  patronage  of Scipio 2Emilianus,
arrived at IRome, bringing with them the tenets of the
great schools of Zeno and Epicurus, and of the many
minor sects that clustered around them.  Epicureanism
being essentially opposed to the pre-existing type of
virtue, though it spread greatly, never attained the position of a school of virtue.  Stoicism, taught by Panstius
of Rhodes, and soon after by the Syrian Posidonius, became the true religion of the educated classes.  It furnished the principles of virtue, coloured the noblest
literature of t.he time, and guided all the developments
of moral enthusiasm.
The stoical system of ethics was in the highest sense a
system of independent morals.  It taught that our reason
reveals to us a certain law of nature, and that a desire to
conform to this law, irrespectively of all considerations of
reward or punishment, of happiness or the reverse, is a
possible and a sufficient motive of virtue.  It was also in
the highest sense a system of discipline.  It taught that
the will, acting under the complete control of the reason,
is the sole principle of virtue, and that all the emotional
part of our being is of the nature of a disease.  Its whole
tendency was therefore to dignify and strengthen the will,
and to degrade and suppress the desires. It taughlt, moreover, that man is capable of attaining an extremely high
degree of morai excellence, that he has nothing to fear




238        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
beyond the present life, that it is essential to the dignity
and consistence of his character that he should regard
death without dismay, and that he has a right to hasten it
if he desires.
It is easy to see that this system of ethics was strictly
consonant with the type of character the circumstances of
the Roman people had formed. It is also manifest that
while the force of circumstances had in the first instance
secured its ascendency, the energy of will which it produced would enable it to offer a powerful resistance to
the tendencies of an altered condition of society. This
was pre-eminently shown in the history of Roman stoicism.
The austere purity of the writings of Seneca and his school
is a fact, probably unique in history, when we consider, on
the one hand, the intense and undisguised depravity of the
empire, and on the other, the prominent position of most of
the leading Stoics in the very centre of the stream. More
than once in later periods did great intellectual brilliancy
coincide with general depravity, but on none of these occasions was this moral phenomenon reproduced. In the age
of Leo X., in the age of the French Regency, or of Lewis
XV., we look in vain for high moral teaching in the centre
of Italian or of Parisian civilisation.  The true teachers
of those ages were the reformers, who arose in obscure
towns of Germany or Switzerland, or that diseased recluse
who, from his solitude near Geneva, fascinated Europe by
the gleams of a dazzling and almost peerless eloquence, and
by a moral teaching which, though often feverish, paradoxical, and unpractical, abounded in passages of transcendent majesty and of the most entrancing purity and
beauty. But even the best moral teachers who rose in
the centres of the depraved society felt the contagion of
the surrounding vice. Their ideal was depressed, their
austerity was relaxed, they appealed to sordid and worldly




THE PA.GAN EMPIRE.                239
motives, their judgments of character were wavering and
uncertain, tlheir whole teaching was of the nature of a compromise.  But in ancient Rome, if the teachers of virtue
acted but feebly upon the surrounding corruption, their
own tenets were at least unstained. The splendour of the
genius of Cxsar never eclipsed the moral grandeur of the
vanquished Cato, and amid all the dramatic vicissitudes
of civil war and of political convulsion, the supreme authority of moral (listinctions was never forgotten.  The
eloquence of Livy was chiefly employed in painting virtue,
the eloquence of Tacitus in branding vice. The Stoics
never lowered their standard because of the depravity
around them, and if we trace in their teaching any
reflection of the prevailing worship of enjoyment, it is
only in the passionate intensity with which they dwelt
upon the tranquillity of the tomb.
But it is not sufficient for a moral system  to form a
bulwark against vice, it must also be capable of admitting
those extensions and refinements of moral sympathies
which advancing civilisation produces, and the inflexibility
of its antagonism  to evil by no means implies its incapacity of enlarging its conceptions of good.  During
the period which elapsed between the importation of
stoical tenets into Rome and the ascendency of Christianity, an extremely important transformation of moral
ideas had been  effected by political changes, and it
b)ecame a question how far the new  elements could
coalesce with the stoical ideal, and how far they tended to
replace it by an essentially different type.  These chang'es
were twofold, but were very closely connected.  They
consisted of the increasing prominence of the benevolent
or amiable, as distinguished from  the heroic qualities,
and of the enlargement of moral sympatllies, which
having at first comprised only a class or a nation, came
17




240       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
at last, by the destruction of many artificial barriers, to
include all classes and all nations. The causes of these
changes-which were the most important antecedents of
the triumph of Christianity-are very complicated and
numerous, but it will, I think, be possible to give in a few
pages a sufficiently clear outline of the movement.
It originated in the Roman Empire at the time when
the union of the Greek and Latin civilisations was effected by the conquest of the former country. The general humanity of the Greeks had always been incomparably greater than that of the Romans. The refining
influence of their art and literature, their ignorance of
gladiatorial games, and their comparative freedom from
the spirit of conquest, had separated them widely from
their semi-barbarous conquerors, and had given a peculiar
softness and tenderness to their ideal characters. Pericles,
who, when the friends who had gathered round his
death-bed, imagining him to be insensible, were recounting
his splendid deeds, told them that they had forgotten
his best title to fame-that'no Athenian had ever worn
mourning onl his account;' Aristides, praying the gods
that those who had banished him  might -never be
compelled by danger or suffering to recall him; Phocion, when unjustly condemned, exhorting his son never
to avenge his death, all represent a type of charatcter
of a milder kind than that which Roman influences
produced.  The plays of Euripides had been to the
ancient world the first great revelation of the supreme
beauty of the gentler virtues. Among the many forms
of worship that fiourished at Athens, there was an altar
which stood alone, conspicuous and honoured beyond
all others. The suppliants thronged around it, but no
image of a god, no symbol of dogma was there. It was
dedicated to Pity, and was venerated through all the




TIHE PAGAN  EMPIRE.                        241
ancient world as the first great assertion among mankind
of the supreme sanctity of Mercy.'
But while  the  Greek  spirit was from  a very  early
period distinguished  for its humanity, it was at first as
far removed  from  cosmopolitanism  as that of Rome.  It
is well known that Phrynichus was exiled because in his
Siege of Aliletus' he had represented the triumph of barbarians over Greeks.2   His successor,  Eschylus, deemed
it necessary to violate all dramatic probabilities by making the Persian king and  courtiers continually speak of
themselves  as  barbarians.  Socrates, indeed, had  proclaimed  himself a  citizen  of the  world,3  but Aristotle
ticxght that Greeks had  no  more  duties to  barbarians
thlan to wild beasts, and another philosopher was believed
to have evinced an  almost excessive range of sympathy
when he declared that his affections extended beyond his
own State, and  included  the whole people of Greece.
But the dissolving and disintegrating philosophical discusSee the very beautiful lines of Statius:-'Urbe fuit media nulli concessa potentumn
Ara Deum, mitis posuit'Clementia sedem:
[Et miseri fecere sacram, sine supplice numquain
Illa novo; nulla damnabit vota repulsa.
Auditi quicunque rogant, noctesque diesque
Ire datum, et solis numen placare querelis.
Parca superstitio; non thurea flamma, nec altus
Accipitur sanguis, lacbrymis altaria strdant...
Nulla autem effigies, nulli commissa metallo
Forma Deas, mentes habitare et pectora gaudet.
Semper habet trepidos, semper locus horret egenis
Coetibus, ignotr tantumn fcelicibus arme.' —Tliebaid, lib. xii.
This altar was very old, and was said to have been founded by the de
scendants of Hercules. D)iodorus of Sicily, however, makes a Syracusan
say that it was brought fiom Syracuse (lib. xiii. 22). MIarcus Aurelius
erected a temple to'Beneficentia' on the Capitol. (Xiphilin, lib. lxxi.
34.)
2 Herodotus~ vi. 21.
3 See Arrian's Epictetus, i. 9. The very existence of the word OLXavUpworia shows that the idea was not altogether unknown.




242          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
sions that soon followed the death of Socrates, strengthened by political events, tended powerfully to destroy
this feeling.  The traditions that attached Greek philosophy to Egypt, the subsequent admiration for the schools
of India to which Pyrrho  and Anaxarchus are said to
hlave resorted,' the prevalence  of cynicism   and epicureanism, which  agreed  in  inculcating  indifference  to
political life, the complete decomposition of the popular
national religions, and the incompatibility  of a narrow
local feeling with great knowledge and matured civilisation, were the intellectual causes of the change, and the
movement of expansion received a great political stimulus
vhen  Alexander eclipsed  the  glories of Spartan  and
Athenian  history  by  the  vision  of  universal empire,
accorded to the conquered nations the privileges of the
conquerors, and  created  in  Alexandria a great centre
both  of commercial intercourse  and  of  philosophical
eclecticism.2
It is evident, therefore, that the prevalence of Greek
ideas in Irome would be in a twofold'way destru-ctive of
narrow  national feelings.  It was thle ascendency  of a
people who were not Romans, and of a people vwho had
already become in a great degree emancipated from local
I Diog. La6rt. Pyrrlso. There was a tradition that Pythagoras had himself penetrated to India, and learnt philosophy from the gymnosophistso
(Apuleius, Floricd. lib. ii. c. 15.)
2 This aspect of the career of Alexander was noticed in a remarkable
passage of a treatise ascribed to Plutarch (De Fort. Alex.).' Conceiving he
was sent by God to be an umpire between all, and to unite all together, he
reduced by arms those whom he could not conquer by persuasion, and
formed of a hundred diverse nations one single universal body, mingling,
as it were, in one cup of friendship the customs, marriages, and laws of
all. IIe desired that all should regard the whole world as their common
country,... that every good man should be esteemed a Hellene, every
evil man a barbarian.' See on this subject the third lecture of 3Ir. Melivale (whose translation of Plutarch I have borrowed) On the Conversion of
thie Romanz En~iire.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                      243
sentiments.  It is also evident that the Greeks having had
for several centuries a splendid literature, at a time when
the Romans had none, and  when  the Latin language
was still too rude for literary purposes, the period in
which the Romans first emerged from  a purely military
condition into an intelligent civilisation would bring with
it an ascendency of Greek ideas.   Fabius Pictor and
Cincius Alimentus, the earliest native Roman historians,
both wrote in Greek,1 and although the poems of Ennius,
and the'Origines' of Marcus Cato, contributed largely
to improve and fix the Latin  language, the precedent
was not at once cdiscontinued.2  After the conquest of
Greece, the political ascendency of the Pomans and the
intellectual ascendency of Greece were alike universal.3
The conquered people, whose patriotic feelings had been
greatly enfeebled by the influences I havd noticed, acquiesced readily in  their new  condition, and notwithstanding the vehement exertions of the conservative party,
Greek  manners, sentiments, land ideas soon penetrated
into all classes, and mouldecl all the forms of Roman
life.  The elder Cato, as an acute observer has noticed,
desired all Greek philosophers to be expelled from Rome.
The younger Cato made Greek philosophers his most intimate friends.4  roman virtue found its highest expression in stoicism.  Roman vice sheltered itself under the
name of Epicurus.  Diodorus of Sicily  and  Polybius
first sketched in Greek the outlines of universal history.
1 They were both born about B.c. 250. See Sir C. Lewis, Credibilzty of
E'arly Roman -History, vol. i. p. 82.
2 Aulus Gellius mentions the indignation of Marcus Cato against a consul
named Albinus, who had written in Greek a Roman history, and prefaced
it by an apology for his faults of style, on the ground that he was writing
in a foreigrl language. (Noct. Alt. xi. 8.)
3 See a vivid picture of the Greek influence upon Rome, in Momisen's
list. of romne (Eng.:trans.), vol. iii. pp. 423-426.
4 Plin. Iist. Nat. Vii. 31.




.244        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN hMORALS.
Iionysius of Halicarnassus explored Roman antiquities.
Greek artists and Greek architects thronged the city; but
the first, under Roman influence, abandoned the ideal for
the portrait, and the second degraded the noble Corinthian
pillar into the bastard composite.l  The theatre, which
now  started into sudden life, was borrowed altogether
from  the Greeks.  Ennius and Pacutvius imitated Euripides; Cxcilius, Plauitus, Terence, and NlTevius devoted
themselves chiefly to Menander.  Even the lover in the
days of Lucretius painted his lady's charms in. Greek.2
Immense sums were given for Greek literary slaves, and
the attractions of the capital drew  to Rolme nearly all
that was brilliant in' Athenian society.
While the complete ascendency of the intellect and
manners of Greece was destroying the simplicity of the
old Roman type, and at the same time enlarging the
range of Roman sympathies, an equally powerful influence
was breaking down the aristocratic and class feeling which
had so long raised an insurmountable barrier between the
patricians and the plebeians.  The long contentions between the two orders had issued in the civil wars, the
dictatorship of Julius Casar, and the empire, and these
changes in a great measure obliterated the old lines of
demarcation.  Foreign wars, which develope with great
intensity distinctive national types, and divert the public
mind fiom internal clhanges, are usually favourable to the
conservative spirit; but civil wars are essentially revo1 See Friedlmender, 3lIceurs 2 romain2es z 2 e'gze dc'Angustea  lEa fin des Antonizs (French trans., 1865), tome i. pp. 6-7. In architecture, however, we
owe the arch to the Romans.
2 See the curious catalogue of Greek love terms in vogue (Lecretius, lib. iv.
line 1160, &c). Juvenal, more than a hundred years later, was extremely
angry with the Roman ladies for making love in Greek (Sat. vi. lines 1901C5). Friedlvender remarks that there is no special term in Latin for to
ask in maurriage (tome i. p. 354).




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                    245
futionary, for they overwhelm all class barriers and
throw open the highest prizes to energy and genius. Two
very remarkable and altogether unprecedented illustrations of this truth occurred at Rome.  Ventidius Bassus,
by his military skill, and by the friendship of Julius Casar,
and afterwards of Antony, rose from the position of muledriver to the command of a Roman army, and at last to
the consulate,' which was also attained, about 40 B.C., by
the Spaniard Cornelius Balbus.2  Augustus, though the
most aristocratic of emperors, in order to discourage
celibacy, permitted all citizens who  were not senators
to intermarry with- freedwomen.  The empire was in
several distinct ways unfavourable to the patrician influences.  It was for the most part essentially democratic,
winning its popularity from the masses of the people, and
crushing the senate, which had been the common centre
of aristocracy and of freedom.  A  new  despotic power,
bearing alike on all classes, reduced them  to an equality
of servitude.  The emperors were themselves in many
cases the mere creatures of revolt, and their policy was
governed by their origin.  Their jealousy struck down
many of the patricians, while others were ruined by the
public games, which it became customary to give, or by
the luxury to which, in the absence of political occupations, they were impelled, and the relative importance
of all was diminished by the new  creations.  The ascendency of wealth began to pass into new  quarters.
Delators, or political informers, encouraged by the emperors, and  enriched  by the confiscated properties of
1 Aul. Gell. Noct. xv. 4; Vell. Paterculus, ii. 05. The people were much
scandalised at this elevation, and made epigrams about it. There is a curious
catalogue of men who at different times rose in Rome from low positions
to power and dignity, in Legendre, Traite' de I' Opinion, tome ii. pp. 254-255.
2 Dion. Cassius, xlviii. 32. Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 5; vii. 44.




246         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
those whlose condemnation they had procured,rose to great
influence.  From  the time of Caligula, for several reigns,
the most influential citizens were freedmen, who occupied
the principal offices in the palace, and usually obtained
complete ascendency over the emperors.  Througho tlem
alone petitions were presented.  By their instrumentality,
the Imperial favours were distributed.  They sometimes
dethroned the emperors.  They retained  their power
unshaken through  a succession of revolutions. In wealth,
in power, in the crowd of their courtiers, in tle splendour
of their palaces in life, and of their tombs in deat], they
eclipsed all others, and men whom  the early Roman patricians would have almost disdained to notice, saw the
proudest struggling for their favour.'
Together with these influences many others of a kindred
nature may be detected.  lThe colonial policy which the
Gracchi had advocated was carried out at Narbonne, and
during the latter days of Julius Cmsar, to the amazement
and scandal of the Romans, Gauls of this province obtained seats in the senate.2  The immense extent of the
empire made it necessary for numerous troops to remain
during long periods of time in distant provinces, and the
fbreign habits that were thus acquired began the destruction of the exclusive feelings of the Roman army, which
the subsequent enrolment of barbarians completed.  The
public games, the immense luxury, tlhe concentration of
power, wealth, and genius, made Rome the centre of a
vast and ceaseless concourse of strangers, the focus of all the
various philosophies and religions of the empire, and its
population soon became an amorphous, heterogeneous
1 The history of the influence of freedmen is minutely traced by Friedhlnder, Mzwurs 9romalnes clde rgne d'Auguste c la fin des Antoznis, tome i.
pp. 58-93. Statius and 3Martial sang their praises.
2 See Tacit. Ann. xi. 23-25.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                  247
mass, in which all nations, customs, languages, and creeds,
all degrees of virtue and vice, of refinement and barbarism,
of scepticism  and credulity, intermingled and interacted.
Travelling hlad become at once more easy and more fre-.
quent than it has been at any other period till the beginning of the nineteenth century.  The subjection of the
whole civilised world to a single rule removed the chief
obstacles to locomotion. Magnificent roads, which modern
nations have rarely rivalled and never surpassed, intersected the entire empire, and relays of post-horses enabled
the voyager to proceed with an astonishing rapidity. The
sea, which, after the destruction of the fleets of Carthage, had fallen almost completely under the dominion of
pirates, had been cleared by Pompey. The Mediterranean
and also the port of Alexandria were thronged with innumerable vessels.  Romans traversed the whole extent
of the empire on political, military, or commercial errands,
or in search of health, or knowledge, or pleasure.'  The
entrancing beauties of Como and of Tempe, the luxurious
manners of Baize and Corinth, the schools, commerce,
climate, and temples of Alexandria, the soft winters
of Sicily, the artistic wonders and historic recollections
of Athens and the Nile, the great colonial interests of
Gaul, attracted  their thousands, while Roman luxury
needed the products of the remotest lands, and the demandcl for animals for the amphitheatre spread Roman
enterprise into the wildest deserts.  In the capital, the
toleration accorded to different creeds was such, that the
city soon became a miniature of the world.  Almost
every variety of charlatanism and of belief displayed itself
unchecked, and boasted its train of proselytes.  Foreign
ideas were in every form  in the ascendant.  Greece,
1 On the RPoman journeys, see the almost exhaustive dissertation of
Friedlender, tome ii.




248         IIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORtALS.
which had presided over the intellectual development of
Rome, acquired  a new  influence under the  favouring
policy of Hadrian, and Greek became the language of
some of the later as it had been of the earliest writers.
Egyptian religions and philosophies excited the wildest
enthusiasm.  As early as the reign  of Augustus there
were many thousands of Jewish residents at Romie,1 and
their manners and creed spread widely among the people.
The Carthaginian Apuleius,3 the Gauls Florus and Favorinus, the Spaniards Lucan, Columella, Martial, Seneca,
antd Quintilian, had all in their different departments a
high place in Roman literature or philosophy.
In  the slave world a  corresponding  revolution was
taking place..  The large proportion  of physicians and
sculptors who were slaves, the appearance of three or four
distinguished authors in the slave class, the numerous
literary slaves imported from  Greece, and the splendid
examples of courage, endurance, and devotion to  their
masters furnished by slaves during the civil wars, and
during some of the worst periods of the empire, were
bridging  the chasm  between the  servile and the  free
classes, and the same tendency was more powerfully
stimulated by the vast numbers and overwhelming influence of the freedmen.  The enormous scale and frequent fluctuations of the patrician establishments, and the
innumerable captives reduced to slavery after every war,
Joseph. (Antiq. xvii. 11, ~ 1) says above 8,000 Jews resident in Rome
took part in a petition to Cresar. If these were all adult males, the total
number of Jewish residents must have been extremely large.
2 See the famous fragment of Seneca cited by St. Augustin (De Civ. Dei,
vi. 11):'Usque eo sceleratissimse gentis consuetudo convaluit, -tt per omnes
am terras recepta sit: victi victoribus leges dederunt.' There are numerous
scattered allusions to the Jews in Horace, Juvenal, and Martial.
3 The Carthaginian influence was specially conspicuous in Christian
history. Tertullian and Cyprian (both Africans) are justly regarded as the
founders of Latin theology. (See Millman's Latin Christianity (ed. 1867),
vol. i. pp. 35-36.)




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                    249
rendered manumission both frequent and easy, and it was
soon regarded as a normal result of faithful service. Many
slaves bought their freedom out of the savings which their
masters always permitted them to make. Others paid for
it by their labour after their emancipation. Some masters
emancipated their slaves in order to obtain their part in
the distribution of corn, others to prevent the discovery
of their own crimes by the torture of their slaves, others
through vanity, being desirous of having their funerals
attended by a long train of freedmen, very many simply
as a reward for faitlful services.1  The freedman was
still tunder what was terlned the patronage of his former
master; he was bound to him  by what in a later age
would have been called a feudal tie, and the political and
social importance of a noble depended in a very great
degree upon the multitude of his clients.  The children of
the emancipated slave were in the same relation to the
patron, and it was only in the third generation that all
disqualifications and restraints were abrogated. In consequence of this system, manumission was often the interest
of the master.  In the course of his life he enfranchised
individual slaves. On his death-bed or by his will he
constantly emancipated multitudes. Emancipation by testament acquired such dimensions, that Augustus found it
necessary to restrict the power; and he made several
limitations, of which the most important was that no one
should emancipate by his will more than one hundred of
his slaves.2 It was once proposed that the slaves should
be distinguished by a special dress, but the proposition was
1 Milo had emancipated some slaves to prevent them from being tortured
as witnesses. (Cic. Pro Milo.) This was made illegal. The other reasons
for enfranchisement are given by Dion. Halicarnassus, Anlti. lib. iv.
2 This subject is fully treated by Wallon, [list. de l'Esclavage dans




250        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
abandoned because their number was so great, that to
reveal to them their strength would be to place the city
at their mercy.1  Even among those who were not slaves,
the element that was derived from  slavery soon preponderated.  The majority of the free population had probably either themselves been slaves, or were descended from
slaves, and men with this tainted lineage penetrated to all
the offices of the State.2'There was,' as has been well
said,'a circulation of men from  all the universe.  Rome
received them slaves, and sent theml back Romans.3
It is manifest how profound a change had taken place
since the republican days, when the highest dignities were
strictly monopolised byv men of the purest blood, when the
censors repressed with a stringent severity every form  or
exhibition of luxury, when the rhetoricians were banished
from. the city, lest the faintest tinge of foreign manners
should impair the stern simplicity of the people, and when
the proposal to transfer the capital to Vei, after a great disaster, was rejected on the ground that it would be impious
to worship the Roman deities anywhere but on the Capitol,
or for the Flaimens and the Vestals to emigrate beyond the
walls.4
The greater number of these tendencies to universal
fusion or equality were blind forces resulting from  the
stress of circumstances, and not from  any human forethought, or were aoencies that were put in motion for a
different object.  It must, however, be acknowledged that
a definite theory of policy had a considerable part in
accelerating the movement.  The policy of the republic
may be broadly described as a policy of conquest, and
1 Senec. De Clemen. i. 24.
2 See, on the prominence and the insolence of the freedmen, Tacit. A2znal,
xiii. 26-27.
M3 Montesquieu,.Dcadenece des Romains, ch. xiii.
4 See the very curious speech attributed to Camillus. (Livy, v. 652.)




THE PAGAN EAMPIRE.                251
that of the empire as a policy of preservation.  The
Romans having acquired a vast dominion, were met by
the great probleml which every first-class power is called
upon to solve-by what means many communities, with
different languages, customs, clharacters, and traditions, can
be retained peaceably under a single ruler.  Iii modern
times, this difficulty has been most successfully met by
local legislatures, which, if they supply a' line of cleavage,'
a nucleus around which the spirit of opposition may
form, have on the other hand the priceless advantage
of giving the annexed people a large measure of selfgovernment, a centre and safety-valve of local public
opinion, a sphere for local ambitions, and a hierarchy of institutions adapted to the distinctive national type. Under
no other conditions can a complex empire be carried on
with so little strain, or effort, or humiliation, or its inevitable final dissolution be effected with so little danger or
convulsion.  But local legislatures, which are the especial
glory of English statesmanship, belong exclusively to
modern civilisation.  The Rloman method of conciliati(on
was, first of all, the most ample toleration of the customs,
religion, and municipal fireedom  of the conquered, and
then their gradual admission to the privileges of the conqueror. By confiding to them  in a great measure the
defence of the empire, by throwing( open to them  the
offices of State, and especially by according to them the
right of Roman citizenship, which had been for centuries
jealously restricted to the inhabitants of Rome, and was
afterwards only conceded to Italy and Cisalpine Gaul, the
emperors sought to attach them to their throne.  The
process was very gradual, but the whole movement ot
political emancipation attained its completion when the
Imperial throne was occupied by the Spaniard Trajan,
and by Pertinax, the son of a freedman, and when an




202        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
edict of Caracalla extended the rights of Roman citizenship to all the provinces of the empire.
It will appear evident, from the foregoing sketch, that
the period which elapsed between Pana3tius and Constantine exhibits an irresistible tendency to cosmopolitanism. The convergence, when we consider the number,
force, and harmony of the influences that compose it, is
indeed unexampled in history. The movement extends
through all the fields of religious, philosophical, political,
industrial, military, and domestic life.  The character of
the people was completely transformed, the landmarks of
all its institutions were removed, the whole principle of
its organisation was reversed. It would be impossible to
find a more striking example of the manner in which
events govern character, destroying old habits and associations, and thus altering that national type of excellence
which is, for the most part, the expression or net moral result
of the national institutions and circumstances.  The effect
of the movement was no doubt in many respects evil, and
some of the best men, such as the elder Cato and Tacitus,
opposed it, as leading to the demoralisation of the empire; but if it multiplied crime, it necessarily gave a
peculiar character to virtue.  It was impossible that the
conception of excellence, formed in a society where everything conspired to deepen class divisions and national
jealousies and antipathies, should be retained unaltered
in a period of universal intercourse and amalgamation.
The moral expression of the first period is obviously to be
found in the narrower military and patriotic virtues; that
of the second period in enlarged philanthropy and sympathy.
The stoical philosophy was admirably fitted to preside
over this extension of sympathies. Although it proved
itself in every age the chief school of patriots, it recog



TI-E PAG.N EMPIItE.                 263
nised also, from the very first, and in the most unequivocal
manner, the fraternity of mankind.  The Stoic taught
that virtue alone is a good, and that all other things are indifferent; and from this position he inferred that birth,
rank, country, or wealth are the mere accidents of life,
and that virtue alone makes one nman superior to another.  He taught also that the Deity is an all-pervading Spirit, animating the universe, and revealed with
especial clearness in the soul of man; and he concluded
that all men are fellow-members of a single body, united
by participation in the same Divine Spirit.  These two
doctrines formed part of the very first teaching of the
Stoics, but it was the special glory of the Roman teachers,
and an obvious result of the condition of affairs I have
described, to have brought them into full relief. One
of the most emphatic as well as one of the earliest
extant assertions of the duty of' charity to the human
race,'" occurs in the treatise of Cicero upon duties, which
was avowedly based upon stoicism. Writing at a period
when the movement of amalgamation had for a generation been rapidly proceeding,2 and adopting almost without restriction the ethics of the Stoics, Cicero maintained
the doctrine of universal brotherhood as distinctly as it
was afterwards maintained by the Christian Church.' This
whole world,' he tells us,'is to be regarded as the common city of gods and men.' 3'Men were born for the
sake of men, that eachl should assist the others.'  I' Nature
ordains that a man should wish the good of every man,
whoever he may be, for this very reason, that he is a
man.' 5' To reduce man to the duties of his own city,
It Caritas generis hunmani.'-D- e Fnib. So, too, he speals (De Le. i. 23)
of every good man as' civis totius mundi.'
2 He speaks of Rome as' civitas ex nationum conventu constitute.'
3.De Iegib. L 7.       4 De Ofi.          5 Ibid. iii. 6.




254         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
and to disengage him  from  duties to the members of
other cities, is to break the universal society of the human
race.' 1'Nature has inclined us to love men, and this is
the foundation of the law.'2  The same principles were
reiterated with increasing emphasis by the later Stoics.
Adopting the well-known line which Terence had translated from  lM[enander, they maintained that man should
deem nothing human foreign to his interest.  Lucan expatiated with all the fervour of a Christian poet upon the time
when' the human race will cast aside its weapons, ancd
when all nations will learn to love.' 3  The whole universe,'
said Seneca,' which you see around you, comprising all
things, both divine and human, is one. We are members
of one great body.  Nature has made us relatives when
it begat us from the same materials and for the same destinies.  She planted in us a mutual love, and fitted us for
a social life.'' " What is a Ioman knight, or freedman, or
slave?  These are but names springing from ambition or
from injury.' 5'I know that my country is the world, and
my guardians are the gods.'' You are a citizen,' said
Epictetus,' and a part of the world..... The duty of a
citizen is in nothing to consider his own interest distinct
from that of others, as the hand or foot, if they possessed
reason and understood the law of nature, would do and
wish nothing that had not some relation to the rest of the
body.' 7'An Antonine,' said Marcus Aurelius,'ly country
is Rome; as a man, it is the world.'8
So far stoicism  appears fully equal to the moral requirements of the age.  It would be impossible to recognise more cordially or to enforce more beautifully that
1 De Offic. iii. 6(.                 2 De 1eyib. i. 15.
Tunc genus humanum positis sibi consulat armis,
Inque vicem gens omnis amet.'-Pl/arsalia, vi.
4.E c. xcv. ~ E. xxxi.             6 De Vita Beata, xx.
7 Arrian, ii. 10.                    8 vi. 44.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                    206
doctrine of universal brotherhood for which the circumstances of the Roman Empire had made men ripe.  Plato
had said that no one is born for himself alone, but that
he owes himself in part to his country, in part to his
parents, and in part to his friends.  The Roman Stoics,
taking a wider survey, declared that man is born not for
himself but for the whole world.l   And their doctrine
was perfectly consistent with the original principles of
their school.
But while stoicism  was quite capable of representing
the widening movement, it was not equally capable of
representing the softening movement of civilisation.  Its
condemnation of the affections, and its stern, tense ideal,
admirably fitted for the struggles of a simple military
age, were unsuited for the mild manners and luxurious
tastes of the age of the Antonines.  A  class of writers
began to arise who, like the Stoics, believed virtue, rather
than enjoyment, to  be the supreme good, and who acknowledged that virtue consisted solely of tle control
which the enlightened will exercises over the desires,
but who at the same time gave free scope to the benevolent affections and  a more religious and mystical
tone to the whole sclleme of morals.  Professing various
speculative doctrines, and calling themselves by many
names-eclectics, peripatetics, or Platonists —they agreed
in forming or representing a moral character, less strong,
less sublime, less capable of endurance and heroism, less
conspicuous for energy of will, than that of the Stoics,
but far more tender and attractive.  The virtues of force
began to recede, and the virtues of love to advance, in'IIec dluri immota Catonis
Secta fuit, servare modum, finemnlue tenere,
Naturamcque sequi, patriteque impendere vitam,
Nec sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo.'
Lucan,'liars. ii. 380-383.
18




256        IIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
the moral type.  Insensibility to suffering was no longer
professed; indomitable strength was no longer idolised,
and it was felt that weakness and sorrow have their own
appropriate virtues.l  The works of these writers are full
of delicate touches which nothing but strong and lively
feelings could have suggested.  We find this in the wellknown letter of Pliny on the death of his slaves,2 in the
frequent protests against the ostentation  of indifference
with which the Stoics regarded the loss of their friends, in
the many instances of simple, artless pathos which strike
the finest chords of our nature. When Plutarch, after the
death of his daughter, was writing a letter of consolation
to his wife, we find him  turning away from  all the conmmonplaces of the Stoics as the recollection of one simple
trait of his little  child  rushed  upon his — miind:-'She
desired her nurse to press even her dolls to the breast.
She was so loving that she wished everything that gave
her pleasure to share in the best of what she had.'
Plutarch, whose fame as a biographer has, I think,
unduly  eclipsed  his reputation  as a moralist, mnay be
justly regarded as the leader of this movement, and his
moral writings may be profitably compared with those
of Seneca, the most ample exponent of the sterner school.
Seneca is not unfrequently self-conscious, theatrical, and
overstrained. His precepts have something of the affected
ring of a popular preacher.  The imperfect fusion of his
short sentences gives his style a disjointed and, so to
1 There is a passage on this subject in one of the letters of Pliny, which I
think extremely remarkable, and to which I can recall no pagan parallel:-'Nuper me cujusdam amici langnor admonuit optimos esse nos dum infirmi
sumus. Quem enihi infirnmlul alut avaritia aut libido solicitat? Non amoribus
gervit, non appetit honores... tune deos, tune hominem esse se meminit.'
-Plin. Ep. vii. 26.
2 Ep. viii. 16. He says:  Hominis est enim affici dolore, sentire, resistere
tamen, et solatia admittere non solatia non egere.'




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                 257
speak, granulated character, which the Emperor Caligula
happily expressed when he compared it to sand without
cement; yet he often rises to a majesty of eloquence, a
grandeur both of thought and of expression, that few
moralists have ever rivalled. Plutarch, though far less
sublime, is more  sustained, equable, and  uniformly
pleasing. The Montaigne of antiquity, his genius corruscates playfully and gracefully around his subject;
he delights in illustrations which are often singularly
vivid and original, but which, by their excessive multiplication, appear sometimes rather the texture than
the ornament of his discourse.  A gentle, tender spirit,
and calm good sense, free from  all paradox, exaggeration, and excessive subtlety, are the characteristics of all
he wrote.  Plutarch excels most in collecting motives
of consolation, Seneca in forming characters that need
no consolation.  There is something of the woman in
Plutarch; Seneca is all a iman.  The writings of the first
resemble the strains of the flute, to lwhich the ancients
attributed the power of calming the passions and charming away the clouds of sorrow, and drawing men by a
gentle suasion into the paths of virtue; the writings ot
the other are like the trumpet blast, which kindles the
soul with an heroic courage.  The first is most fitted to
console a mother sorrowing over her dead child, the
second to nerve a brave man, without flinchino and
without illusion, to grapple with an inevitable fate.
The elaborate letters which Seneca has left us on distinctive tenets of the stoical school, such as the equality
of vices or the evil of the affections, have now little more
than an historic interest; but the general tone of his
writings gives them  a permanent importance, for they
reflect and foster a certain type of excellence whicl, since
the extinction of stoicism, has had no adequate expression




258        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
in literature.  The prevailing moral tone ofPlutarch, on
the other hand, being formed mainly on the prominence
of the amiable virtues,has been eclipsed or transcended
by the Christian writers, but his definite contributions to
philosophy and morals are more important than those of
Seneca.  IHe has left us one of the best works on superstition, and one of the most ingenious works on Providence, we possess.  He was probably the first writer who
advocated very strongly humanity to animals, on the
broad ground of universal benevolence, as cdistinguished
from the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration, and he
was also remarkable, beyond all his contemporaries, for
his high sense of female excellence and of the sanctity of female love.
The Romans had at all times cared more for the practical tendency of a system of philosophy than for its logical
or speculative consistency.  One of the chief attractions
of stoicism, in their eyes, had been that its main object was
not to build a system of opinion, but to propose a pattern
of life,l and stoicism  itself was only adapted to the RIoman character after it had been simplified by Panmtius.2
Although the system could never free itself altogether
from that hardness which rendered it so unsuited for an
advanced civilisation, it was profoundly modified by the
later Stoics, who rarely scrupled to temper it by the
admixture of new doctrines.  Seneca himself was by no
means an unmixed Stoic.  If Epictetus was more nearly
so, this was probably because the extreme hardship he
underwent made him dwell more than his contemporaries
upon the importance of fortitude and endurance.  Marcus
This characteristic of stoicism is well noticed in Gr,znt's Aristotle, vol. i
p. 254. The first volume of this work contains an extremely good review
of the principles of the Stoics.
2 Cic.- De Finib. lib. iv.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                 259
Aurelius was surrounded by the disciples of the most
various schools, and his stoicism was much tinctured by
the milder and more religious spirit of Platonism.  The
Stoics, like all other men, felt the moral current of the
time, though they yielded to it less readily than some
others.  In Thrasea, who occupied in his age a position
analogous to that of Cato in an earlier period, we find
little or nothing of the asperity and hardness of his great
prototype. In the writings of the later Stoics, if we
find the same elements as in those of their predecessors,
these elements are at least combined in different proportions.
In the first place, stoicism  became more essentially
religious.  The stoical character, like all others of a high
order, had always been reverential; but its reverence
differed widely from that of Christians.  It was concentrated much less upon' the Deity than upon viwrtue, and
especially upon virtue as exhibited in great mein. When
Lucan, extolling his hero, boasted that' the gods favoured
the conquering cause, but Cato the conquered,' or when
Seneca described' the fortune of Sulla' as' the crime of the
gods,' these sentences, Which sound to modern ears grossly
blasphemous, appear to have excited no murmur.  We
have already seen the audacious language with which the
sage claimed an equality with the Divinity.  On the other
hand, the reverence for virtue apart from all conditions
of success, and especially for men of the stamp of Cato,
who through a strong moral conviction struggled bravely,
though unsuccessfully, against force, genius, or circumstances, was perhaps more steady and more- passionate
than in any later age.  The duty of absolute submission
to Providence, as I have already shown, was continually
inculcated, and the pantheistic notion of all virtue being
a part or emanation of the Deityv, was often assertedc,




260        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
but man was still the centre of the Stoic's scheme, the
ideal to which his reverence and devotion aspired.  In
later stoicism  this point of view was gradually changed.
Without any formal abandonment of their pantheistic
conceptions, the language of philosophers recognised with
much greater clearness a distinct and personal Divinity.
Every page of Epictetus and Mlarcus Aurelius is impregnated with the deepest religious feeling.' The first thing
to learn,' said the former,' is that there is a God, that His
knowledge pervades the whole universe, and that it
extends not only to our acts but to our thoughts and feelings....  He who seeks to please the gods must labour
as far as lies in him to resemble them. He must be faithful
as God is faithful, free as He is free, beneficent as He is
beneficent, magnanimous as He is magnanimous.'1'To
have God for our maker and father and guardian, should
not that emancipate us from  all sadness and from  all
fear?'' When you have shut your door and darkened
your room, say not to yourself you are alone.  God is in
your room, and your attendant genius likewise.  Think
not that they need the light to see what you do.3  What
can I, an old man and a cripple, do but praise God?  If
I were a nightingale, I would discharge the office of a
nightingale; if a swan, that of a swan. But I am a reasonable being; my mission is to praise God, and I fulfil it;
nor shall I ever, as far as lies in me, shrink from  my
task, and I exhort you to join in the same song of
praise.'4
The same religious character is exhibited, if possible,
in a still greater degree in the'Meditations' of Marcus
Aurelius; but in one respect the ethics of the emperor
differ widely from those of the slave.  In Epictetus, we
l Arriar6 3piect. i. 14.  2 Ibid. i. 9.  3 Ibid. i. 14.  4 Ibid. i. 16.




TIlE PAGA.N EMIPIIE.             261
invariably find the strongest sense of the majesty of man.
As the child of the Deity, as a being capable of attaining
the most exalted virtue, he magnified him to the highest
point, and never more so than in the very passage in
whiclh he exhorted his disciples to beware of haughtiness.
The Jupiter Olympus of Phidias, hle reminds them,
exhibits no arrogance, but the unclouded serenity of
perfect confidence and strength.1  larcus Aurelius, on
the other hand, dwelt rather on the weakness than on the
force of man, and his meditations breathe a spirit, if not
of Christian humility, at least of the gentlest and most
touching modesty. He was not, it is true, like some later
saints, who habitually apply to themselves language of
reprobation which would be exaggerated if applied to
the murderer or the adulterer.  He did not shrink from
recognising human virtue as a reality, and thanking Providence for the degree in which he had attained it, but
lhe continually reviewed with an unsparing severity the
weaknesses of his character, he accepted and even solicited
reproofs from every teacher of virtue, he made it his aim,
in a position of supreme power, to check every emotion
of arrogance and pride, and he set before him an ideal
of excellence which awed and subdued his mind.
Another very remarkable feature of later stoicism was
its increasingly introspective character. In the philosophy
of Cato and Cicero, virtue was displayed almost exclusively in action. In the later Stoics, self-examination and
purity of thought were continually inculcated.  There
are some writers who, with an obstinacy which it is more
easy to explain than to excuse, persist, in defiance of the
very clearest evidence to the contrary, in representing
these virtues as exclusively Christian, and in maintaining
1 Arrian, ii. 8.




262         HIJSTORY OF EUROPEAN MORi-LS.
without a shadow of proof, that the place they undeniably
occupy in the later Roman moralists was due to the direct
or indirect influence of the new faith.  The plain fact is
that they were fully known to the Greeks, and both Plato
and Zeno even exhorted men to study their dreams, on
the ground that these often reveal tlhe latent tendencies of
the disposition.1   Pythagoras urged his disciples daily to
examine themselves when they retired to rest,2 and this
practice soon became a recognised part of the Pythagorean
discipline.3  It was introduced into Rome with the school
before the close of the republic.  It was known in the
time of Cicero 4 and Horace.5  Sextius, one of the masters
of Seneca, a philosopher of the school of Pythagoras,
who flourished chiefly before the Christian era, was accustomed daily to devote a portion of time to self-examination; and Seneca, who at first inclined much to the
tenets of Pythagoras,6 expressly tells us that it was from
Sextius hle learnt the practice.7 The increasing prominence
of the Pythagorean philosophy which accompanied the invasion of Oriental creeds, the natural tendency of the
empire, by closing the avenues of political life, to divert
the attention from  action to emotion, and also  the inPlutarch, D)e profect. in Firt. This precept was enforced by 7Bishop
Sanderson in one of his sermons. (Southey's Commonplace Book, vol. i.
p. 92.)
2 Diog. Laert. Pythagoras.
3 Thus Cicero makes Cato say:'Pythagoreorumque more, exercendes
memorie gratia, quid quoque die dixerim, audiverim, egerim, comniemoro
vesperi.'-De Senect. xi.
4 Ibid.                                 5 Sermon. i. 4.
6 He even gave up, for a time, eating meat, in obedience to the Pythagorean principles. (Ep. cviii.) Seneca had two masters of this school,
Sextius and Sotion. He was at this time not more than seventeen years old.
(See Aubertin, Etude critique sur les?celjports sulposes entre &Si tue et
Sk. Paul, p. 156.)
7 See his very beautiful description of the self-examination both of Sextius
and of himself. (De Ira, iii. 36.)




THE PAGAN EAIPIRE.                 263
creased latitude allowed to the play of the sympathies or
affections by the later Stoics, brought this emotional part
of virtue into great prominence.  The letters of Seneca
are a kind of moral medicine applied for the most part to
the cure of different infirmities of character.  Plutarch,
in a beautifiul treatise on' The Signs of Moral Progress,'
treated the culture of the feelings with delicate skill.
The duty of serving the Divinity with a pure mind rather
than by formal rites became a commonplace of literature,
and self-examination one of the most recognised of duties.
Epictetus urged men so to purify their imaginations, that
at the sight of a beautiful woman they should not even
mentally exclaim,' Happy her husband!' 1  The meditations of Marcus Aurelius, above all, are throughout an
exercise of self-examination, and the duty of watching over
the thoughts is continually inculcated.
It was a saying of Plutarch that stoicism, which sometimes exercised a prejudicial and hardening influence upon
characters that were by nature stern and unbending,
proved peculiarly useful as a cordial to those whichl were
naturally gentle and yielding.  Of this truth we can have
no better illustration than is furnished by the life and
writings of Marcus Aurelius, the last and most perfect
representative of Roman stoicism.  A simple, childlike,
and eminiently affectionate disposition, with little strengtJh
of intellect or perhaps originally of will, much more
inclined to meditation, speculation, solitude, or friendship,
than to active and public life, with a profound aversion
to the pomp of royalty and with a rather strong natural
leaning to pedantry, he had embraced the fortifying
philosophy of Zeno in its best form, and that philosophy
nade him  pelrhaps as nearly a perfectly virtuous man
1 Arrian, ii. 18. Compare the Manual of Epictetus, xxxiv.




264         IIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
as has ever appeared upon our world.  Tried by the
chequered events of a reign of nineteen years, presiding
over a society that was profoundly corrupt, and over
a city that was notorious for its licence, the perfection of
his character awed even calumny to silence, and the spontaneous sentiment of his people proclaimed him  rather
a god than a man.'  Very few men have ever lived concerning whose inner life we can speak so confidently.
His meditations, which form one of the most impressive,
forml also one of the truest books in the whole range of
religious literature.  They consist of rude fragmentary
notes without literary skill or arrangement,  written for
the most part in hasty, broken, and sometimes almost
unintelligible sentences amid the turmoil of a camp,2 and
recording, in accents of the most penetrating sincerity,
the struggles, doubts, anid aims of a soul of which, to
employ one of his own images, it may be truly said
that it possessed the purity of a star, whlich needs no veil
to hide its nakedness.  The undisputed nmaster of the
whole civilised world, lie set before him  as models such
men as Thrasea and Ilelvidius, as Cato and Brutus, and
he made it his aim  to realise the conception of a free
State in which all citizens are equal, and of a royalty
which makes it its first duty to respect the liberty of the
citizens.3  His life was passed in unremitting activity.
For nearly twelve years he was absent with armies in
the distant provinces of the empire; and although his
political capacity had been much  and perhaps:justly
questioned, it is impossible to deny the unwearied zeal
1'Quod de Romulo mcgre creditum est, omnes pari sensu prmsumserunt;
iarcuni ccelo receptum est.'-Aurelius Victor. I Deusque etiam nune habetur.'- Capitolinus.
2 The first book of his Meditations was written on the borders of the
Granua, in Hungary.
I. 14




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                      205
with. which lie discharged the duties of his great position.
Yet few men have ever carried farther the virtue of little
things, the delicate moral tact and the minute scruples
which, though  often  exhibited  by women  and by secluded  religionists, very  rarely  survive much  contact
with active life.  The solicitude with which he endeavoured to persuade two jealous rhetoricians to abstain
during their debates from retorts that might destroy their
friendship,l the careful gratitude with which, in a camp
in Hungary, he recalled every moral obligation he could
trace, even  to  the  most obscure  of his tutors,2  his
anxiety to  avoid  all pedantry  and  nmannerism  in  his
conduct,3  and  to  repel every  voluptuous imagination
firom his mind,4 his deep sense of the obligation of purity,5
his laborious efforts to correct a habit of drowsiness into
which he had fallen, and his self-reproval when lie had
yielded to it,6 become all, I think, inexpressibly touching when we remember that they were exhibited by one
who was the supreme ruler of the civilised globe, and
who was continually engaged in the  direction of the
most gigantic interests.  But that which  is especially
remarkable in Marcus Aurelius is the complete absence
of fanaticism  in his philanthropy.  Despotic monarchs
sincerely anxious to improve mankind are naturally led
to endeavour, by acts of legislation, to force society into
the paths which they believe to be good, and such men,
acting under such  motives, have  sometimes been the
See a touchingo letter of his to Fronto, who was about to engage in a
debate with Herod Atticus.
2 I. 6-15. The eulogy he passed on his Stoic master Apollonius is
worthy of notice. Apollonius furnished him with an example of the combination of extreme firmness and gentleness.
3 E.g.'Beware of Coesarising.' (vi. 30.)'3e neither a tragedian nor a
Zourtesan.' (v. 28.)' Be just and temperate and a follower of the gods; but
be so with simplicity, for the pride of modesty is the worst of all.' (xii. 27.)
4 iii. 4            5 i. 17.          6 v.i.




266        IISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
scourges of mankind. Philip II. and Isabella the Catholic
inflicted more suffering in obedience to their.consciences
than Nero or Domitian in obedience to their lusts.  But
Marcus Aurelius steadily resisted this temptation.' Never ]hope,' he once wrote,'to realise Plato's republic.
Let it be sufficient that you have in some slight degree
ameliorated mankind, and do not think that amelioration
a matter of small importance.  Who can change - the
opinions of men? and without a change of sentiments
what can you make but reluctant slaves and hypocrites?' 1
He promullgated many laws inspired by a spirit of the
purest benevolence. He mitigated the gladiatorial shows.
He treated with invariable deference the senate, which
was the last bulwark of political freedom.  He endowed
many chairs of philosophy which were intended to diffuse knowledge and moral teaching through the people.
He endeavoured by the example of his court to correct
the extravagances of luxury that were prevalent, and he
exhibited in his own career a perfect model of an active
and conscientious administrator; but he made no rash
efflrts to force the people by stringent laws out of the
natural channel of their lives. Of the corruption of his
subjects he was keenly sensible, and he bore it with a
mournful but gentle patience.  We may trace in this
respect the milder spirit of those Greek teachers who
had diverged from  stoicism, but it was especially from
the stoical doctrine that all vice springs from ignorance
that he derived his rule of life, and this doctrine, to
which he repeatedly recurred, imparted to all his judgments a sad but tender charity.' Men were made for
men; correct them, then, or support them.'2'If they do
ill, it is evidently in spite of themselves and through
ignorance.'3    Correct them if you can; if not, remember
1 x. 29.             2 viii. 59.          xi. 18.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                     267
that patience was given you to exercise it in their behalf.'1'It would be shameful for a physician to deem it strange
that a man was suffering from  fever.'2' The immortal
gods consent for countless ages to endure without anger,
and even to surround with blessings, so many and such
wicked men, but thou who hast so short a time to live,
art thou already weary, and that when thou art thyself
wicked?'3'It is involuntarily that the soul is deprived
of justice, and temperance, and goodness, and all other
virtues.  Continually remember this;  the thought  will
make you more gentle to  all mankind.'4'It is right
that man should love those -who have offended him.  He
will do so when, he remembers that all men are his
relations, and that it is through ignorance and involuntarily that they sin,-and then we all die so soon.'5
The character of the virtue of Marcus Aurelius, though
exhibiting the softening influence of the Greek spirit which
in his time pervaded the empire, was in its essentials strictly
Roman.6  Though full of reverential gratitude to Providence, we do not find in him  that intense humility and
that deep and subtle religious feeling which were the
principles of Hebrew  virtue, and which have given the
Jewish writers so great an ascendency over the hearts of
men. Though borne naturally and instinctively to goodness,
his'Meditations' do not display the keen asthetical sense
of the beauty of virtue which was the leading motive of
Greek morals, and Mwhich the writings of Plotinus afterwards made very familiar to the Roman world. Like most
ix. 11.   2 Viii. 15.  s vii. 70.   4 vii. 03.  5 vii. 22.
6 Mr. Maurice, in this respect, compares and contrasts him very happily
with Platarch.'Like Plutarch, the Greek and Roman characters were in
MIarcus Aurelius remarkably blended, but, unlike Plltarch, the foundation of
his mind was Roman. He was a student that he might more effectually
carry on the business of an emperor.' —Plhlosop1hy of the First Six Centuries,
p. 32.




268        HIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
of the best Romans, the principle of his virtue was the
sense of duty, the conviction of the existence of a law of
nature to which it is the aim and purpose of our being to
conform.  Of secondary motives he appears to have been
little sensible.  The belief in a superintending Providence
was the strongest of his religious convictions, but even
that was occasionally overcast. On the subject of a future
world his mind floated in a desponding doubt. The desire
for posthumous fame he deemed it his duty systematically
to mortify.  While most writers of his school regarded
death chiefly as the end of sorrows, and dwelt upon it in
order to dispel its terrors, in Marcus Aurelius it is chiefly
represented as the last great demonstration of the vanity
of earthly things.  Never, perhaps, had such active and
unrelaxing virtue been united with so little enthusiasm,
and been cheered by so little illusion of success.' There
is but one thing,' he wrote,' of real value-to cultivate
truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst
of lying and unjust men."
The command he had acquired over his feelings was so
great, that it was said of him  that his countenance was
never known to betray either elation or despondency.2
We, however, who have before us the records of his inner
life, can have no difficulty in detecting the deep melancholy
that overshadowed his mind, and his closing years were
darkened by many and various sorrows.  His wife, whom
he dearly loved, and deeply honoured, and who, if we
may believe the court scandals that are reported by historians, was not worthy of his affection,3 had preceded him
A1 i. 47.                     2 Capitolinus, Aurelius Victor.
3 nM. Suckall, in his admirable' Etude sur Marc-AurVle,' and Al. Renan, in
r very acute and. learned.Exaamen de quteques Faits relatifs ci l'iNmpratrice
Faustine (read before the Institut, August 14, 1867), have shown the extreme uncertainty of the stories about the debaucheries of Faustina, which
the biographers of Marcus Aurelius have collected. It will be observed that




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                     269
to the tomb.  His only surviving son had already displayed the vicious tendencies that afterwards made him
one of the worst of rulers.  The philosophers who had
instructed him in his youth, and to whom he had clung
with  an  affectionate friendship, had one by one disappeared, and no new race had arisen to supply their place.
After a long reign of self-denying virtue, he saw  the
decadence of the  empire continually  more  apparent.
The stoical school was rapidly fading before the passion
for Oriental superstitions.  The barbarians, repelled for
a time, were again menacing the frontiers, and it witas
not difficult to foresee their future triumph.  The mass
of the people had become too inert and too corrupt for
any efforts to regenerate them.  A fearful pestilence, followed by  many minor calamities, had fallen upon the
land and spread misery and panic through  many provinces. In the midst of these calamities the emperor was
struck down with a mortal illness, which he bore with
the placid courage he had always displayed, exhibiting
in almost the last words he uttered his forgetfulness of
self and his constant anxiety for the  condition of his
people.1   Shortly before  his death  he  dismissed  his
attendants, and, after one last interview, his Son, and he
died as he long had lived, alone.2
Tlhus sank to rest in clouds and darkness the purest
and gentlest spirit of all the pagan world, the most perfect
model of the later Stoics.  In him the hardness, asperity,
and arrogance of the sect had altogether disappeared,
the emperor himself has left an emphatic testimony to her virtue, and to
the happiness he derived fronm her (i. 17); that the earliest extant biographer of M3arcus Aurelius was a generation later; and that the infamous
character of Commodus naturally predisposed men to imagine that he was
not the son of so perfect an emperor
1 Quid me fletis et non magis de pestilentia et communi morte cogitatis P?
Capitolinus,  M. Aurelius.            2 Ibid.




270        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
while the affectation its paradoxes tended to produce
was greatly mitigated.  Without fanaticism, superstition,
or illusion, his whole life was regulated by a simple and
unwavering sense of duty. The contemplative and emotional virtues which stoicism had long depressed, had
regained their place, but the active virtues had not yet
declined. The virtues of the hero were still deeply
honoured, but gentleness and tenderness had acquired a
new prominence in the ideal type.
But while the force of circumstances was thus developing the ethical conceptions of antiquity in new
directions, the mass of the Roman people were plunged
in a condition of depravity which no mere ethical teaching
could adequately correct. The moral condition of the
empire is indeed in some respects one of the most appalling pictures on record, and writers have much more frequently undertaken to paint or even to exaggerate its
enormity than to investigate the circumstances by which
it may be explained.  Such circumstances, however, must
unquestionably exist.  There is no reason to believe that
the innate propensities of the people were worse during the empire than during the best days of the republic. The depravity of a nation is a phenomenon which,
like all others, may be traced to definite causes, and
in the instance before us they are not difficult to discover.
I have already said that the virtue of the Romans was
a military and patriotic virtue, formed by the national
institutions, and to which religious teaching was merely
accessory. The domestic, military, and censorial discipline, concurring with the general poverty and also with
the agricultural pursuits of the people, had created the
simplest and most austere habits, while the institutions of
civic liberty provided  ample spheres for honourable




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                 271
ambition.  The patricians being the highest body in a
free State, and being at the same time continually confronted by a formidable opposition under the guidance
of the tribunes, were ardently devoted to public life, and
cultivated to the highest point the aristocratic sense of
honour.  The dangerous rivalry of the  surrounding
italian States, and afterwards of Carthage, demanded
and secured a constant vigilance.  Roman education was
skilfully designed to elicit an heroic patriotism, and the
great men of the past became ideal figures upon which
every imagination was concentrated.  Religion hallowed
the local feeling by rites and legends, instituted many
useful and domestic habits, taught men the sanctity of
oaths, and by fostering a continual sense of a superintending Providence, gave a depth and solemnity to the whole
character.
Such were the chief influences by which the national
type of virtue had been formed, but nearly all of these
were corroded or perverted by advancing civilisation.
The domestic and local religion lost its ascendency amid
the increase of scepticism and the invasion of a crowd of
foreign superstitions.  The simplicity of manners which
sumptuary laws and the institution of the censorship had
long maintained, was replaced by the extravagances of a
Babylonian luxury.  The aristocratic dignity perished
with the privileges on which it reposed.  The patriotic
energy and enthusiasm died away in a universal empire
which embraced all varieties of language, custom, and
nationality.
But although the virtues of a poor and struggling
community necessarily disappear before increasing luxury,
they are in a normal condition of society replaced by
virtues of a different stamp.  Gentler manners and enlarged benevolence follow in the train of civilisation,
19




272       lHISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
greater intellectual activity and more extended industrial
enterprise give a new importance to the moral qualities
which each of these require, the circle of political interests expands, and if the virtues that spring from privilege
diminish, the virtues that spring from equality increase.
In Rome, however, there were three great causes which
impedecl the normal development-the Imperial system,
the institution of slavery, and the gladiatorial shows. Each
of these exercised an influence of the widest and most
pernicious character on the morals of the people. To trace
those influences in all their ramifications would lead me
far beyond the limits I have assigned to the present work,
but I shall endeavour to give a concise view of their
nature and general character.
The theory.of the Roman Empire wa-s that of a representative despotism. The various offices of the republic
were not annihilated, but they were gradually concentrated
in a single man.  The senate was still ostensibly the depository of supreme power, but it was made in fact the
mere creature of the emperor, whose power was virtually
uncontrolled.  Political spies and private accusers, who
in the latter days of the republic had been encouraged to
denounce plots against the State, began under Augustus
to denounce plots against the empire, and the class being
enormously increased under Tiberius, and stimulated by
the promise of part of the confiscated property, they
menaced every leading politician and even every wealthy
man. The patricians were gradually depressed, ruined,
or driven by the dangers of public life into orgies of
private luxury. The poor were conciliated, not by any increase of liberty or even of permanent prosperity, but by
gratuitous distributions of corn and by public games, while,
in order to invest themselves with a sacred character,
the emperors adopted the religious device of an apotheosis.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                 273
This last superstition, of which some traces may still
be found in the titles appropriated to royalty, was not
lwholly a suggestion of politicians.  Deified men had long
occupied a prominent place in ancient belief, and the
founders of cities had been very frequently worshipped by
the inhabitants.' Although to more educated minds the ascription of divinity to a sovereign was simply an unmeaning flattery, although it in no degree prevented either innumerable plots against his life, or an unsparing   criticism of
his memory, yet the popular reverence not unfrequently
anticipated politicians in representing the emperor as
in some special way under the protection of Providence.
Around Augustus a whole constellation of miraculous
stories soon clustered. An oracle, it was said, had declared his native city destined to produce a ruler of the
world.  When a child, he had been borne by invisible
hands from his cradle, and placed on a lofty tower, where
he was found with his face turned to the rising sun. He
rebuked the frogs that croaked around his grandfather's
home, and they became silent for ever. An eagle snatched
a piece of bread from his hand, soared into the air, and
then descending, presented it to him again. Another eagle
dropped at his feet a chicken, bearing a laurel-branch in
its beak.  When his body was burnt, his image was seeCn
rising to heaven above the flames.  When another man
tried to sleep in the bed in which lhe had been born, the
profane intruder was dragged forth by an unseen hand.
A patrician named Lnmtorius, having been condemned for
adultery, pleaded in mitigation of the sentence that he
was the happy possessor of the spot of ground on which'Many examples of this are given by Colauges, La Cite' antique, pp.
177-178.




274        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
Augustus was born.1  An Asiatic town, named Cyzicus,
was deprived of its freedom by Tiberius, chiefly because
it had neglected the worship of Augustus.2  Partly, no
doubt, by policy, but partly also by that spontaneous
process by which in a superstitious age every conspicuous
character becomes the nucleus of legendcl,3 each emperor
was surrounded by a supernatural aureole.  Every usurpation, every break in the ordinary line of succession, was
adumbrated by a series of miracles, and signs, both in
heaven and earth, were manifested whenever an emperor
was about to die.
Of the emperors themselves, a great majority, no doubt,
accepted their divine honours as an empty pageant, and
more than one exhibited beneath the purple a simplicity of tastes and character which the boasted heroes of
the republic had never surpassed.   It is related of
Vespasian, that when dying, he jested mournfully on his
approaching dignity, observing, as he felt his strength
ebbing away,' I think I am becoming a god.' 4 Alexander
Severus and Julian refused to accept the ordinary language of adulation, and of those who did not reject it we
know that many looked upon it as a modern sovereign
looks upon the phraseology of petitions or the ceremonies
of the court.  Even Nero was so far from  being intoxicated with his Imperial dignity, that he continually sought
triumphs as a singer or an actor, and it was his artistic
skill, not his divine prerogatives, that excited his vanity.5
Caligula, however, who appears to have been literally
deranged,6 is said to have accepted his divinity as a serious
All this is related by Suetonius, August.
2 Tacit. Annal. iv. 36.
3 See, e.g., the sentiments of the people about Julius Czsar, Sueton. J. C.
lxxxviii.
4 Sueton. Vesp. xxiii.
5' Qualis artifex pereo' were his dying words.
6 See Sueton. Calig. 1.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                     275
fact, to have substituted his own head for that of Jupiter
on many of the statues,1 and to have once started furiously froml his seat during a thunderstorm  that had interrupted a gladiatorial show, shouting with frantic gestures
his imprecations against Heaven, and declaring that the
divided empire was indeed intolerable, that either Jupiter
or himself must speedily succumb.2  Heliogabalus, if we
may  give any  credence to his biographer, confounded
all things, humnan and divine, in hideous and blasphemous
orgies, and designed to unite all forms of religion in the
worship of himself.3
A curious consequence of this apotheosis was that the
images of the emperors were invested with  a sacred
character, like those of the gods.  They were the recognised refuge  of the  slave or the  oppressed,4  and the
smallest disrespect to them  was resented as a heinous
crime.  Under Tiberius, slaves and criminals were accustomed to hold in their hands an image of the emperor,
and being thus protected, to pour with impunity a torrent
of defiant insolence upon their masters or judges.5 Under
the same emperor, a man having, when drunk, accidentally
touched a nameless domestic utensil, with a ring on which
the head of the emperor was carved, he was immediately
denounced by a spy.6  A man in this reign was accused
of high treason for having sold an image of the emperor
with  a  garden.7  It was  made  a capital offence to
beat a slave, or to undress, near a statue of Augustus, or
to enter a brothel with a piece of money on which his
1 Sueton. Calbq. xxii. A statue of Jupiter is said to have burst out
laughing just before the death of this emperor.
2 Seneca, De Ira, i. 46; Sueton. Ccalg. xxii.
3 Lampridius, feliqogab.          4 Senec. De Clemen. i. 18.
5 Tacit. Annal. iii. 36.          6 Senec. )e Benefic. iii. 26.
7 Tacit. Annal. i. 73. Tiberius refused to allow this case to be proceeded
with. See, too, Philost. Apollomnus of Tyanca i. 15.




'276        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
head was engraved,l and at a later period a woman, it is
said, was actually executed for undressing before the statue
of Domitian.2
It may easily be conceived that men who had been
raised to this pinnacle of arrogance and power, men
who exercised uncontrolled authority in the midst of a
society in a state of profound corruption, were often
guilty of the most atrocious extravagances.  In the first
period of the empire more especially, when traditions
were not yet formed, and when experience had not yet
shown the dangers of the throne, the brains of some of
its occupants reeled at their elevation, and a kind of
moral insanity ensued.  The pages of Suetonius remain
as an eternal witness of the abysses of depravity, the
hideous, intolerable cruelty, the hitherto unimagined extravagances of nameless lust that were then manifested
on the Palatine, and while they cast a fearful light upon
the moral chaos into which pagan society had sunk, they
furnish ample evidence of the demoralising influences of
the empire.  The throne was, it is true, occupied by
some of the best as well as by some of the worst men
who have ever lived; but the evil, though chlecked and
mitigated, was never abolished. The corruption of a court,
the formation of a profession of spies, the encouragement given to luxury, the distributions of corn, and the
multiplication of games, were evils which varied greatly
in their degrees of intensity, but the very existence of the
emnpire prevented the creation of those habits of political
life which formed the moral type of the great republics of
antiquity.  Liberty, which is often very unfavourable to
theological systems, is almost always in the end favourable
1 Suet. Tiber. lviii.
2'Mulier quedanm, quod semel exuerat ante statuan Donmitiani, damnnata
et interfecta est.'-Xiphilin, lxvii. 12.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                 27i'
to morals, for the most effectual method that has been
devised for diverting men from vice is to give free scope
to a higher ambition.  This scope was absolutely wanting
in the Roman Empire, and the moral condition, in the absence of lasting political habits, fluctuated with the character of the empire.
The results of the institution of slavery were probably
even more serious.  Ill addition to its manifest effect
in encouraging a tyrannical and ferocious spirit in the
masters, it cast a stigma upon all labour, and at once
degraded and impoverished the free poor.  In modern
societies the formation of an influential and numerous
middle class, trained in the sober and regular habits of
industrial life, is the chief guarantee of national morality,
and where such a class exists, the disorders of the upper
ranks, though undoubtedly injurious, are never fatal to
society.  The influence of great outbursts of fashionable
depravity, such as that which followed the Restoration
in England, is rarely more than superficial.  The aristocracy may revel in every excess of ostentatious vice,
but the great mass of the people, at the loom, the counter,
or the plough, continue unaffected by their example, and
the habits of life into which they are forced by the condition of their trades preserve them from gross depravity.
It was the most frightful feature of the corruption of
ancient Rome that it extended through every class of the
community.  In the absence of all but the simplest
machinery, manufactures with the vast industrial life
they begret were unknown.  The poor citizen found -almost all the spheres in which an honourable livelihood
might be obtained wholly or at least in a very great
degree preoccupied by slaves, while he had learnt to
regard trade \witll an invincible repugnance.  Hence followed the immense increase of corrupt and corrupting




278       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
professions, as actors, pantomimes, tired gladiators, political spies, ministers to passion, astrologers, religious charlatans, pseudo-philosophers, which gave the free classes a
precarious and occasional assistance, and hence, too, the
gigantic dimensions of the system  of clientage.  Every
rich man was surrounded by a train of dependants, who
lived in a great measure at his expense, and spent their
lives in ministering to his passions and flatteringc his
vanity.  And above all, the public distribution of corn,
and occasionally of money, was carried on to such an
extent, that, as far as the first necessaries of life were concerned, the whole poor free population of Rome was
supported gratuitously by the government.  To effect this
distribution promptly and lavishly was the main object
of the Imperial policy, and its consequences were worse
than could have resulted from the most extravagant poor
laws or the most excessive charity. The mass of the
people were supported in absolute idleness by corn,
which was given without any reference to desert, and
was received, not as a favour, but as a right, while
gratuitous public amusements still further diverted thlem
from labour.
Under these influences the population rapidly dwindled
away.  Productive enterprise was almost extinct in Italy,
and an unexampled concurrence of causes made a vicious
celibacy the habitual condition.  Already in the days of
Augustus the evil was apparent, and the dangers which in
later reigns drove the patricians still more generally from
public life, drove them more and more into every extravagance of sensuality.  Greece since the destruction of
her liberty, as well as the leading cities of Asia Minor
and of Egypt, had become the centre of the wildest corruption, and Greek and Oriental captives were innumerable in Rome.  Ionian slaves of a surpassing beauty,




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                 279
Alexandrian slaves, famous for their subtle skill in stimulating the jaded senses of the confirmed and sated libertine, became the ornaments of every patrician house, the
companions and the instructors of the young.  The disinclination to marriage was so general, that men who
spent their lives in endeavouring by flatteries to secure
the inheritance of wealthy bachelors became a numerous
and a notorious class. The slave population was itself a
hotbed of vice, and it contaminated all with which it
came in contact; while the attractions of the games, and
especially of the public baths, which became the habitual
resort of the idle, combined with the charms of the Italian
climate, and with the miserable domestic architecture that
was genera], to draw the poor citizens from indoor life.
Idleness, amusements, and a bare subsistence were alone
desired, and the general practice of abortion among the
rich, and of infanticide and exposition in all classes, still
further checked the population.
The destruction of all public spirit in a population so
situated was complete and inevitable.  In the days of
the republic a consul had once advocated the admission
of a brave Italian people to the right of Roman citizenship, on the ground that'those who thought only of
liberty deserved to be Romans.'l  In the empire all
liberty was cheerfully bartered for games and corn, and
the worst tyrant could by these means be secure of popularity.  In the republic, when Marius threw  open the
houses of those he had proscribed, to be plundered, the
people, by a noble abstinence, rebuked the act, for no
Roman could be found to avail himself of the permission.2
In the empire, when the armies of Vitellius and Vespasian
1'Eos demurn, qui nihil prmeterquam de libertate cogitent, dignos esse, Lqu
Romani fiant.'-Livy, viii. 21.
2 Valerius lMaximus, iv. 3, ~ 14.




280        HISTORY OF. EUROPEAN MIORALS.
were disputing the possession of the city, the degenerate
Romans gathered with delight to the spectacle as to a
gladiatorial show, plundered the deserted houses, encouraged either army by their reckless plaudits, dragged out
the fugitives to be slain, and converted into a festival
the calamity of their country.1 The degradation of the
national character was permanent.  Neither the teaching
of the Stoics, nor the government of the Antonines, nor
the triumph of Christianity could restore it.  Indifferent
to liberty, the Roman now, as then, asks only for an idle
subsistence and for public spectacles, and countless monasteries and ecclesiastical pageants occupy in modern
Rome the same place as did the distributions of corn and
the games of the amphitheatre in the Rome of the
CIsars.
It must be remembered, too, that while public spirit
had thus decayed in the capital of the empire, there
existed no indelendent or rival power to reanimate by its
example the smouldering flame. The existence in modern
Europe of many distinct nations of the same level of
civilisation, but with different forms of government and
conditions of national life, secures the permanence of some
measure of patriotism  and liberty.  If these perish in
one nation, they survive in another, and each peopleaffects those about it by its rivalry or example.  But
an empire which comprised all the civilised globe could
know nothing of this political interaction.  In religious,
social, intellectual, and moral life, foreign ideas were very
discernible, but the enslaved provinces could have no
influence in rekindling political life in the centre, and
those which rivalled Italy in their civilisation, even surpassed it in their corruption and their servility.
I See the picture of this scene in Tacitus, List. iii. 83.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                  281
In reviewing, however, the conditions upon which the
noral state of the empire depended, there are still two
very important centres or seed-plots of virtue to which it
is necessary to advert.  I mean the pursuit of agriculture
and the discipline of the army. A very early tradition,
which was attributed to Romulus, had declared that
warfare and agriculture were the only honourable occupations for a citizen,1 and it would be difficult to overrate
the influence of the last in forming temperate and virtuous habits among the people.  It is the subject of the
only extant work of the elder Cato.  Virgil had adorned
it with the lustre of his poetry.  A very large part of the
Roman religion was intended to symbolise its stages or
consecrate its operations.  Varro expressed an eminently
Roman sentiment in that beautiful sentence which Cowper
has introduced into English poetry,'Divine Providence
made the country, but human art the town.'2  The
reforms of Vespasian consisted chiefly of the elevation to
high positions of the agriculturists of the provinces. Antoninus, who was probably the most perfect of all the
Roman emperors, was thlrough his whole reign a zealous
farmer.
As far as the distant provinces were concerned, it is
probable that the Imperial system  was on the whole a
good.  The scandalous rapacity of the provincial governors, whicl disgraced the closing years of the republic,
and which is immortalised by the indignant eloquence of
Cicero, appears to have ceased, or at least greatly diminished, under the supervision of the emperors.  Ample
municipal freedom, good roads, and for the most part
wise and temperate rulers, secured for the distant sections
of the empire a large measure of prosperity. But in Italy
1 Dion Hcalicarnass.
2  Divina Natura dedit agros; ars humana cedificavit urbeo.'




282         I-IISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
itself, agriculture, with the habits of life that attended it,
speedily  and fatally decayed.  The peasant proprietor
soon glided hopelessly into debt. The immense advantages
which slavery gave the rich gradually threw  nearly all
the Italian soil into their hands. The peasant who ceased
to be proprietor found himself excluded by slave labour
from  the position of a hired cultivator, while the gratuitous distributions of corn  drew  him  readily to the
metropolis.  The gigantic  scale of these  distributions
induced the rulers to obtain their corn in the form of a
tribute from  distant countries, chiefly from  Africa and
Sicily, and it almost ceased to be cultivated in Italy.  The
land fell to waste, or was cultivated by slaves or converted into pasture, and over vast tracts the race of free
peasants entirely disappeared.
This great revolution, which profoundly affected the
moral condition of Italy, had long been impending.  The
debts of the poor peasants, and the tendency of the patricians to monopolise the conquered territory, had occasioned some of the fiercest contests of the republic, and in
the earliest clays of the empire the blight that seemed to
have fallen on the Italian soil was continually and pathetically lamented. Livy, Varro, Columella, and Pliny have
noticed it in the most emphatic terms,l  and Tacitus observed that as early as the reign of Claudius, Italy, which
had once supplied the distant provinces with corn, had
become dependent for the very necessaries of life upon
the winds and the waves.2   The evil was indeed of an
1 See a collection of passages from these writers in Wallon, 1i1st. de l'Lsclavage, tome ii. pp. 378-379. Pliny, in the first century, noticed (Hist. aWt.
xviii. 7) that the latifundia, or system of large properties, was ruining both
Italy and the provinces, and that six landlords whom Nero killed were the
possessors of half Roman Africa.
2 Tacit. Annal. xii. 43. The same complaint had been made still earlier
by Tiberius, in a letter to the Senate. (Annal. iii. 54.)




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                    283
almost hopeless kind. Adverse winds, or any other accidental interruption of the convoys of corn, occasioned
severe distress in the capital; but the prospect of the calamities that would ensue if any misfortune detached the
great corn-growing countries from the empire, may well
have appalled the politician. Yet the combined influence
of slavery, and of the gratuitous distributions of corn,
acting in the manner I have described, rendered every
effort to revive Italian agriculture abortive, and slavery
had taken such deep root that it would have been impossible to abolish it, while no  emperor dared to encounter the calamities and rebellion that would follow
a suspension or even a restriction of the distributions.1
l]Many serious efforts were made to remedy  the evil.2
Alexander Severus advanced money to the poor to buy
portions of land, and accepted a gradual payment without
interest from  the produce of the soil.  Pertinax settled
poor men as proprietors on deserted land, on the sole condition of their cultivating it. Marcus Aurelius began, and
Aurelian and Valentinian continued, the system of settling
great numbers of barbarian captives upon the Italian soil,
and compelling them as slaves to cultivate it.  The introduction of this large foreign element into the heart of
Italy was eventually one of the causes of the downfall of
the empire, and it is also about this time that we first
dimlyvtrace the condition of serfdom  or servitude to the
soil into which slavery afterwards faded, and which was
for some centuries the general condition of the European
poor.  But the economical and moral causes that were
1 Augustus, for a time, contemplated abolishing the distributions, but
soon gave up the idea. (Suet. /Aug. xlii.) He noticed that it had the effect
of causing the fields to be neglected.
2 MI. Wallon has carefully traced this history. (HIist. de l'Esclav. tome iii.
pp. 294-297.)




284        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
destroying agriculture in Italy were too strong to be resisted, and the simple habits of life which agricultural pursuits promote had little or no place in the later empire.
A somewhat less rapid but in the end not less complete
decadence had taken place in military life.  The Roman
army was at first recruited exclusively from  the upper
classes, and the service, which lasted only during actual
warfare, was gratuitous. Before the close of the republic,
however, these conditions had disappeared.,Military pay
is said to have been instituted at the time of the siege of
Vei.1  Some Spaniards who were enrolled during the
rivalry of Rome and Carthage were the first example
of the employment of foreign mercenaries by the former.2
Marius had filled the ranks with plebeians.3  In long
residences in Spain and the Asiatic provinces the discipline gradually relaxed, and the historian who traced the
progress of Oriental luxury in Rome dwelt with a just
emphasis upon the ominous fact that it had first been introduced into the city by soldiers.4  The civil wars contributed to the destruction of the old military traditions,
but being conducted by able generals it is probable that
they had more effect upon the patriotism than upon the
discipline of the army.  Augustus reorganised the whole
military system, establishing a body of soldiers known as
the Praetorian guard, and dignified with some special
privileges, permanently in Rome, while the other legions
were chiefly mustered upon the frontiers.  During his
long reign, and during that of Tiberius, both sections
were quiescent, but the murder of Caligula by his soldiers
opened a considerable period of insubordination. Claudius,
it was observed, first set the fatal example of purchasing
1 Livy, iv. 59-60; Florus, i. 12,  2 Livy, xxiv. 49.
3 Sallust, Bell. Juyurtlh. 84-86.
4 Livy, xxxix. 6.




THhE PAGAN  EAMIPRE.                    285
his safety from his soldiers by bribes.l  The arlmies of the
provinces soon discovered that it was possible to elect an
emperor outside Rome, and Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and
Vespasian were all the creatures of revolt.  The evil was,
however, not yet past recovery.  Vespasian and Trajan enforced discipline with great stringency and success.  The
emperors began more frequently to visit the caimps.  The
number of the soldiers was small, and for a long period
the turbulence subsided.  The history of the worst period
of the empire, it has been truly observed, is full of instances of brave soldiers trying, under circumstances of
extreme difficulty, simply to do their duty.  But the historian had soon occasion to notice again the profound influence of the voluptuous Asiatic cites upon the legions.2
Removed for many years from  Italy, they lost all national
pride, their allegiance was transferred from the sovereign
to the general, and when the Imperial sceptre fell into
the hands of a succession  of incompetent rulers, they
habitually urged their commanders to revolt, and at last
reduced the empire to a condition of military anarchy.
A  remedy was found for this evil, though  nlot for the
luxurious habits that had been acquired, in the division
of the empire, which placed each army under the direct
supervision of an emperor, and it is probable that at a
later period Christianity diminished the insubordination,
though it may have also diminished the military fire, of
the soldiers.'  But other and still more powerful causes
1'Primus Caesarumn fidem anilitis etiamn premlio piglneratus.'-Suet.
Claud. x.
2 See Tacitus, Annal. xiii. 35; Hist. ii. 69.
3 3i. Sismondi thinks that the influence of Christianity in subduing the
spirit of revolt, if not in the arimy, at least in the people, was very great.
He says: I I1 est remarquable qu'en cinq ans, sept prltendans au tr6ne, tous
bien superieurs ai Honorius en courage, en talents et en vertus, furent successivement envoyes captifs a Rtavenne ou punis de mort, queo le peuple
applaudit toujours a ces jugemnents et ne se s6para point de l'autorit6 legitime,




286         IIISTORY OF EUROPEAN  1MORALS.
were in operation preparing the military downfall of
Rome. The habits of inactivity which the Imperial policy
had produced, and which through a desire for popularity
most emperors laboured to encourage, led to a profound
disinclination for the hardships of military life. Even the
Prmtorian guard, which was long exclusively Italian, was
selected after Septimus Severus from the legions on the
frontiers,l while Italy being relieved from  the regular
conscription, these were recruited solely in the provinces,
and innumerable barbarians were subsidised.  The political and military consequences of this change are sufficiently obvious. In an age when, artillery being unknown,
the military superiority of civilised nations over barbarians was far less than at present, the Italians had become
absolutely unaccustomed to real war, and had acquired
habits that were beyond all others most incompatible
wkith military discipline, while many of the barbarians
who menaced and at last subverted the empire had been
actually trained by Roman generals.  The moral consequence is equally plain-nlilitary discipline, like agricultural labour, ceased to have any part among the moral
influences of Italy.
To those who have duly estimated the considerations
I have enumerated, the downfall and moral debasement
of the empire can cause no surprise, though they may
justly wonder that its agony should have been so protracted, that it should have produced a multitude of good
and great men, both pagan and Christian, and that these
should have exercised as wide an influence as they
tant la doctline du droit divin des rois que les eveques avoient commenc6 a
precher sons Th6odose avoit fait de progres, et tant le monde romain sembloit d6termlin6 ia p6rir avec un monarque imbecile plutot que tent6 de
se donner un sauveur.' —list. de la Chlute le l'Empire 2romnain, tome i. p. 221.
See Gibbon, ch. v.; 3Merivale's list. of Rome, ch. lxvii. It was thought
that troops thus selected would be less lilkely to revolt. Constantine
abolished the Praetorians.




TIHE PAGAN EMPIRE.                  087
unquestionably did. Almost every institution or pursuit
by which virtuous habits would naturally have been
formed had been tainted or destroyed, while agencies
of terrific power were impelling the people to vice.
The rich, excluded from  most honourable paths of ambition, and surrounded by countless parasites who inflamed their every passion, found themselves absolute
masters of innumerable slaves who were their willing
ministers, and often their teachers, in vice.  The poor,
hating industry and destitute of all intellectual resources,
lived in habitual idleness, and looked upon abject servility as the normal road to fortune.  But the picture
becomes truly appalling when we remember that the
main amusement of both classes was the spectacle of
bloodshed, of the death, and sometimes of the torture,
of men.
The gladiatorial games form, indeed, the one feature of
Roman society whicl to a modern mind is almost incon
ceivable in its atrocity.  That not only men but women,
in an advanced period of civilisation —men and women
who not only professed but very frequently acted upon a
high code of morals-should have made the carnage of
men their habitual amusement, that all this should have
continued for centuries with. scarcely a protest, is one of
the most startling facts in moral history.  It is, however,
perfectly normal, and in no degree inconsistent with the
doctrine of natural moral perceptions, while it opens out
fields of ethical enquiry of a very deep though painful
interest.
These games, which long eclipsed, both in interest and
in influence, every other form  of public amusement at
Rome,1 were originally religious ceremonies celebrated
1 The gladiatorial shows are treated incidentally by most Roman historians,'but the three works from which I have derived most assistance in this part
20




288           TIISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
at the tombs of the great, and intended  as human  saciifices to appease the Manes of the dead.1   They were afterwards defended  as a means of sustaining  the  military
spirit by the constant spectacle of courageous death,2 and
with this object it was customary  to  give  a gladiatoria,
show  to  soldiers before their departure  to  a war.3   In
addition  to  these  functions  they  had  a  considerable
political importance, for at a time when all the regular
organs of liberty  were paralysed  or abolished, the ruler
was accustomed in the  arena  to meet tens of thousands
of his subjects, who availed themselves of the opportunity
to present their petitions, to declare their grievances, and
to  censure freely the  sovereign  or his ministers.4   The
of my subject are the Satu,'naz'ia of Justus Lipsius, Maagnin, Oriqines du
Thledtre (an extremely learned and interesting book, which was unhappily
never completed), and Friedlomnder's Roman Manners frion  Augustus to the
Antonines (the second volume of the French translation).  31. Wallon has
also compressed into a few pages (IlHst. le l'Esclavage, tome ii. pp. 19-139)
much information on the subject.
1 Hence the old name of bustuarii (from  bastsum, a funeral pile) given to.
gladiators (Nieupoort, De Ritibus Romanaorum, p. 514). According to Pliny
(JI'ist. Natt. xxx. 3),' regular human sacrifices were only abolisheci in [Rome
by a decree of the Senate, 3.c. 97, and there are some instances of them at
a still later period. Much information about them is collected by Sir C. Lewis,
on the Cr'edibility of lRomahn History, vol. ii. p. 430; Merivale, Conversionz of the
Roman E  plf?1iAe, pp. 230-233; Legendre, Traite de 1' Opinion, vol. i. pp. 2290231. Porphyry, in his De Abstinentia Carnis, devoted considerable research to
this matter. Games were habitually celebratecl by wealthy private individuals, during the early part of the empire, at the funerals of their relatives,
but their mortuary character gradually ceased, and after MIarcus Aurelius
they had become mere public spectacles, and were rarely celebrated at PRome
by private men. (See Wallon, JIst. de l'EscIlav. tome ii. pp. 135-136.)  The
games had then really passed into their purely secular stage, though they were
still nominally dedicated to MIars and Diana, and though an altar of Jupiter
Latiaris stood in the centre of the arena. (Nieupoort,p.. 365.)
2 Cicero, Tuse. lib. ii.
3 Capitolinus, 3aximus et Balbinues.  Capitolinus says this is the most probable origin of the custom, though others regarded it as a sacrifice to appease
Nemesis by an offering of blood.
4 MIuch curious information on this subject may be found in Friedlh-nder,
Maurs ronzzizes, liv. vi. ch. i. Very few Roman emperors ventured to dis



THE PtAGAN EMPIRE.                           289
games are said to have  been  of Etruscan  origin; they
were first introduced into Rome B.c. 264, when the two
sons of a  man  named  Brutus compelled  three pair of
gladiators to  fight at the funeral of their father,1  and
before the close of the republic they were common on
great public  occasions, and, what appears  even more
horrible, at the banquets of the patricians.2   The rivalry
of Caesar and Pompey greatly multiplied them, for each
sought by  this  means  to  ingratiate  himself with  the
people.  Pompey  introduced  a  new   form   of  combat
between  men  and  animals.3   Cxsar abolisled  the old
custom  of restricting the mortuary games to the funerals
of men, and his daughter was the first Roman lady whose
tomb  was  desecrated  by  human  blood.4   Besides this
innovation, Cxtsar replaced  the  temporary  edifices  in
which the games had hitherto been held by a permanent
wooden amphitheatre, shaded the spectators by an awning of precious silk, compelled the condemned persons on
one occasion  to figlht witih  silver lances,5 and  drew  so
many gladiators into the city that the Senate was obliged
to issue an enactment restricting their number.6   In the
regardl or to repress these outcries, and they led to the fall of several of the
mo10st powerful ministers of the empire. On the whole these games represent
the strangest and most ghastly form political liberty has ever assumed. On
the other hand, the people readily bartered all genuine freedom for abundant
gamllles.' Valer. Maximus, ii. 4, ~ 7.
2 On the gladiators at banquets, see J. Lipsius, Sctturnali, lib. i. c. vi.,
Magnin, Originzes du Tleddte,. pp. 380-385. This was originally an Etruscan
custom, and it was also very common at Capua. As Silius Italicus says:I Exhilarare viris convivia cfede
iMos olim, et miscere epulis spectacula dira.'
Verus, the colleague of Mlarcus Aurelius, was especially addicted to this kind
of entertainment. (Capitolinus, Ferus.)  See, too, Atheneus, iv. 40, 41.
3 Senec. De Brevit. Vit. c. xiii.
4 Sueton. J. Ccescr, xxvi. Pliny (Ej}. vi. 34) commends a friend for
having given a show in memory of his departed wife.
5 Pliny, list. Zact. xxxiii. 16. 6 Sueton. Ccesar, x.; Dion Cassius, xliii. 24.




290          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
earliest years of the  empire, Statilius Taurus erected
the first amphitheatre of stone,' and after some slight
limitations by Augustus, who ordered that not more than
120 men should fight on a single occasion, and that no
prxtor should give more than two spectacles in a single
year,2 and of Tiberius, who again fixed the maximum  of
comnbatants,3 the games acquired the most gigantic proportions.   They  were  celebrated  habitually  by  great
men in honour of their dead relatives, by officials on
coming into office, by conquerors to secure popularity,
and on every occasion of public rejoicing, and by rich
tradesmen  who  were  desirous  of  acquiring  a  social
position.4   They were also among the attractions of the
public baths.  Schools of gladiators-often the private
property of rich citizens-existed in every leading city
of Italy, and, besides slaves  and criminals, they were
thronged with freemen, who voluntarily hired themselves
for a term  of years.  In the eyes of multitudes, the large
sums that were paid to the victor, the patronage of nobles
and often of emperors, and still more the delirium of
popular enthusiasm  that centred  upon  the  successful
gladiator, outweighed all the dangers of the profession.
A complete recklessness of life was soon engendered both
in the spectators and  the  combatants.  The'lanistvt,'
or purveyors of gladiators, became an important profession. Wandering bands of gladiators traversed Italy,
1 Sueton. Aug. xxix. The history of the amphitheatres is given very minutely by Friedlhender, who, like nearly all other antiquaries, believes this
to have been the first of stone. Pliny mentions the existence, at an earlier
period, of two connected wooden theatres, which swung round on hinges and
formed an amphitheatre. (Hi.ist. Nlat. xxxvi. 24.)
2 Dion Cassius, liv. 2. It appears, however, from an inscription, that 10,000
gladiators fought in the reign and by the command of Augustus. Wallon,
Hist. doe l'Bsclavage, tome ii. p. 133.
3 Sueton. Tiber. xxxiv. Nero made another slight restriction (Tacit. Annal,
xHii. 81), which appears to have been little observed.
4 Martial notices (Pip. iii. 59) and ridicules a spectacle given by a shoemaker at Bologna, and by a fuller at Modena.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                      291
hiring themselves for the provincial amphitheatres.  The
influence of the games gradually pervaded the whole
texture  of Ronman  life.  They  became  the commonplace of conversation.1  The children imitated them  in
their play.2  The philosophers drew  from  them  their
imetaphors and illustrations.  The artists pourtrayed them
in every variety of ornament.3   The vestal virgins had
a seat of honour in the arena.4  The Colosseum, which
is said to have contained more than 80,000 spectators,
eclipsed every other monument of Imperial splendour, and
is even now  at once the most imposing and the most
characteristic relic of pagan Rome.
In  the provinces the  same passion  was displayed.
From  Gaul to  Syria, wherever the Roman  influence
extended, the spectacles of blood were introduced, and
the gigantic remains of amphitheatres in many lands
still attest by their ruined grandeur the scale on which
they were pursued.  In the reign of Tiberius, more than
20,000 persons are said  to  have perished by the fall
of the amphitheatre at the suburban town of Fidenm.5
Under Nero, the Syracusans obtained, as a special favour,
an exemption from  the law  which limited the number
of gladiators.6  Of the vast train of prisoners brought
by Titus from  Judea, a large proportion were destined
by the conqueror for the provincial games.7  In Syria,
where they were introduced  by Antiochus Epiphanes,
1 Epictetts, Enchir. xxxiii. ~ 215.
3 See these points minutely proved in Friedlender.
4 Suet. Autg. xliv. This was noticed before by Cicero. The Christian poet
Pruclentius dwelt on this aspect of the games in some forcible lines:Virgo modesta jubet converso pollice rumpi
Ne lateat pars ulla animm vitalibus imis
Altius impresso dlum palpitat ense secutor.'
5 Sueton. Tiberius, xl. Tacitus, who gives a graphic description of the
disaster (Annal. iv. 62-63), says 50,000 persons were lilled or wounded.
6 Tacit.?;znal. xiii. 49.       7 Joseph. Bell. Jud. vi. 9.




292         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
they at first produced rather terror than pleasure; but
the effeminate Syrians soon learned to contemplate them
with  a passionate enjoyment,1 and on a single occasion
Agrippa caused 1,400 men to fightt in the amphitheatre at
Berytus.2  Greece alone was in some degree an exception.
When an attempt was made to introduce the spectacle
into Athens, the cynic philosopher Demonax  appealed
successfully to the better feelings of the people by exclaiming,' You must first overthrow the altar of Pity.'3
The games are said to have afterwards penetrated  to
Athens, and to have been suppressed by Apollonius of
Tyana;4 but with the exception of Corinth, where a very
large foreign population existed, Greece never appears
to have shared the general enthusiasm.5
One of the first consequences of this taste was to render
the people absolutely unfit for those tranquil and refined
amusements which usually accompany civilisation. To men
who were accustomed to witness the fierce vicissitudes
of deadly combat, any spectacle that did not elicit the
strongest excitement was insipid. - The only amusements
that at all rivalled the spectacles of the amphitheatre and
the circus were those which appealed strongly to  the
sensual passions, such as the games of Flora, the postures
of the pantomimes, and the ballet.6   Roman comedy, inSee the very curious picture which Livy has given (xli. 20) of the
growth of the fascination.
Joseph. Antiq. Jiud. xix. 7.   3- Lucian, DC2o20o2aX.
4 Philost. Apoll. iv. 22.       5 Friedlhender, tome ii. pp. 95-96.
There are, however, several extant Greek inscriptions relating to
gladiators, and proving the existence of the shows in Greece. Pompeii,
which was a Greek colony, had a vast amphitheatre, which we may still
admire; and, under Nero, games were prohibited at Pompeii for ten years,
in consequence of a riot that broke out during a gladiatorial show. (Tacit.
Alnnal. xiv. 17.  After the defeat of Perseus, Paulus Emilius celebrated a
show in Macedonia. (Livy. xli. 20.)
6 These are fully discussed by MIagnin and Friedleender. There is a very




THE PAGAN EMIPIRE.                 23
deed, flourished for a short period, but only by throwing
itself into the same career. The pander and the courtesan
are the leading  characters of Plautus, and the more modest Terence never attained an equal popularity.  The
different forms of vice have a continual tendency to act
and react upon one another, and the intense craving
after excitement which the amphitheatre must necessarily
have produced, had probably no small influence in stimulating the orgies of sensuality which Tacitus and Suetonius
describe.
But if comedy could to a certain extent flourish with
the gladiatorial games, it was not so with tragedy.  It is,
indeed, true that the tragic actor can exhibit displays of
more intense agony and of a grander heroism than were
ever witnessed in the arena. IHis mission is not to paint
nature as it exists in the light of day, but nature as it
exists in the heart of man.  His gestures, his tones, his
looks, are such as would never have been exhibited by tle
person he represents, but they display to the audience the
full intensity of the emotions which that person would
have felt, but which he would have been unable adequately to reveal.  But to those who were habituated to
the intense realism  of the amphitheatre, the idealised
suffering of the stage was unimpressive.  All the genius
of a Siddons or a Rlistori would fail to move an audience
who had continually seen living men fall bleeding  and
rmangled at their feet.  One of the first functions of the
stage is to raise to the highest point the susceptibility to
disgust.  When Horace said that Ml[edea should not kill
her children upon the stage, he enunciated not a mere
arbitrary rule, but one which grows necessarily out of the
development of the drama.  It is an essential characterbeautiful description of a ballet, representing the " Judgment of Paris,' in
Apuleius, Metagmorlph. x.




294        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
istic of a refined and cultivated taste to be shocked and
offended at the spectacle of bloodshed, and the theatre,
which somewhat dangerously dissociates sentiment from
action, and causes men to waste their compassion on ideal
sufferings, is at least a barrier against the extreme forms
of cruelty by developing this susceptibility to the highest
degree.  The gladiatorial games, on the other hand, destroyed all sense of disgust, and therefore all refinement
of taste, and they rendered the permanent triumph of the
drama impossible.1
It is abundantly evident, both from  history and from
present experience, that the instinctive shock, or natural
feeling of disgust, caused by the sight of the sufferings of
men is not generically different from that which is caused
by the sight of the sufferings of animals. The latter, to
those who are not accustomed to it, is intensely painful.
The former continually becomes by use a matter of
absolute indifference.  If the repugnance which is felt in
the one case appears greater than in the other, it is not
on account of any innate sentiment which commands us
to reverence our species, but simply because our imagination finds less difficulty in realising human than animal
suffering, and also because education has strengthened our
feelings in the one case much more than in the other.
There is, however, no fact more clearly established than
that when men have regarded it as not a crime to kill
some class of their fellow-men, they have soon learnt to do
so with no more natural compunction or hesitation than
they would exhibit in killing a wild animal.  This is the
normal condition of savage men.  Colonists and Red
1 Pacuvius (and Accius were the founders of Roman tragedy.  The
abridger, Velleius Paterculus, who is the only Roman historian who pays
any attention to literary history, boasts that the latter might rank honourably
with the best Greek trag'edians.  Ite adds,'ut in illis [the Greeks] lime,
in hoc poene plus videatur fuisse sanguinis.'-Hist. orom. ii. 9.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.               295
Indians even now often shoot each other with precisely
the same indifference as they shoot beasts of prey, and the
whole history of warfare-especially when warfare was
conducted on more savage principles than at present-is an
illustration of the fact. Startling, therefore, as it may now
appear, it is in no degree unnatural that Roman spectators
should have contemplated with perfect equanimity the
slaughter of men. The Spaniard, who is brought in infancy
to the bull-ring, soon learns to gaze with indifference or
with pleasure upon sights before which the unpractised
eye of the stranger quails with horror, and the same process would be equally efficacious had the spectacle been
the sufferings of men.
We now look back with indignation upon this indifference; but yet, although it may be hard to realise, it is
probably true that there is scarcely a human being who
might not by custom be so indurated as to share it. Had
the most benevolent person lived in a country in which
the excellence of these games was deemed axiomatic, had
he been taken to them in his very childhood, and accustomed to associate thlem  with his earliest dreams of
romance, and had he then been left simply to the play of
the emotions, the first paroxysm of horror would have
soon subsidedl, the shrinking repugnance that followed
would have grown weaker and weaker, the feeling of interest would have been aroused, and the: time would probably come in which it would reign alone. But even this
absolute indifference to the sight of human suffering does
not represent the full evil resulting from the gladiatorial
games.  That some men are so constituted as to be
capable of taking a real and lively pleasure in the simple
contemplation of suffering as suffering, and without any
reference to their own interests, is a proposition which
has been strenuously denied by those in whose eyes vice




z2910       IIISTOR Y OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
is nothing more than a displacement, or exaggeration, of
lawful self-regarding feelings; and others, who have adimitted the reality of the phenomenon, have treated it as
a very rare and exceptional disease.l  That it is so-at
least in  its extreme  forms-in  the  present condition
of society, may reasonably be hoped, though I imagine
that few persons who have watched the habits of boys
would question that to take pleasure in givingc at least
some degree of pain is sufficiently common, and although
it is not quite certain that all the sports of adult men
wvould be entered into with exactly the same zest if their
victims were not sentient beings.  But in every society
in which atrocious punishments have been common, this
side of human nature has acquired an undoubted prominence.  It is related of Claudius, that his special delight
at the gladiatorial shows was in watching the countenances of the dying, for he had learnt to take an artistic
pleasure in observing the variations of their agony.2  When
the gladiator lay prostrate, it was customary for the spectators to give  the sign with  their thumbs, indicating
whether they desired him  to be spared or to be slain, and
the giver of the show  reaped most popularity when, in
the latter case, he permitted no consideration of economy
to make him hesitate to sanction the popular award.3
Besides this, the mere desire for novelty impelled the
people to every excess or refinement of baribarity.4   The
Thus, e.g., Hobbes:' Alienme calamitatis contemptus nominatur crudelitas, proceditque a proprie securitatis opinione. Naim ut aliquis sibi placeat
in malis alienis sine alio fine, videtur mlihi impossibile.' —eviatklan, pars i.
C. Vi.
2 Sueton. Claucdius, xxxiv.
Et verso pollice vulgi
Quemlibet occidunt populariter.'-Juvenal, Sat. iii. 36-37
4 Besides the many incidental notices scattered through the Roman
historians, and through the writings of Seneca, Plutarch, Juvenal, and Pliny,
we have a curious little book, De Spectaculis, by MIartial-a book which is




THE PAGAN  EMPIRE.                        297
single combat became at last insipid, and every variety
of atrocity was devised to stimulate the flagging interest.
At one time a bear and a bull, chained together, rolled
in fierce contest along the  sand; at another, criminals
dressed in the skins of wild beasts were thrown to bulls,
which  were  maddened  by red-hot irons, or  by darts
that were  tipped  with  burning   pitch.  Four hundred
bears were killed on a single day under Caligula; three
hundred  on another day under Claudius.  Under Nero,
four hundred  tigers fought with  bulls  and  elephants;
four hundred bears and three hundred lions iwere slauohtered by his soldiers.  In a single day, at the dedication
of the Colosseum by Titus, five thousand animals perished.
Under Trajan, the  games  continued  for  one hundred
and  twenty-three  successive  days.'   Lions, tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, giraffes, bulls, stags,
even  crocodiles  and  serpents, were  employed  to  give
novelty to the spectacle.  Nor was any form  of human
suffering wanting.  The first Gordian, when edile, gave
twelve spectacles, in each of which from one hundred and
fifty to five hundred pair of gladiators appeared.2   Eight
hundred pair fought at the triumph of Aurelian.A   Ten
thousand men fought during the games of Trajan.4  Nero
illumined his gardens during the night by Christians burnnot more horrible front the atrocities it recounts than from the perfect absence of all feeling of repulsion or compassion it everywhere displays.
1 These are but a ferw of the many examples given by Magnin, who has
collected a vast array of authorities on the subject. (Oriizies clh Tle'dte,
pp. 445-453.) MI. Mongez has devoted an interestinfg memoir to'Les
animaux promen6s oul tuls dans le cirque.' (Mdm. dCe l'cadc. des Inscrip. et
Belles-lettres, tome x.) See, too, Friedlender. Pliny rarely gives an account of
any wild animal without accompanying it by statistics about their appearance in the arena. The first instance of a wild beast hunt in the amphitheatre is said to be that recorded by Livy (xxxix. 22), which took place
about 80 3.c.
2 Capitolinus, Gordiani.               S Vopiscus, Aureliaz.
4 Xiphilin, lx-viii. 105




298          HIISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
ing in their pitchy shirts.1   Under Domitian, an army of
feeble dwarfs was compelled to fight,2 and more than once,
female gladiators descended  to  perish in the arena.3   A
criminal personating a fictitious character was nailed to a
cross, and there torn  by a bear.4   Another, representing
Scmevola, was compelled to hold his hand in a real flame.5
A  third, as Hercules, was burnt alive upon the pile.6   So
intense was the craving for blood, that a prince was less
unpopular if he neglected the distribution of corn than if
he neglected the games; and Nero himself, on account of
his munificence in this respect, was probably the sovereign who was most beloved by the Roman multitude.
Heliogabalus and Galerius are reported, when dining, to
have regaled themselves with the siglht of criminals torn
by wild beasts.  It was said of the latter that' he never
supped without human blood.'7
1 Tacit. Annal. xv. 44.        2 Xiphilin, lxvii. 8; Statius, Sylv. i. 6.
3 During the republic, a rich man ordered in his will that some women he
had purchased for the purpose should fight during the funeral games in his
memory, but the people annulled the clause. (Athenmeus, iv. 39.) Under
Nero and Domitian, female gladiators seem to have been not uncommon. See
Statius, Sylv. i. 6; Sueton. Domitian, iv.; Xiphilin, lxvii. 8. Juvenal describes
the enthusiasm with which Roman ladies practised with the gladiatorial
weapons (Sat. vi. 248, &c.), and Martial (De Spectac. vi.) mentions the combats of women with wild beasts. One, he says, killed a lion. A combat of
female gladiators, under Severus, created some tumult, and it was decreed
that they should no longer be permitted. (Xiphilin, lxxv. 16.)  See
MIagnin, pp. 434-435.
4 MIartial, De Spectac. vii.              5 Ibid. Ep. viii. 30.
6 Tertullian, Ad BNation. i. 10. One of thle most horrible features of the
games was the comic aspect they sometimes assumed. This was the case
in the combats of dwarfs. There were also combats by blindfolded men.
Petronius (Satyricon, c. xlv.) has given us a horrible description of the
maimed and feeble men who were sometimes compelled to fight. People
afflicted with epilepsy were accustomed to drink the blood of the wounded
gladiators, which they believed to be a sovereign remedy. (Pliny, Hlist. ~at.
xxviii. 2; Tertul. Apol. ix.)
7' Nec unqcuam sine humano cruore ccenabat.'-Lactan. De Mort. Persec.
M3uch the same thing is told of the Christian emperor Justinian II., who lived
at the end of the seventh century. (Sismondi, Htst. ce la Chute de'.Empire
romeain, tome ii p. 85.)




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                   299
It is well for us to look steadily on such facts as these.
They display more vividly than any mere philosophical
disquisition the abyss of depravity into whicll it is possible
for human nature to sink.  They furnish us with striking
proofs of the reality of the moral progress we have attained, and they enable us in some degree to estimate the
regenerating influence that Christianity has exercised in
the world; for the destruction of the gladiatorial games
is all its work.  Philosophers, indeed, might deplore
them, gentle natures might shrink from their contagion,
but to the multitude they possessed a fascination which
nothing but the new religion could overcome.
Nor was this fascination surprising, for no pageant has
ever combined more powerful elements of attraction.
The magnificent circus, the gorgeous dresses of the assembled court, the contagion of a passionate enthusiasm
thrilling almost visibly through the mighty throng, the
breathless silence of expectation, the wild cheers bursting
simultaneously from eighty thousand tongues, and echoing
to the farthest outskirts of the city, the rapid alternations
of the fray, the deeds of splendid courage that were manifested, were all well fitted to entrance the imagination.
The crimes and servitude of the gladiator were for a
time forgotten in the blaze of glory that surrounded him.
IPepresenting to the highlest degree that courage which
the Romans deemed the first of virtues, the cynosure of
countless eyes, the chief object of conversation in the
metropolis of the universe, destined, if victorious, to be
immortalised in the mosaic and the sculpture,' he not unfrequently rose to an heroic grandeur.  The gladiator
Winckelmann says the statue called'The Dying Gladiator' does not represent a gladiator. At a later period, however, statues of gladiators were not
uncommon, and Pliny notices (list. Ncat. xxxv. 33) their paintings. A fine
specimen of mosaic portraits of gladiators is now in the Lateran Museum.




300           HISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  31ORALS.
Spartacus for three  years  defied  the  bravest armies of
Rome.  The greatest of Roman generals had chosen gladiators for his body-guard.'  A  band of gladiators, faithful
even to death, followed the fortunes of the fallen Antony
when all besides had deserted him.2  Beautiful eyes, trembling with passion, looked down upon  the fight, and the
noblest ladies in Rome, even the empress herself, had been
known to crave the victor's love.3   We read of gladiators
lamenting that the games occurred so seldom,4 complaining
bitterly if they were not permitted  to descend into the
arena,5 scorning to  fight except with the most powerful
antagonists,6 laughing aloud as their wounds were dressed,7
and  at last, when prostrate in  the  dust, calmly turning
tlheir throats to the sword of the  conqueror.8   The enthlusiasm  that gathered round  them  was so intense that
special laws were found  necessary, and  were sometimes
insufficient to prevent patricians from  enlisting in  their
ranks, 9 while  the  tranquil courage  with  which  they
never failed  to  die  supplied  the philosopher  with  his
I Plutarch's Life of Cevsar.         2 Dion Cassius, li. 7.
3 Faustina, the wife of 3Marcus Aurelius, was especially accused of this
weakness. (Capitolinus, Marctus Alurelius.)
4 Seneca, De Pr-ovident. iv.          5 Arrian's Epiectetus, i. 29.
6 Seneca, Dce Provident. iii.         7 Aulus Gellius, xii. 5.
8 Cicero, Tuse. lib. ii.
o Some Equites fought under Julius Cesar, and a senator named Fulvius
Setinus wished to fight, but Coesar prevented him. (Suet. Ccesca; xxxix.; Dion
Cassius, xliii. 23.)  Nero, according to Suetonius, compelled men of the
highest rank to fight. The laws prohibiting patricians from fighting were
several times made anld violated. (Friedloender, pp. 39 —41.)  Commodus is
said to have been himself passionately fond of fighting as a gladiator. -IMuch,
however, of what Lampridius relates on this point is perfectly incredible.
On the other hand, the profession of the gladiator was constantly spoken of
as the most infamous; but this oscillation between extreme admiration and
contempt will surprise no one who has noticed the tone continually adopted
about prize-fighters in England, and about the members of some other professions on the Continent. Juvenal dwells (Scat. viii. 197-210) with great
indignation on an instance of a patrician fighting.




TIHE P'AGAN EMPIRE.                     801
most striking examples.1  The severe continence that was
required before the combat, contrasting vividly with the
licentiousness of Roman life, had  even invested  themi
with something of a moral dignity; and it is a singularly
suggYestive fact that of all pagan characters the gladiator
was selected by the Fathers as the closest approximation
to a Christian model.2   St. Augustine tells us how one of
his friends, being drawn to the spectacle, endeavoured by
closing his eyes to guard against a fascination he knew to
be sinful.  A sudden cry caused him to break his resolution, and he never could withdraw his gaze again.3
And while the influences of the amphitheatre gained a
complete ascendency over the populace, the Roman was
not without excuses that could lull his moral feelings to
repose.  The games, as I have saidcl, were originally human,sacrifices-religious rites sacred to the dead —and it was
argued that the death of the gladiator was both more
honourable and more merciful than that of the passive
victim,  who, in the Homeric age, was sacrificed at the
tomb.  The combatants were either professional gladiators,
slav es, criminals, or military captives.  The lot of the first
was voluntary.  The second had for a long  time been
regarded as almost beneath or beyond a freeman's care;
but when the enlarging circle of sympathy had made the
Romans regard their slaves as'a kind of second human
1 Quis mediocris gladiator ingemuit, quis vultunl mutavit unquaml' --
Cic. Tutsc. Quest. lib. ii.
2 Cleml. Alex. &Strom. iii. There are, I believe, similar passages in other
fathers. There is a well-linown passage of this kind in Horace, A2rs Poet.
412-415. The comparison of the good men to an athlete or a gladiator,
which St. Paul employed, occurs also in Seneca ancl Epictetus, friom which
some have inferred that they must have known the writings of the Apostle.
Al. Denis, however, has shown (Idcles  orales ns s'Antiqiti, tome ii. p. 24.0)
that the same comparison had been used, before the rise of Christianity, by
Plato, Asechines, and Cicero.
Confess. vi. 8.




302          HIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
nature,' I they perceived the atrocity of exposing them  in
the games, and an edict of the emperor forbade it.2  The
third had been condemned to death, and as the victorious gladiator was at least sometimes pardoned,3 a permission to fight was regarded as an act of mercy.  The
fate of the fourth could not strike the early Roman with
the horror it would now  inspire, for the right of the
conquerors to massacre their prisoners was almost universally admitted.4   But, beyond the point of desiring the
games to be in some degree restricted, extremely few
of the moralists of the Roman Empire ever advanced.
That it was a horrible and demoralising thing to make
the spectacle of the deaths, even of guilty men, a form
of popular amusement, was a position which no Roman
school had attained, and which was only reached by
a very few  individuals.  Cicero observes,' that the gladiatorial spectacles appear to  some  cruel  and  inhuman,' and, he adds,' I know not whether as they are now
conducted it is not so, but when  guilty men are compelled to fight, no better discipline against suffering and
death can be presented to the eye.' 5  Seneca, it is true,
adopts a far nobler language.  I-Ie denounced the whole
system  with  passionate  eloquence.  He  refuted  indignantly the argument derived from the guilt of the com1'[Servi] etsi per fortunamn in omnia obnoxii, tamen quasi secundum
hominum genus sunt.' —Florus, Mist. iii. 20.
2 Macrinus, however, punished fugitive slaves by compelling them to
fight as gladiators. (Capitolinus, Macrinus.)
3 Tacit. Alnnal. xii. 56. According to Friedlender, however, there were
two classes of criminals. One class were condemned only to fight, and pardoned if they conquered; the others were condemned to fight till death, and
this was considered an aggravation of capital punishment.
4 Acl conciliandum plebis favorem effusa largitio, quum spectaculis in.
dulget, supplicia quondam hostium artem facit.' (Florus, iii. 12.)
s Tusc. Qucst. ii. 17.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                     303
batants, and declared that under every f6rm  and modification  these  amusements were  brutalising, savage,
and detestable.l  Plutarchl  went even farther, and condemned the combats of wild beasts on the ground that
we should have a bond of sympathy with'all sentient
beings, and that the sight of blood and of suffering is necessarily and essentially depraving.2  To these instances
we may add Petronius, who condemned the shows in a
poem of the civil war; Junius Mauricus, who refused to
permit the inhabitants of Vienna to celebrate them, and
replied  to the remonstrances of the emperor,'Would
to Heaven it were possible to abolish such spectacles, even
at Rome;'  and above all, Marcus Aurelius, who, by compelling the gladiators to fight with blunted swords, rendered  them  for a time comparatively harmless.4  But
these, with the Athenian remonstrances I have already
noticed, are almost the only instances now  remaining
of pagan protests against the most conspicuous as well
as the most atrocious feature of the age.  Juvenal, whose
unsparingc satire has traversed the whole field of Roman
manners, and who denounces fiercely all cruelty to slaves,
has repeatedly noticed the gladiatorial shows, but on no
single occasion does he intimate tha.t they were inconsistent witoh humanity.  Of all the great historians who
recorded them, not one seems to have been conscious that
lie was recording a barbarity, not one appears to have
seen in them any greater evils than an increasing tendency
to pleasure and the excessive multiplication of a dangerous
1 See his magnificent letter on the subject. (Ep. vii.)
2 In his two treatises -De.Esu Carnium.  3 Pliny, PEp.e iv. 22.
4 Xiphilin, lxxi. 29.  Capitolinus, M. Azure[ius.  The emperor also once
carried off the gladiators to a -war with his army, much to the indignation
of the people. (Capit.) lie has himself noticed the extreme weariness he
felt at the public amusements he was obliged to attend. (vii. 3.)
21




304         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
class.  The -Roman sought to  mlake men brave  and
fearless, rather than gentle and humane, and in his eyes
that spectacle was to be applauded which steeled  the
heart against the fear of death, even at the sacrifice of the
affections.  Titus and Trajan, in whose reigns, probably,
the greatest number of shows were compressed into a
short time, were both men of conspicuous clemency, and no
Roman seems to have imagined that the fact of 3,000 men
having been compelled to fight under the one, and 10,000
under the other, cast the faintest shadow upon their characters.  Suetonius mentions, as an. instance of the amiability of Titus, that he was accustomed to jest with the
people during tlhe combats of the gladiators,l and Pliny
especially eulogised Trajan because he did not patronise
spectacles that enervate the character, but rather those
vvhich impel men'to noble wounds andc to the contempt
of death.'2  The same writer, who was himself ill many
ways conspicuous for his gentleness and charity, having
warmly commended a friend for acceding to a petition of
the people of Verona, who desired a spectacle, adlds this
startling sentence:'After so general a request, to have
refused  would not have been firmness-it would have
been cruelty.'"  Even in the closing years of the fourth
century, the prmfect Symmachus, whlo was regarded as one
of the most estimable pagans of his age, collected some
Saxon prisoners to fight in honour of his son.  They
strangled themselves in prison, and Symmachus lamented
the misfortune that had  befallen him  from  their'imnpious hands,' but endeavoured to calm  his feelings by' Sueton. Titus, viii.
2 YVisuni est spectaculum  inde non enerve nec fluxurnm, nec quod aninuos
virorum molliret et frangeret, sed quod ad pulchra vulnera contenlptunique
nlortis accenderet.'-Pliny, Pcanzeg. xxxiii.
3' Preterea tanto consensu rogabaris, ut negare non constans sed durum
rideretur.' —Plin. ip ist. vi. 34.




THE PAGAN EMlPIRE.                305
recalling the patience of Socrates and the precepts of philosophy.l
While, however, I have no desire to disguise or palliate
the extreme atrocity of this aspect of tRoman life, there
are certain very natural exaggerations, against which it is
necessary for us to guard. There are in human nature, and
more especially in the exercise of the benevolent affections, inequalities, inconsistencies, and anomalies, of which
theorists do not always take account.  We should be
altogether in error, if we supposed that a man who took
pleasure in a g-ladiatorial combat in ancient Rome, was
necessarily  as inhuman as a modern  would be who
took pleasure in a similar spectacle.  A man who falls
but a little below the standard of his own merciful age,
is often in reality far worse than a man who had conformed to the standard of a much more barbarous age,
even though the latter will do some things with perfect
equanimity from which the other would recoil with horror.
WVe have a miuch greater power than is sometimes supposed of localising both our benevolent and malevolent
feelings.  If a man is very kind, or very harsh to some
particular class, this is usually, and on the whole justly,
regarded as an index of his general disposition, but the
inference is not infallible, and it may easily be pushed too
far. There are some who appear to expend all their kindly
feelings on a single class, and to treat with perfect indifference all outside it. There are others who regard a
certain class as quite outside the pale of their sympathies,
while in other spheres their affections prove lively and
constant.  There are many who would accede without the
faintest reluctance to a barbarous custom, but would be
quite incapable of an equally barbarous act, which custonm
Symnma@h. Bpie. ii. 40.




30V          BISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MIORALS.
had not consecrated.  Our affections are so capricious in
their nature, that it is continually necessary to correct by
detailed experience the most plausible deductions.  Thus,
for example, it is a very unquestionable and a very important truth, that cruelty to animals naturally indicates
and promotes a habit of mind which leads to cruelty to
men; and that, on the other hand, an affectionate and
merciful disposition to animals commonly implies a gentle
and amiable nature.  But, if we adopted this principle
as an infallible criterion  of humanity, we should soon
find ourselves at fault.  To the somewhat too hackneyed
anecdote of Domitian gratifying his savage propensities
by killing flies,' we might oppose Spinoza, one of the
purest, most gentle, most benevolent of mankind, of
whom it is related that almost the only amusement of his
life was putting flies in spiders' webs, and watching their
struggles and their deaths.2  It has been observed that a
very large proportion of the men who during the French
Revolution proved themselves most absolutely indifferent
to human suffering, were  deeply  attached  to animals.
Fournier was devoted to a squirrel, Couthon to a spaniel,
Panis to two gold pheasants, Chaumette to  an aviary,
larat kept dovesY3  Bacon has noticed that the Turks,
I Sueton. Domitictn.iii. It is very curious that thle same Emperor, about
the same time (the beginning of his reign), had such a horror of bloodshed
that he resolved to prohibit the sacrifice of oxen.- (Suet. Dom. ix.)
2  Pendant qu'il restait au logis, il n'etait incommode a personne; il y
passait la meilleure partie de son temps tranquillement dans sa chambre.... I1 se divertissait aussi quelquefois a fumer une pipe de tabac; ou bien
lorsqu'il voulait se relacher l'esprit un peu plus longtemnps, il cherchait des
araign6es qu'il faisait battre ensemble, ou des mouches qu'il jetait dans ]a
toile d'araign6e, et regardait ensuite cette bataille avec tant de plaisir qu'il
4clatait quelquefois de rire.'-Colerus, Fie de Splinoza.
3 This is noticed by George Duval in a curious passage of his Souvenhi8s &
la Terrel)u quoted by Lord Lytton in a note to his Zawnoi.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                   807
who are a cruel people, are nevertheless conspicuous
for their kindness to animals, and hle mentions the instance of a Christian boy who was nearly stoned to death
for gagging  a long-billed fowl.1  In Egypt there are
hospitals for superannuated cats, and the most loathsome
insects are regarded with tenderness; but human life
is treated as if it were of no account, and human suffering scarcely elicits a care.  The same contrast appears
more or less in all Eastern nations.  On the other hand,
travellers are unanimous in declaring that in Spain an
intense passion for the bull-fight is by no means incompatible with the most active benevolence and the Inost
amiable disposition. Again, to pass to another sphere,
it is not uncommon to find conquerors, who will sacrifice with perfect callousness great masses of men to their
ambition, but who, in their dealings with isolated individuals, are distinguished by an invariable clemency.
Anomalies of this kind continually appear in the Roman
population.  The very men who  looked  down with
delight whven the sand of the arena was reddened with
human blood, made the theatre ring with applause when
Terence, in his famous line, proclaimed the universal
brotherhood of men.  When the senate, being unable to
discover the murderer of a patrician, resolved to put his
four hundred slaves to death, the people rose in open
rebellion against the sentence.3  A knight named Erixo,
who in the days of Nero had so scourged his son that
he died of the effects, was nearly torn to pieces by the
indignant population.4  The elder Cato deprived a senator' Essay on Goodness.
2 This contrast has been noticed by Archbishop  hllateley in a lecture on
Egypt. See, too, Legendre, Trcite'de l'Opiznion, tome ii. p. 374.
8 Tacit. Atnnal. xiv, 45.     4 Senec. De C1lemwe. i. 14.




808         IHISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
of his rank, because he had fixed all execution at such an
hour that his mistress could enjoy the spectacle.'  Even
in the amphitheatre there were certain traces of a milder
spirit.  Drusus, the people complained, took too visible a
pleasure at the sight of blood;2 Caligula was too curious
in watching death;3 Caracalla, when a boy, won enthusiastic plaudits by shedding  tears at the execution of
criminals.4   Among the most popular spectacles at Rome
was rope-dancing, and then as now the cord being stretched
at a great height above the ground, tle apparent, and
indeed real, danger added an evil zest to the performances.
In the reign of Marcus Aurelius an accident had occurred,
and the Emperor, with his usual sensitive humanity, ordered that no rope-dancer should perform without a net or
mattress being spread out below. It is a singularly curious
fact that this precaution, which no Christian nation has
adopted, continued in force during at least two hundred
and sixty years of the worst period of the Roioman   empire,
when the blood of captives was poured out like water in
the Colosseum.5  The standard of humanity was very low,
but the sentiment was still manifest, tlhough its displays
were capricious and inconsistent.
The sketch I have now drawn will, I think, be sufficient
to  display the broad chasm  that existed between the
Roman moralists and the Roman people. On the one hand
we find a system  of ethics, of which when we consider
1 Val. Mlax. ii. 9. This writer speaks of' the eyes of a mistress delighting in human blood' with as much horror as if the gladiatorial games were
unknown. Livy gives a rather different version of this story.
2 Tacit. Annal. i. 76.             3 Sueton. Ccaliy. xi.
4 Spartian Caracalla. Tertullian mentions that his nurse was a Christian.
5 Capitolinus, Marcus Aurelihus. Capitolinus, who wrote under Diocletian,
says that in his time the custom of spreading a net under the rope-dancer
still continued. I do not know when it ceased at Rome, but St. Chrysostom
mentions that in his time it had been abolished in the East.-Jortin'sRemcaris
on Ecelesiastical JIisto'y, ii 71 (ed. 1846).




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                309
the range and beauty of its precepts, the sublimity of the
motives to which it appealed, and its perfect freedom
from  superstitious elements, it is not too much to say
that thoulgh it may have been equalled, it has never been
surpassed.  On the other hand, we find a society almost
absolutely destitute of moralising institutions, occupations,
or belief's, existing under an economical and political
system which inevitably led to general depravity, and
passionately addicted to the most brutalising amusements.
The moral code while it expanded in theoretical catholicity had contracted in practical application.  The early
Romans had a very narrow  and imperfect standard of
duty, but their patriotism, their military system, and
their enforced simplicity of life had mlade that standard
essentially popular.  The later Romans had attained a
very high and spiritual conception of duty, but the philosopher with his group of disciples, or the writer with his
few readers, had scarcely any point of contact with the
people.  The great practical problem  of the ancient
philosophers was how they could act upon the masses.
Simply to tell men what is virtue, and to extol its beauty,
is insufficient.  Something more must be done if the
characters of nations are to be moulded and inveterate
vices eradicated.
This problem  the Roman Stoics were incapable of
meeting, but they did what lay in their power, and their
efforts, though altogether inadequate to the disease, were
by no means contemptible.  In the first place they raised
up many great and good rulers who exerted all the
influence of their position in the cause of virtue.  In
most cases these reforms were abolished on the accession
of the first bad emperor, but there were at least some
which remained.  It has been observed that the luxury
of the table, which had acquired the most extravagant




310       IHISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
proportions during the period that elapsed between the
battle of Actium  and the reign of Galba, began from
this period to decline, and the change is chiefly attributed to Vespasian, who had in a measure reformed the
Roman aristocracy by the introduction of many provincials, and who made his court an example of the
strictest frugZality.1  The period from  the accession of
Nerva to the deathl of Marcus Aurelius, comprising no
less than eighty-four years, exhibits a uniformity of good
government which  no  other despotic monarchy has
equalled.  Each of the five emperors who then reigned
deserves to be placed among the best rulers who have ever
lived.  Trajan and Hadrian, whose personal characters
were most defective, were men of great and conspicuous genius, Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, thouggh less
distinguished as politicians, were among the most perfectly
virtuous men who have ever sat on a throne.  During
fortyyears of this period, perfect, unbroken peace reigned
over the entire civilised globe.  The barbarian encroachments had not yet begun.  The distinct nationalities that
composed the empire, gratified by perfect municipal and
by perfect intellectual freedom, had lost all care for political fieedom, and little more than three hundred thousand soldiers guarded a territory whichl is now protected
by much more than three millions.2
In creating this condition of affairs, Stoicism,  as the
chief moral agent of the empire, had a considerable
though  not a preponderating influence.  In other ways
its influence was more evident and exclusive.  It was
a fundamental maxim  of the sect,' that the sage should
take part in public life,'3 and it was therefore impossible' Tacit. Ann. iii. O5.
9 Chamlpagny; Les Antonzias, tom. ii. pp. 179- 200.
3 7toXlEVEOat %ib' ci;ov. —Diog. Labrt. Zeno.




THEE PAGAN EMPIRtE.                      811
that Stoicism  should flourish without producing a resuscitation of patriotism.  The same moral impulse which
transformed the Neoplatonist into a dreaming mystic and
the Catholic into  a useless hermit, impelled the Stoic
to  the foremost post of danger in the  service of his
country.  While  landmark  after landmark  of Roman
virtue was submerged, while luxury and scepticism  and
forei(n habits and foreign creeds were corroding the whole
framework of the national life, amid the last paroxysms
of expiring liberty, amid the hideous carnival of vice
that soon  followed  upon  its fall, tlhe  Stoic remained
unchanged, the representative  and the sustainer of the
past.  A  party which  had  acquired  the noble title of
the Party  of Virtue, guided  by such  men as Cato or
Thrasea or Helvidius or Burrhus, upheld the banner of
Roman virtue and Roman liberty in the darkest hours
of despotism  and of apostasy.  Like all men who carry
an intense religious fervour into politics, they were often
narrow-minded and  intolerant, blind  to  the inevitable
changes of society, incapable of compromise, turbulent
and inopportune in their demands,l  but they more than
redeemed  their errors  by  their noble constancy  and
courage.  The  austere  purity  of their lives, and  the
heroic grandeur of their deaths, kept alive the tradition
1 Thus Tigellinus spolke ot' Stoicorum arrogantia sectaque quee turbidos
et negotiorum appetentes faciat.'-Tacit. Ae.n. xiv. 57. The accusation does
not appear to have been quite untrue, for Vespasian, who was a very moderate emperor, thought it necessary to banish nearly all the philosophers from
Rome, on account of their factiousness. Sometimes the Stoics showed their
independence by a rather gratuitous insolence. Dion Cassius relates, that
when Nero was thinking of writing a poem in 400 books, he asked the advice
of the Stoic Cornutus, who said, that no one would read so long a work.
But, answered Nero,' your favourite Chrysippus wrote still more numerous
books.''True,' rejoined Cornutus,'but then they swere of use to humanity.' On the other hand, Seneca is justly accused of condescending too
much to the vices of Nero in his efforts to mitigate their effects.




312          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN  MIORALS.
of Roman liberty even under a Nero or a Domitian.
While such men existed it was felt that all was not lost.
There was still a rallying-point of freedom, a seed of
virtue that might germinate anew, a living protest against
the despotism and the corruption of the empire.
A third and still more important service whiclh Stoicism rendered to popular morals was in the formation of
Roman jurisprudence.1  Of all the many forms of intellectual exertion in which Greece and Rome struggled
for the mastery this is perhaps the only one in which the
superiority of the latter is indisputable.' To rule the
nations' was justly  pronounced  by  the  PRoman  poet
the supreme  glory  of his countrymen, and  their administrative genius is even now unrivalled in history.
A  deep reverence for law  was long one of their clief
moral characteristics, and  in  order that it might be
inculcated from  the earliest years it was a part of the
Roman system  of education  to  oblige the children to
repeat by rote the code of the decemvirs.2   The laws of
the republic, however, being an expression of the contracted, local, military and sacerdotal spirit that dominated among the people, were necessarily unfit for the
political and intellectual expansion of thle empire, and
the process  of renovation  which  was  begun  under
Augustus by the Stoic Labeo,3 was continued with great
1 The influence of Stoicism on Roman law has been often examined.
See, especially, Degerando, Hist. de la Tliiosoplice (2ncl ed.), tome iii. pp.
202-204; Laferriere, De'fiesnce clu Stoicisme st'r les Jurisconsultes Tomzains; Denis, T/eories et Idees morales dcns P'Anztiuit, tome ii. pp. 187217; Troplong, IZfluence du C2r'isticais??e sur le D2roit civil des Romains;
MIerivale, Converlsion of the Roeman z Empire, lec. iv.; and the great work
of Gravina, De Ortu et P)rogressau Juris civilis.
2 CiC. De Legib. ii. 4, 23.
3 There were two rival schools, that of Lalbeo and that of Capito. The
first was remarkable for its strict adherence to the letter cf the law-the
second for the latitude of interpretation it admitted.




THE PAGAN EMAPIRE.                 313
zeal under Hadrian and Alexander Severus, and issued
in the famous compilations of Theodosius and Justinian.
In this movement we have to observe two parts.  There
were certain general rules of guidance laid down by the
great Roman lawyers whichl constituted what may be
called the ideal of the jurisconsults-the ends to which
their special enactments tended —the principles of equity
to guide the judge when the law was silent or ambiguous.
There were also definite enactments to meet specific
cases.  The first part was simply borrowed from  the
Stoics, whose doctrines and method thus passed frolml
the narrow circle of a philosophical academy and became
the avowed moral beacons of the civilised globe.  The
fundamental difference between Stoicism  and early Roman thought was that the former maintained the existence
of a bond of unity among mankind which transcended
or annihilated  all class or national limitations.  The
essential characteristic of the Stoical method -w as the
assertion of the existence of a certain law of nature to
which it was the end of philosophy to conform.  These
tenets were laid down in the most unqualified language
by the Roman lawyers.'As far as natural law is concerned,' said Ulpian,' all men are equal.' 1'Nature,'
said Paul,' has established among us a certain relationship.' 2'By natural law,' Ulpian declared,' all men are
born free.' 3' Slavery' was defined by Florentinus as' a
custom of the law  of nations, by which one man, contrary to the law of nature, is subjected to the dominion
of another.' 4  In accordance withl these principles it
became a maxim  among the Roman lawyers that in
every doubtful case where the alternative of slavery or.1Dig. lib. 1. tit. 17-32.  2 -ig. lib. i. tit. 1-3.
*3.De. lib. i. tit. 1-4.  4 Dig. lib. i. tit. 5-4.




314            HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
freedom  was at issue, the decision of the judge shouldcl be
towards the latter.l
The Roman   lecislation was in  a twofold  manner the
child of philosophy. It was in the first place itself formed
upon the philosophical model, for instead of being a mere
empirical system  adjusted  to the existing requirements of
society, it laid down abstract principles of right to whill
it endeavoured to conform;2 and, in the next place, these
principles  were  borrowed  directly from   Stoicism.   The
prominence the sect had  acquired among Roman  moralists, its active intervention  in public affairs, and  also the
precision and brevity of its phraseology, had recommended
it to thle lawyers,3 and the union then effected between the
legal and  philosoplical spirit is felt to  the present day.
To the Stoics and the PRoman lawyers, is mainly due the
1 Laferri~re, p. 32. WVallon, ifst. de l'Esclavcage dcans l'Antiqueit, tome iii.
pp. 71-80.  M. Wallon gives many curious instances of legal decisions on
this point.
* To prove that this is the correct conception of law was the main
object of Cicero's treatise De Legibus.  Ulpian defined jurisprudence as'Divinarum  atque humanarum  reruum notitia, justi atque injusti scientia.'
-Dig. lib. i. tit. 1-10. So Paul,' Id quod semper equiuinu ac bonum est jus
dicitur ut est jus naturale.'-Dig. lib. i. tit. 1-11. And Gaius, I'Quod vero
naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit....vocatur jus gentium.'
— Di. lib. i. tit. 1-9.  The Stoics had defined true wisdom  as'rerum
divinarum atque hunlanaranl scientia.'-Cic. De Offic. i. 43.
3 Cicero compares the phraseology of the Stoics with that of the Peripatetics, maintaining- that the precision of the former is well adapted to legal
discussions, and the redundancy of the latter to oratory.'Omnes fere
Stoici prudentissimi in disserendo sint et id arte faciant, sintque architecti
pene verborum; iidem  traducti a dispiutando ad dicendum, inopes reperiantur: unuml excipio Catonem.... Peripateticoruln institutis commodius
fingeretur ora'tio.... 11m ut Stoicorum astrictior est oratio, aliquantoque
contractior quam aures populi requirunt: sic illoruml liberior et latior quami
patitur consuetudo judiciorum et fori.'-De Claris Oratoribus. A very judicious historian of philosophy observes:'En gen6ral a Rome le petit
nombre d'hommes livres a la Ileditation et a l'enthousiasme pr6fererent Pythagore et Platon; les hommnres du  monde et ceux qui cultivaient les sciences
naturelles s'attachfrent'a Epicure; ]es orateurs et les hommes d'Etat a la
nouvelle Acad6mie; les jurisconsultes au Portique.'-Degerando, Hist. de lat
PFzlos. tome iii. p. 196.




THE PAGAN EMPIRPE.                315
clear recognition of the existence of a law of nature above
and beyond all human enactments which has been the
basis of the best moral and of the most influential thouglh
most chimerical political speculation of later ages, and the
renewed study of Roman law was an important element
in the revival that preceded the Reformation.
It is not necessary for my present purpose to follow
into very minute detail the application of these principles
to practical legislation.  It is sufficient to say, that there
were few departments into which the catholic and humane
principles of Stoicism were not in some degree carried.
In the political world, as we have already seen, the right
of Roman citizenship, with the protection and the legal
privileges attached to it, from being the monopoly of a
small class was gradually, but very widely diffLhsed.  In
the domestic sphere, the power which the old laws had
given to the father of the family, though not destroyed,
was greatly abridged, and an important innovation, which
is well worthy of a brief notice, was thus introduced into
the social system of the empire.
It is probable that in the chronology of morals, domestic virtue takes the precedence of all others; but in
its earliest phase it consists of a single article-the duty of
absolute submission to tlhe head of the household.  It is
only at a later period, and when the affections have been
in some degree evoked, that the reciprocity of duty is
felt, and the whole tendency of civilisation is to diminish
the disparity between the different members of the family.
The process by which the wife from a simple slave becomes
the companion and equal of her husband, I shall endeavour to trace: in a future chapter.  The relations of the
father to his children are profoundly modified by the new
position the affections assume in education, which in a
rude nation rests chiefly upon authority, but in a civilised




316         UHISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
community upon sympathy. In Rome the absolute authority of the head of the family was the centre and archetype of that whole system  of discipline and subordination
which it was the object of the legislator to sustain.  Filial
reverence was enforced as thle first of duties.  It is the
one virtue which  Virgil attributed  in  any remarkable
degree to the founder of the race. The marks of external
respect paid to old men were scarcely less than in Sparta.1
It was the boast of the lawyers that in no other nation
had the parent so great an authority over his children.2
The child was indeed the absolute slave of his father, who
had a right at any time to take away his life and dispose of
his entire property.  IHe could look to no time during the
lifetime of his father in which he would be freed from the
thraldom.  The man of fifty, the consul, the general, or
the tribune, was in this respect in the same position as the
infant, and might at any moment be deprived of all the
earnings of his labour, driven to the most meniAl employnments, or even put to death, by the paternal command.3
There can, I think, be little question that this law,
at least in the latter period of its existence, defeated its
own object.  There are few errors of education to which
more  unhappy homes may  be traced  than  this-that
parents have sought to  command the obedience, before
they have sought to win the confidence, of their children.
1 See a very remarkable passage in Aulus Gellius, 3Noct. ii. 15.
2'Fere eniln nulli alii sunt homines cqui talemn in filios suos habeant
potestatem qualem nos habelmus.'-Gaius.
3 A full statement of these laws is given by Dion. Halicarn. ii. 4. It was
provided that if a father sold his son and if the son -was afterwards enfranchised by the purchaser, he became again the slave of his father, who might
sell him a second, and, if manumission again ensued, a third time. It
was only on the third sale that he passed for ever out of the parental control.
A more merciful law, attributed to Numna, provided that when the son
married (provided that marriage was by the consent of the father), the
father lost the power of selling him. In no other wayS however, was his
authority even then abridged.




TIHE PAGAN  EAMPIRE.                       317
This was the path  which  the Roman legislator indicated
to the parent, and its natural consequence was to chill the
sympathies and arouse the resentment of the young.   Of
all the forms of virtue filial affection is perhaps that which
appears most rarely in Roman history.  In the plays of
Plautus it is treated muclh as conjugal fidelity was treated
in England by the play-writers of the Restoration.  An
historian of the reign of Tiberius has remarked that the
civil wars were equally remarkable for the many examples
they supplied of the devotion of wives to their husbands,
of the  devotion  of slaves to their masters, and of the
treachery or indifference of sons to their fathers.'
The  reforms  that were  effected  during  the  pagan
empire did not reconstruct the family, but they at least
greatly mitigated its despotism.   The  profound  change
of feeling that had taken place on the subject, is shown
by the contrast between the respectful, though somewhat
shlrinking    acquiescence witlh  which the ancient Romans
regarded parents who had put their children  to  death,2
and the indignation excited under Augustus by the act of
Erixo.  Hadrian, apparently  by  a  stretch  of despotic
power, banished  a man who  1had assassinated  his son.3
1 Velleius Paterculus, ii. 67. A great increase of parricide was noticed
during the empire (Senec. -De Clcn. i. 23). At first it is said there was no
law against parricide, for the crime was believed to be too atrocious to be
possible.
2 Numerous instances of these executions are collected by Livy, Val.
IMaximus, &c.; their history is fully given by Cornelius van. Bynkershoek,'De Jure occidendi, vendendi, et exponendi liberos apucld veteres Romranos,'
in his works (Cologne 1761).
3 This proceeding of Hadrian's, which is related by the lawyer AIarcian, is
doubly remiarkable, because the father had surprised him son in adultery
-with his stepmother. Now a Roman had originally not only absolute authority over the life of his son, but also the right of killing any one whom
he found committing adultery with his wife. Yet MIarcian praises the
severity of Hadrian,'Nam patria potestas in pietate debet, non atrocitate,
consistere.' —Digest. lib. xlviii. tit. 9, ~ 5.




318         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
Infanticide was forbidden, though not seriously repressed,
but the righlt of putting to death an adult chili had long
been obsolete, when Alexander Severus formally withdrew it from  the father.  The property of children was
also in some slight degree protected.  A  few instances
are recorded of wills that were annulled, because they
had disinherited the legitimate sons,l and Hadrian, following a policy that had been feebly initiated by his two
predecessors, gave the son an absolute possession of whatever he might gain in the military service.  Diocletian
rendered the sale of children by the fathers in all cases
illegal.2
In thle field of slavery the legislative reforms were
more important.  This institution, indeed, is one that
neets us at every turn of the moral history of Rome, and
on two separate occasions in the present chapter, I have
already had occasion to notice it.  I have shown that
the great prominence of the slave element in Roman life
was one of the causes of the enlargement of sympathies
that characterises the philosophy of the empire, and also
that slavery was in a very high degree, and in several
distinct ways, a cause of the corruption of the free classes.
In considering the condition of the slaves themselves, we
may distinguish, I think, three periods.  In the earlier
and simpler days of the republic, the head of the family
was absolute master of his slaves, but circumstances in a
great measure mitigated the evil of the despotism.  The
slaves were very few in number. Each Roman proprietor
had commonly one or two who assisted him in cultivating
1 Valer. Max. vii. 7.
2 See, on all this subject, Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xliv.; Troplong;
Iflicncte du C'hristianisme smU le Droit, ch. ix.; Denis, Juist. des icles m.orales, tome ii. pp. 107-120; Laferrire, 2Sfltence cd Stohcisnze sur les Jthrisconsultes, pp. 37-44.




THE PAGAN ]EIPIRE.                    819
the soil, and superintended his property when he was absent
in the army.  In the fruigal habits of the time, the master
was brought into the most intimate connection, with his
slaves.  He shared their labours and their food, and the
control he exercised over them  in most cases probably
differed little from  that which he exercised over his sons.
Under such  circumstances, great barbarity  to  slaves,
though always possible, was not likely to be common,
and the protection of religion was added to the force of
habit.  Hercules, the god  of labour, was the special
patron of slaves.  There was a legend that Sparta had
once been nearly destroyed by an earthquake sent by
Neptune to avenCge the treacherous murder of some Helots.1
In Roame, it was said, Jupiter hadc once in a dream commissioned a man to express to the senate the divine anger
fat the cruel treatment of a slave during the public games.2
By the pontifical law, slaves were exempted from  field
labours on the religious festivals.3  The Saturnalia and
Matronalia, which  were  especially  intended  for their
benefit, were the most popular holidays in Rome, and
on these occasions the slaves were accustomed to sit at
the same table with their masters.4
Even at this time, however, it is probable that great
atrocities were occasionally committed.  Everything was
permitted by law, although] it is probable that the censor
in cases of extreme abuse might interfere, and the aristocratic feelings of the early Roman, though corrected in
a manner by the associations of daily labour, sometimes
broke out in a fiemre scorn for all classes but his own.
1 ~Elian, ltist. T rc. vi. 7.
2 Livy ii. 36; Cicero, De I)ivi. ii. 26.
3 Cicero, D)e Lceibus, ii. 8-12. Cato, however, maintained that slaves
nlight, on those days be employed onl work which did not require oxen.Wallon, fist. de E'Escalvage, tome ii. p. 215.
4 See the Saturnalia of MIacrobius.
22




323          IIISTORY  OF EUPtOPEAN  AIORALS.
The elder Cato, who may be regarded as a type of the
Romans of the earlier period, speaks of slaves simply as
instruments for obtaining  wealth, and  he  encouraged
masters, both  by his precept and his example, to  sell
them  as useless when aged and infirm.1
In  the  second  period, the  condition  of slaves had
greatly deteriorated.  The victories of Rome, especially
in the East,  had introduced into  the city innumerable
slaves,2 and the wildest luxury, and the despotism  of the
master remained unqualified by law, while the habits of
life that had  originally mitigated  it had  disappeared.
The religious sentiments of the people were at the same
time fatally impaired, and many new  causes conspired
to aggravate the evil.  The passion for gladiatorial shows
had begun,  and it continually produced a savage indifference to  the infliction  of pain.  The servile wars of
Sicily, and the still more formidable revolt of Spartacus,
had shaklen Italy to its centre, and the shock was felt in
every'household.'As  many  enemies  as slaves,' had
become a Roman proverb.  The fierce struggles of barbarian captives were repaid  by fearful punishments, and
many thousands of revolted slaves perished on the cross.
An atrocious law, intended to secure the safety of the
citizens, provided that if a master were murdered, all the
slaves in his house, who were not in chains or absolutely
helpless through illness, shq)uld be put to death.3
1 See his life by Plutarch, and his book on ag'riculture.
2 The number of the Roman slaves has been a mnatter of much controversy. Mf. Dureau de la Malle (fcon. poliipzqe des eomamizs) has restricted it
more than any other -writer. Gibbon (Decline cald Fall, chap. ii.) has collectedl many statistics on the subject, but the fullest examination is in IM. Walion's admirable Hist. de l'Esclavage. On the contrast between the character
of the slaves of the republic and those of the empire, see Tac. Ann. xiv. 44.
3 Tacit. Annal. xiii. 32; xiv. 42-45. Wallon, Hist. de l'.Esclav. ii. 293.
I have already noticed the indionlant rising of the people caused by the
proposal to execute the 400 slaves of the rurclde el Pecldaius.  Their




THE PAGAN ESIPIRE.                     321
NIumerous acts of the most odious barbarity were cormmnitted. The well-known anecdotes of Flaminius ordering
a slave to be killed to  gratify, by the spectacle,! the
curiosity of a guest; of Vedius Pollio feeding his fish on
the flesh of slaves; and of Augustus sentencing a, slave,
who had killed and eaten a favourite quail, to crucifixion,
are the extreme examples that are recorded; for we need
not regard as an historical fact the famous picture in
Juvenal of a Roman lady, in a moment of caprice, ordering her unoffending servant to be crucified.  We have,
]lowever, many other very horrible glimpses of slavelife at the close of the republic and in the early days of
the empire.  The marriage of slaves was entirely unrecognised by law, and in their case the words adultery,
incest, or polygamy had ano legal meaning.  Their testimony was in general only received  in  the law-courts
when they were under torture.  When executed for a
crime, their deaths were of the mlost hideous kind.  The
ergastula, or private prisons, of the masters were frequently their only sleeping-places.  Old and infirm  slaves
were constantly exposed to perish on an island of the
Tiber. We read of slaves chained as porters to the doors,
and cultivating the fields in chains.  Ovid and Juvenal
describe the fierce RToman ladies tearing their servants'
faces, and thrusting the lon1g pins of their brooches into
their flesh.  The master, at the close of the republic, had
full power to sell his slave as a gladiator, or as a combatant with wild beasts.'
interposition was, however, (as Tacitus informs us) unavailing, and the slaves,
guarded by a strong band of soldiers against rescue, were executed. It w as
proposed to banish the freedmen who were in the house, but Nero interposed and prevented it. Pliny notices (Pp. viii. 14) the banishment of the
freedmen of a murdered man.
See all this fully illustrated in Wallon. The plays of Plautus and the
rIoman writers on agriculture contain numerous allusions to the condition
of slaves.




822          1HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
All this is very horrible, but it must not be forgotten that
there was another side to the picture.  It is the custom
of many ecclesiastical writers to paint the pagan society
of the empire as a kind of pandemoniumn, and with this
qbject they collect the facts I have cited, and which are
for the most part narrated by Roman satirists or historians, as examples of the most extreme and revolting
cruelty; they represent them  as fair specimens of the
ordinary treatment of the servile class, and they simply
exclude from  their consideration  the  many  qualifying
facts that might be alleged.  Although the marriage of
a slave was not legally recognised, it was sanctioned by
custom, and it does not appear to have been common
to separate his family.l  Two customs to which I have
already referred distinguish ancient slavery broadly from
that of modern times.   The peculium, or private property, of slaves -was freely recognised  by masters, to
whom, however, after the death of the slave, part or all
of it usually reverted,2 though  some masters permitted
their slaves to dispose of it by will.3  The enfrianchisement of slaves was also  carried  on to such an extent
as seriously  to  affect the  population  of the city.  It
appears from  a passage in Cicero that an industrious and
well-cdnducted captive might commonly look forward to
his freedom in six years.4  Isolated acts of great cruelty
undoubtedly occurred; but public opinion strongly reprehended them, and Seneca assures us that masters who
I Wallon, tome ii. pp. 209-210, 357. There were no laws till the time oi
the Christian emperors against separating the families of slaves, but it was a
maxim of the j arisconsults that in forced sales they should not be separated.
(Wallon, tome iii. pp. 55-56.)
2 Ibid. tome ii. pp. 211-213.
3 Plin. iEpist. viii. 16. It was customary to allow the public or state
slaves to dispose of half their goods by w'ill. (Wallon, tome iii. p.  69.)
4 Wallon, tome ii. p. 419. This appears from an allusion oI Cicero,
Piu'llip. Viii 11.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                       323
illtreated their slaves were  pointed at and insulted in
the streets.1  The slave was not necessarily the degraded
being he has since appeared.  The physician who tended
the Roman in his sickness, the tutor to whom  he confided
the education of his son, the artists whose works commanded the admiration of the city, were usually slaves.
Slaves sometimes mixed with their masters in the family,
ate habitually with them  at the same table,2 and were
regarded by them  with the warmest affection.  Tiro, the
slave and afterwards the freedman of Cicero, compiled
his master's letters, and  has preserved  some in which
Cicero  addressed  him  in  terms  of the  most sincere
and delicate frieidship.  I have already referred to the
letter in which the younger Pliny poured out his deep
sorrow for the death of some of his slaves, and endeavoured to console himself with the thouglht that as he
had emancipated them  before their death, at least they
had died free.3   Epictetus passed  at once from  slavery
to the friendship  of an emperor.4   The great multiplication of slaves, while it removed them  from  the sympathy of their masters, must at least in most instances
have alleviated their burdens.  The application of torture
to slave* witnesses, horrible as it was, was a matter of
rare occurrence, and was carefully restricted  by law.5
M3uch1 vice was undoubtedly fostered, but yet the annals
of the civil wars and of the empire are crowded'with
1 Senec. -De Cle. 1. i. 18.        2 Ibid. p. xlvii.
3 Pliny. Ep. viii. 16.             4 Sparl'tianullS, id'anuS.
5 Compare WVallon, tbme ii. p. 186; tome iii. pp. 65-66. Slaves were only to
be called as witnesses in the cases of incest, adultery, murder, and high
treason, and where it was impossible to establish the crime without their
evidence. Hadrian considered that the reality of the crime must have already
acquired a strong probability, and the jurisconsult Paul laid down that at
least two free witnesses should be heard before slaves were submitted to
torture, and that the offer of an accused person to have his slaves tortured
that they might attest his innocence should not be accepted.




324           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
the most splendid  instances  of the  fidelity  of slaves.
In many cases they refused  the  boon  of liberty  and
defied the most horrible tortures rather than betray their
masters, accompanied them  in their flight when all others
had abandoned them, displayed undaunted courage and
untiring ingenuity in rescuing them  fiom  danger, and in
some cases saved the lives of their owners by the deliberate sacrifice of their own.'  This was, indeed, for
some time the pre-eminent virtue of Rome, and it proves
conclusively that the masters were not so tyrannical, and
that the slaves were not so degraded, as is sometimes
alleged.
The duty of humanity to slaves had been at all times
one of those which the philosophers had most ardently inculcated.  Plato and Aristotle, Zeno and Epicurus, were,
on this point, substantially agreed.2   The Roman Stoics
gave the duty a similar prominence in  their teaching,
and Seneca especially has filled pages with exhortations
to masters to remember that the accident of position in
no degree affects the real dignity of men, that the slave
may be free by virtue while the master may be a slave
by vice, and that it is the duty of a good man to abstain
not only  from   all cruelty, but even  from   all feeling
of contempt towards his slaves.3   But these exhortations,
Numerous and very noble instances of slave fidelity are given by
Seneca, De Benefc. iii. 10-27; Yal. MIax. vi. 8; and in Appian's HIstory o/
the Civil TC'ars. See, too, Tacit. Hist. i. 3.
2 Aristotle had, it is true, declared slavery to be part of the law of
nature-an opinion which, he said, was rejected by some of his contemporaries; but he advocated humanity to slaves quite as emphatically as the
other philosophers (Economiecs, i. 5). Epicurus was conspicuous even among
Greek philosophers for his kindness to slaves, and he associated some of
his own with his philosophical labours. (IDiog. La6rt. Epiceurus.)
3 De Benef. iii. 18-28; De Vita Beafa, xxiv.; De Clem. i. 18, and especially E1p. xlvii. Epictetus, as might be expected from his history, frequently recurs to the duty. Plutarch writes very beautifully upon it in
his treatise -De Cohibenda Ira.




THE PAGAN EMPIPTE.                  325
in which some have imagined that they have discovered
the influence of Christianity, were, in fact, simply all echo
of the teacling  of ancient Greece, and especially of Zeno,
the founder of the sect, who had laid down, long before
the dawn of Christianity, the broad principles that' all
men, are by nature equal, and that virtue alone establishes a difference between themn.'  The softening influence of the peace of the  Antonines assisted this
movement of humanity, and the slaves derived a certain
incidental benefit from  one of the worst features of the
despotism  of the Cxsars.  The emperors, who continually apprehended plots against their lives or power, encouraged numerous spies around the more important of
their subjects, and the facility with which slaves could
discover the proceedings of their masters inclined the
government in their favour.
Under all these influences many laws were promulgated
which profoundly altered the legal position of the slaves,
and opened what may be termed the third period of
Roman slavery.  The Petronian law, which was issued by
Augustus, or, more probably, by Nero, forbade the master
to condemn his slave to combat with wild beasts without
a sentence from a judce.2  Under Claudius, some citizens
exposed their sick slaves on the island of iEsculapius  in
the Tiber, to avoid the trouble of tending them, and the
emperor decreed that if the slave so exposed recovered
from his sickness, he should become free, and also, that
masters who killed their slaves instead of exposing them
should be punished as murderers.3 It is possible that succour was afforded to the abandoned slave in the temple of
I Diog. Lakrt. Znzo.
2 30odin thinks it was promulgated by Nero, and he has been followed by
Troplong' and MIr. MIerivale. Champagny (Les Anltonzis, tome ii. p. 115)
thinkls that no law after Tiberius was called lex.
3 Sueton. Claud. xxv.; Dion Cass. lx. 29.




2SaS        I-IISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
A.sculapius,' and it would appear from  these laws that the
wanton slaughlter of a slave was already illegal.  About
this time the statue of the emperor had become an asylum
for the slave.2   Under Nero, a judge was appointed to
hear the complaints of slaves, and to punish masters who
treated them  with barbarity, or made them  the instruments of their lusts, or who withheld from  them  a su-ficient quantity of the necessaries of life.3   A  considerable
pause appears to have ensued, but Domitian made a law
which was afterwards reiterated, forbidding the Oriental
custom  of mutilating slaves for sensual purposes, and the
reforms were renewed with great energy in the period of
the Antonines.  Hadrian and his two successors formally
deprived masters  of the  right  of killing  their slaves,
forbade them   to  sell slaves to the laniste, or speculators in gladiators, destroyed the ergastula, or private
prisons, ordered  that when  a  master was murdered,
those slaves only should be tortured who were within
hearing,4 appointed officers through all the provinces to
hear the complaints of slaves, enjoined  that no master
should treat his slaves with excessive severity, and commanded that when such severity was proved, the master
should be compelled to sell the slave le had illtreated.5
When we add to these laws the broad maxims of equity
asserting the essential equality of the hum-ean race, which
the jurists  had  borrowed from  the  Stoics, and which
1 See Dunnmas, Secourspublics clez les A/lnciens (Parlis, 1813), pp. 125-130.
2 Senec. De Clem. i. 18.               3 Senec. -De Benef. iii. 22.
4 Spartian. Hacdrianus. Hadriana exiled a Roman lady for five years for
treating her slaves with atrocious cruelty. (Digest. lib. i. tit. 6, ~ 2.)
5 See these laws fully examined by Wallon, tome iii. pp. 51-92, and also
Laferriere, Sur l'Ifl2tence dcu Storcisme sur le 1Droit. The jurisconsults gave
a very wide scope to their definitions of cruelty. A master who degraded
a literary slave, or a slave musiciann to some coarse manual employment,
such as a porter, was decided to have illtreated him. (Wallon, tome iii.
p. 62.)




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                      327
supplied  the  principles to  guide  the judlges in  their
decisions, it mnust be admlitted that the slave  code  of
Imperial Rome compares not unfavourably with those of
some Christian nations.
While a considerable portion of the principles, and even
much of thle plhraseology, of stoicism  passed into the system of public law, the Roman philosophers had other more
direct imeans of acting on the people.  On occasions of
family bereavement, when the mind is most susceptible of
impressions, they were habitually called in to console the
survivors.  Dying men asked their comfort and support
in the last hours of their life.  They became the directors
of the conscience of numbers who resorted to them for a
solution of perplexing cases of practical morals, or under
the influence of despondency  or remorse.1  They had
their special exhortations for every  vice, and  their remedies adapted to every variety of character. Many cases
were cited of the conversion of the vicious or the careless,
who had been soughlt out and fascinated by tle philosophler,2 and who, under his guidance, had passed through  a
long course of moral discipline, and had at last attained a
high degree of virtue.  Education fell in a great degree
into their hands.  Many great families kept a philosopher
among  them  in  what in  modern language might be
termed the capacity of a domestic chaplain,3 while a system of popular preachinc was created and widely diffused.
1 Thus, e.g., Livia called in the Stoic Areus to console her after the death
of IDrusus (Senec. Acdl M/are.). MIany of the letters of Seneca and Plutarch
are written to console the suffering. Cato, Thrasec, and miany others appear to have fortified their last hoeurs by conversation with philosophers.
The whole of this aspect of stoicism has been admirably treatedl by MI.
Martha (Les Moralistes dce l'Empire romain).
2 We have a pleasing picture of the affection philosophers and their disciples sometimes bore to one auother in the lines of Perseus (Sat. v.) to his
master Cornutus.
s Grant's Alristotle, vol. i. pp. 277-278.




828         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
Of these preachers there were two classes who differed
greatly in their characters and their methods.  The first,
wrho have been very happily  termed  the' monks of
stoicism,'l  were the  Cynics, who appear to have assumed among the later -moralists of the pagan empire a
position somewhat resembling that of the mendicant
orders in Catholicism. In a singularly curious dissertation
of Epictetus,2 we have a picture of the ideal at which a
Cynic should aim, and it is impossible in reading it not to
be struck by the resemblance it bears to the missionary
friar.  The Cynic should be a man devoting his entire life
to the instruction of mankind.  IHe must be unmarried,
for he must have no family affections to divert or to dilute
his energies. He must wear the meanest dress, sleep upon
the bare ground, feed upon the simplest food, abstain
from all earthly pleasures, and yet exhibit to the world the
example of uniform cheerfulness and content.  No one,
under pain of provoking the Divine an ger, should embrace
such a career, unless lhe believes himself to be called and
assisted by Jupiter.  It is his mission to go among men as
the ambassador of Go<d, rebuking, in season and out of
season, their frivolity, their cowardice, and  their vice.
He must stop the rich man in the market-place. He must
preach to the populace in the highiway.  He must know
no respect and no fear.  He must look upon all men
as his sons, and upon. all women as his daughters. In the
midst of a jeering crowd, he must exhibit such a placid
calm, that men may imagine him to be of stone. Ill-treatment, and exile, and death must have no terror in his eyes,
for the discipline of his life should emancipate him  firom
1 Champagny, Les Antonins, tome i. p. 40.5.
Arrian, iii. 22..Julian has also painted the character of the true Cynic,
and contrasted it with that of the ilpostors who assumed the garb. See
Neander's Life of Julian (London, 1850), p. 94.




THE PAGAN EMIPIRE.                     329
every earthly tie, and when he is beaten,' he should love
those who beat him, for he is at once the father and
the brother of all men.'
A curious contrast to the Cynic wvas the philosophic
rhetorician, who gathered around his chair all tlhat was
most brilliant in Roman or Athenian society.  The passion for oratory which the free institutions of Greece had
formed, had survived the causes that produced it, and given
rise to a very singular but a very influential profession;
which, though excluded from  the Roman republic, acquired a great development after the destruction of political liberty.  The rhetoricians were a kind of itinerant
lecturers, who went about from  city to city, delivering
harangues that were often  received  with  the  keenest
interest.  For the most part, neither their characters nor
their talents appear to  have  deserved  much  respect.
Numerous anecdotes are recorded  of their vanity and
rapacity, and their success was a striking proof of the
decadence of public taste.'  They had cultivated the histrionic part of oratory wvith the most minute attention.
The arrangement of their hair, the folds of their dresses,
all their postures and gestures were studied with artistic
care.  They had determined the different kinds of action
tlhat are appropriate for each branch of a discourse and
for each form of eloquence.  Sometimes they personated
characters in Homer or in ancient Greek history, and delivered speeches which those characters might have deli1 Seneca the rhetorician (father of the philosopher) collected many of
the sayings of the rhetoricians of his timle. At a later period, Philostratus
iwrote tile lives of eminent rlhetoricians.  Quintilian discussed their rules
of oratory, and Aulus Gellius painted the whole society in which they
moved. On their injurious influence upon eloquence, see Petronius, &dyricon,
2. 2. Much curious information about the rhetoricians is collected in MIartia,
2IoralistCs de l'BEmgire romain, and in Nisard, E'tudes sur les Poctes latis de
l aD6cadence, art. Juvenal.




330          IIISTORY OF EUROPEAN  M3ORALS.
veredc in certain conjunctures of their lives. Sometimes they
awakened the admiration of their audience by making a
fly, a cockroach, dust, smoke, a mouse, or a parrot the
subject of their eloquent eulogy.' Others, again, exercised
their ingenuity inl defending  some  glaring paradox or
sophism, or in  debating some intricate case of law  or
morals, or they delivered literary lectures remarkable for
a minute but captious and fastidious criticism.  Some of
the rhetoricians recited only harangues prepared with the
most elaborate care, others were ready debaters, and they
tiravelled from  city to city, challenging opponents to discuss some subtle and usually frivolous question. The poet
Juvenal and  the  satirist Lucian  had  both for a time
followed this profession.  Many of the most eminent acquired immense wealth, travelled with a splendid retinue,
and excited  tralnsports of enthusiasm  in the cities they
visited.  They were  often charged  by cities to  appear
before the emperor to plead for a remission of taxes, or
of the punishment due for somlle offence.  They became
iln a great measure the educators of the people, and contributed very largely to form  andl direct their taste.
It had been from  the first the custom  of some philosophers to adopt this profession, and to expound in the
form  of rhetorical lectures the principles of their school.
In tlhe Flavian period and in the age of the Antonines,
this alliance of philosophy, anid especially of stoical philosophy, with  rhetoric became more marked, and  the
1'Cependant ces orateurs n'etaient janais plus adlmir6s que lorsqu'ils
avaient le bonh'eur de trouver un sujet oii la louange fut un tour de force.... Lucien a fait l'6loge de la mouche; Fronton de la poussiere, de la
fumree, de la n6gligoence; Dion Chrysostome de la chevelure, du perroquet,
etc. Au ciequirnme sic!e, Synesius, qui fut un grand 6veclue, fera le panegyrique. de 1a cnlvitie, long ouvrage oil toutes les sciences sont mises a contribution pour apprendre aux homllnes ce qu'il y a non-seulement de bonheur
nmais aussi de m6rite a etre chauve.' —Martha, Moraistes de l'E mpire romnain
(ed. 1865), p. 275.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                 331
foundation of liberally endowed chairs of rhetoric and
philosophy by Vespasian, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius
contributed to sustain it.  Discourses of the Platonist
Maximus of Tyr, and of the Stoic Dion Chrysostom, have
come down to us, and they are both of a high order of
intrinsic merit.  The first turn chiefly on such subjects
as the comparative excellence of active and contemplative
life, the pure and noble conceptions of the Divine nature
which underlie the fables or allegories of Homer, the daemon
of Socrates, the Platonic notions of the Divinity, the duty
of prayer, tlhe end of philosophy, and the ethics of love.l
Dion Chrysostom, in his orations, expounded the noblest
and plurest theism, examined the place which images
should occupy in worship, advocated humanity to slaves,
and was, perhaps, the earliest wvriter in the Roman
Empire who denounced hereditary slavery as illegitimate.2
His life was very eventful and very noble.  He had become famous as a sophist and rhetorician, skilled in the
laborious frivolities of the profession. Calamity, however,
and the writings of Plato induced him  to abandon them
and devote himself exclusively to the improvement of
mankind.  Having defended with a generous rashness a
man who had been proscribed by the tyranny of Domitian,
he was compelled to fly from Rome in the garb of a
beggar, and carrying with him  only a worlk of Plato
and a speech of Demosthenes, he travelled to the most
distant frontiers of the empire.  He gained his livelihood
by the work of his hands, for le refusedi to receive money
for his discourses; but he taught and captivated the
Greek colonists who were scattered among the barbarians,
and even the barbarians themselves.  Upon the assasssi1 There is a good review of the teaching of Maximus in Champaguny, Les
Antozninzs, tome ii. pp. 207-215.
2 Orat. xv.; De Servitute.




332        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
nation of Domitian, when the legions hesitated to give
their allegiance to Nero, the eloquence of Dion Chrysostom
overcame their irresolution.  By the same eloquence he
more than once appeased seditions in Alexandria and the
Greek cities of Asia Minor.  He preached before Trajan
on the duties of royalty, taking a line of Homer for his
text.  He electrified the vast and  polished audience
assembled at Athens for the Olympic games as he had
before done the rude barbarians of Scythia.  Though his
taste was by no means untainted by the frivolities of the
rhetorician, he was skilled in all the arts that awaken
curiosity and attention, and his eloquence commanded
the most various audiences in the most distant lands.
His special mission, however, was to popularise stoicism
by diffusing its principles throuoh the masses of mankind.1
The names, and in some cases a few fragments, of the
writings of many other rhetorical philosophers, such as
Herod Atticus, Favorinus, Fronto, Taurus, Fabianus,
and Julianus, have come down to us_, and each was the
centre of a group of passionate admirers, and contributed
to form a literary society in the great cities of the empire.
We have a vivid picture of this movement in the'Attic
Nighlts' of Aulus Gellius-a work which is, I think, one of
the most curious and instructive in Latin literature, and
which bears to the literary society of the period of the
Antonines much the same relation as the writings of
Helvetius to the Parisian society on the eve of the
Revolution.  Helvetius, it is said, collected the materials
for his great work on' Mind' chiefly from the conversation
of the drawing-rooms of Paris at a time when that conversation had attained a degree of perfection which even' See the singulally charming essay on Dion Chrysostom;, in MI. Martha's
book.




TILE PAGAN EbMPIRE.                     333
Frenchmen had never before equalled.  He wrote in the
age of the'Encyclopdlia,' when the social and political
convulsions of the Revolution were as yet unfelt, when
the  first dazzling  gleams of intellectual freedom  had
flashled upon a society long clouded by superstition and
aristocratic pride, when the genius of Voltaire and the
peerless conversational powers  of Diderot, irradiating
the bold philosophies of Bacon and Locke, had kindled
an  intellectual  enthusiasm   through  all the  ranks  of
fashion,l and  when the contempt for the wisdom  and
the methods of the past was only equalled by the prevailing confidence ih the future. Brilliant, graceful, versatile, and superficial, with easy eloquence and lax morals,
with a profound disbelief in moral excellence, and an intense appreciation of intellectual beauty, disdaining all
pedantry, superstition, and mystery, and with an almost
fanatical persuasion  of the omnipotence of analysis, he
embodied the principles of his contemporaries in a philosophy which represents all virtue and  heroism  as but
disguised self-interest; hle illustrated every argument, not
by the  pedantic learning  of the  schools, but by  the
sparkling anecdotes and acute literary criticisms of the
drawing-room, and lie thus produced  a work  which,
besides its intrinsic mlerits, was the most perfect mirror
of the society  from  which it sprang.2  Very different,
both in form, subject, and tendency, but not less truly
representative, was the work of Aulus Gellius.  It is the
1 1r. Bucikle, in his admirable chapter on the' Proximate Cause of the
French Ptevolution' (lHst. of CiCilisction, vol. i.), has painted this fashionable
enthusiasnm for knowledge with great power, and illustrated it with ample
learningg.
2 The saying of Milme. Dudeffand about Helv6tius is well known ~C'est
utn homme qui a dit le secret de tout le ionde.:  How truly Helv6tius represented this fashionable society appears very plainly from the vivid portrait
of it in the Nouvelle Hl&E'se, part ii. letter xvii., a masterpiece of its kind.




334          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
journal, or common-place book, or miscellany of a scholar
moving, in the centre of the literary society of both
Rome and Athens during the latter period of the Antonines, profoundly imbued with its spirit, and devoting
his leisure to painting its leading figures, and compiling
the substance of their teaching.  Few  books exhibit a
more curious picture of the combination of intense childlike literary and moral enthusiasm with the most hopeless
intellectual degeneracy.  Each  prominent philosopher
was surrounded by a train of enthusiastic disciples, who
made the lecture-room  resound with their applause,l and
accepted him  as their monitor in all the affairs of life.
He rebuked publicly every instance of vice or of affectation he had observed in their conduct, received them at
his own table, became their friend and confidant in their
troubles, and sometimes assisted them  by his advice in
their professional duties.2  Taurus, Favorinus, Fronto,
and Atticus were the most prominent figures, and each
seems to have formed, in the centre of a corrupt society,
a little company of young men devoted with the simplest
and most ardent earnestness to the cultivation of intellectual and  moral excellence.   Yet this  society  was
singularly puerile.  The age of genius had closed, and
the age of pedantry had succeeded it.  Minute, curious,
and fastidious verbal criticism of the great writers of the
past was the chief occupation of the scholar, and the
whole tone of his mind had beconie retrospective and
even archaic.  Ennius was esteemed a greater poet than
1 Ausonius tried to stop this custom of applauding the lecturer. (Aul.
Gell. N3oct. v. 1.) The habits that were formed in the schools of the rhetoricians
were sometimes carried into the churches, and we hcave frequent notices of
preachers (especially St. Chrysostom) beinMg vociferously applauded.
2 Thus Gellius himself consulted FavTorinus about a perplexing case which
he had, in his capacity of magistrate, to judge, and received from his malster
a long dissertation on the duties of a judge (xiv. 2).




THE P&GAN EMIPItE,                 3
Virgil, and Cato a greater prose writer tlan Cicero.  It
was the affectation of some to tesselate their conversation with antiquated and obsolete words.l  The study of
etymologies had risen into great favour, and curious
questions of grammar and pronunciation were ardently
debated.  Logic, as in most ages of intellectual poverty,
was greatly studied and prized.  1Bold speculations and
original thought had almost ceased, but it was the delight of the phlilosophers to throw the arguments of great
writers into the form  of syllogisms, and to debate them
according to the rules of the schools.  The very amusements of the scholars took the form of a whimsical and
puerile pedantry. Gellius recalls, with a thrill of emotion,
those enchanting evenings wlen, their more serious studies
being terminated, the disciples of Taurus assembled at
the table of their master to pass the happy hours in discussing such questions as when a man can be said to die,
whether in the last moment of life or in the first momlent
of death; or when he can be said to get up, whether
when he is still on his bed or when he has just left it.2
Sometimes they proposedL to one another literary questions,
as what old writer had employed some common word in
a sense that had since become obsolete; or they discussed
such syllogisms as these: —' You have wlhat you have not
lost; you have not lost horns, therefore you have horns.'' You are not what I amn.  I am a man; therefore you
are not a man.'3  As moralists they exhibited a very
genuine love of moral excellence, but the same pedantic
and retrospective character.  They were continually dilating on the regulations of the censors and the customs
1 i. 10.
2 Noct. Att. vi. 13. They called these questions sy7mposictca, as being well
fitted to stimulate minds already mellowed by wine.
3 xviii. 2.
23




9d83       IHISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
of the earliest period of the republic.  They acquired the
habit of never enforcing thle simplest lesson without
illustrating it by a profusion of ancient examples and by
detached sentences from  some philosopher, which they
employed much as texts of Scripture are often employed
in the writings of the Puritans.1  Above all, they delighted
in cases of conscience, which they discussed with the
subtlety of the schoolmen.
Lactantius has remar'ked that tile Stoics were especially noted for the popular or democratic character of
their teaching.2  To their success in this respect their
alliance with the rhetoricians probably largely contributed; but in other ways it hastened the downfall of the
school.  The useless speculations, refinements, and paradoxes which the subtle genius of Chrysippus had connected with the simple morals of stoicism, had been for
the most part thrown into the background by the early
Roman Stoics; but in the teaching of the rhetoricians
they became supreme. The endowments given by the Antonines to philosophers attracted a multitude of impostors,
who wore long beards and the dress of the philosopher,
but whose lives were notoriously immoral.  The Cynics
especially, professing to reject the ordinary conventionalities of society, and being under none of that discipline
or superintendence which in the worst period has secured
at least external morality among the mendicant monks,
continually threw  off every vestige of virtue and of decency. Instead of moulding great characters and inspiring
heroic actions, stoicism  became a school of the idlest
1 We have a curious example of this in a letter of Mlarcus Aurelius preserved by Gallicanus in his Life of Aviclius Cassius.
2'Senserunt hoc Stoici qui servis et nmulieribus philosophandum esse
dixerunt.' —Lact. Nat. Div. iii. 25. Zeno was often reproached for gathering
the poorest and most sordid around lhim when he lectuied, (Diog. La'rt.
zeno.))




THE PAG AN EMPIRE.                    337
casuistry, or the cloak for manifest imposture.t  The very
generation which saw Mlarcus Aurelius on the throne, saw
also the extinction of the influence of his sect.
The internal causes of the decadence of stoicism, though
very powerful, are insufficient to explain this complete
eclipse.  The chief cause lmust be found in the fact
that the minds of men had  taken  a new  turn, and
their enthusiasm was flowing rapidly in the direction of
oriental religions, and, under the guidance of Plotinus,
Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus, of a mythical philosophy which was partly Egyptian and partly Platonic.
It remlains for me, in concluding this review of the Pagan
empire, to indicate and explain this last transformation of
pagan morals.
It was in the first place a very natural reaction against
the extrenle  aridity of the stoical casuistry, and  also
against the scepticism  which Sextus Empiricus had revived, and in this respect it represents a law of tlhe human
minll which has been more than once illustrated in later
times.  Thus, the captious, unsatisfying, intellectual subtleties of the sclioolmen were met by the purely emotional and mystical school of St. Bonaventura, and afterwarcds of Tauler, and thus the adoration of the human
intellect, that was general in thle philosoplly of the last
century, prepared the way for the complete denial of its
competency by De.Maistre and by Lammenais.
In the next place, mysticism was a normal continuation
of the spiritualising movement whlich had long been advancing. We 1have already seen that the* strong tendency
of ethics, from Cato to Miarcus Aurelius, was to enlarge the
I This decadence was noticed and rebuked by some of the leading philosophers. See the language of Epictetus in Arrian ii. 19, iv. 8, and. of
HIerod Atticus in Aul. Gell. i. 2, ix. 2. St. Augustine speaks of the cynics as
having in his time sunk into universal contempt.




338        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3IORALS.
prominence of the emotions in the type of virtue.  The formation of a gentle, a spiritual, and, in a word, a religious
character had become a prominent part of moral culture,
and it was regarded not simply as a means, but as an
end.  Still both Marcus Aurelius and Cato were Stoics.
They both represented the same general cast or conception of virtue, although in Marcus Aurelius the type had
been profoundly modified.  But the time was soon to
~come when the balance between the practical and the emotional parts of virtue, which had been steadily changing,
should be decisively turned in favour of the latter, and
the type of stoicism was then necessarily discarded.
A concurrence of political and commercial causes had
arisen very favourable to the propagation of oriental
beliefs.  Commerce had producedl a constant intercourse
between Egypt and Italy.  Great numbers of oriental
slaves, passionately devoted to their national religions,
existed in Rolme; and Alexandria, which combined a great
intellectual development with a geographical and commercial position, exceedingly favourable to a fusion of
many doctrines, soon created a school of. thoutght which
acted powerfully upon the world.  Four great systems
of eclecticism  arose;  Aristobulus and Philo tinctured
Judaism' with  Greek and Egyptian philosophy. The
Gnostics and the Alexandrian fathers united, though in
very different proportions, Christian doctrines with the
same elements; while N\Teoplatonism, at least in its later
forms, represented a fusion of the Greek and Egyptian
mind. A great analogy was discovered between the ideal
philosophy of Plato and the mystical philosophy that was
indigenous to the East, and the two systems readily
blended.'
But the most powerful cause of the movement was the
This movement is well treated by Yacherot, Ifist de i'Ecole I'Alexandrie.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                   839
intense desire for positive religious belief, which had long
been growing in the empire.  The period when Roman
incredulity reached its extreme point had been the century that preceded and the half century that followed
the birth of Christ..The sudden dissolution* of the old
habits of the republic effected through political causes,
the first comparison of the multitudinous religions of the
empire, and the writings  of Euhlemerus had produced an
absolute religious disbelief which Epicureanism represented
and encouraged.  This disbelief, however, as I have already noticed, co-existed with numnerous magical and
astrological superstitions, and the ignorance of physical
science was so great, and the conception of general laws
so faint, tlhat the materials for a great revival of superstition still remained. - Fronm  the mlliddle of the first
century, a more believing and reverent spirit began to
arise.  The worship of Isis and Serapis forced their
way into Rome in spite of the opposition of the rulers.
Apollonius of Tyana, at the close of the Flavian period,
had endeavoured to unite moral teaching with religious
practices; the oracles, which had long ceased, were partially restored under the Antonines; the calamities and
visible decline of the empire withdrew thle minds of men
from  that proud patriotic worship of Roman greatness,
which was long a substitute for religious feeling, and the
frightful pestilence that swept over the land in the reigns
of Mlarcus Aurelius and his successor was followed by
a blind, feverish, andl spasmodic superstition.  Besides
this, men have never acquiesced for any considerable
time in a neglect of the great problems of the origin,
nature,' and destinies of the soul, or dispensed with some
form  of religious worship and aspirations.  That religious instincts are as truly a part of our nature as are our




340       IHISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
appetites and our nerves, is a fact which all history establishes, and which forms one of the strongest proofs of
the reality of that unseen world to which the soul of
man continually tends.  Early Roman stoicism, which in
this respect somewhat resembled the modern positive
school, diverted for the most part its votaries from the
great problems of religion, and attempted to evolve its
entire system  of ethics out of existing human nature,
without appealing to any external supernatural sanction.
But the Platonic school, and the Egyptian school, which
connected itself with the name of Pythagoras, were both
essentially religious. The first aspired to the Deity as the
source and model of virtue, admitted dmmons or subordinate spiritual agents acting upon mankind, and explained
and purified, in no hostile spirit, the popular religions.
The latter made the state of ecstasy or quietism its ideal
condition, and sought to purify the mind by theurgy or
special religious rites.  Both philosophies conspired to
effect a great religious reformation in which the Greek
spirit usually represented the rational, and the Egyptian
the mystical element.
Of the first, Plutarch was the head.  He taulght the
supreme authority of reason.  He argued elaborately
that superstition is worse than atheism, for it calumniates
the character of the Deity, and its evils are not negative,
but positive. At the same time, he is far from regarding
the 3Mythology as a tissue of fables.  Some things he
denies.  Others he explains away.  Others he frankly
accepts. He teaches for the most part a pure monotheism,
which he reconciles with the common belief, partly by
describing the different divinities as simply popular personifications of Divine attributes, and partly by the usual
explanation of dcmons. He discarded most of the fables
of the poets, applying to them with fearless severity




THE PAGAN EMIPIR E.                341
the tests of human morality, and rejecting indignantly
those which attribute to the Deity cruel or immoral
actions.  He denounces all religious terrorism, and draws
a broad line of distinction between both the superstitious
and idolatrous conception of the Deity on the one hand,
and the philosophical conception on the other.' The
superstitious man believes in the gods, but he has a false
idea of their nature.  Those good beings whose providence
watches over us with so much care, those beings so ready
to forget our faults, he represents as ferocious and cruel
tyrants, taking pleasure in tormenting us.  He believes
the founders of brass, the sculptors of stone, the moulders
of wax; he attributes to the gods a human form; he adorns
and worships the image he has made, and he listens not to
the philosophers, and men of knowledge who associate the
Divine image, not with bodily beauty, but with grandeur
ald majesty, with gentleness and goodness.' 1 On the other
hand, Plutarch believed that there was undoubtedly a
certain supernatural basis in the pagan creed; he believed
in oracles; lhe defended, in a very ingenious essay, hereditary punishment, and the doctrine of a special Providence; lie admitted a future retribution, though  he
repudiated the notion of physical torment; and he brought
into clear relief the nioral teaching  conveyed in some of
the fables of the poets.
The position which Plutarch occupied under Trajan,
Mlaximus of Tyr occupied in the next generation.  Like
Plutarch, but with a greater consistency, le maintainled
aL pure monotheistic doctrine, declaring that' Zeus is that
most ancient and guiding mind that begot all things —
Athene is prudence —Apollo is thle sun.2  Like Plutarch,
i De Slup1erstitione.
2 Dissertations, x. ~ 8 (ed. Davis, London, 1740). In somle editions this is
Diss. xxix.




342        HIlSTORY OF EUROPEAN IMORALS.
he developed the Platonic doctrine of dmlmons as an explanation' of much of the mythology, and lhe applied an
allegorical interpretation with great freedom to the fables
of Homer, whichI formed the text book or the Bible of
Paganism.  By these means he endeavoured to clarify
the popular creed from all elements inconsistent with a
pure monotheism, and from  all legends of doubtful
morality, while he sublimated the popular worship into a
harmless symbolism.' The gods,' he assures us,' themselves need no images,' but the infirmity of huiman nature
requires visible signs'on which to rest.''Those who
possess so strong a memory, that with a steady mind they
can rise to heaven, and to God, are in no need of statues.
But such men are very rare.' He then proceeds to recount
the different ways by which men have endeavoured to
represent or symbolise the Divine nature, as the statues
of Greece, the animals of Egypt, or the sacred flame of
Persia.'The God,' he continues,'the Father and the
Founder of all that exists, older than the sun, older than
the sky, greater than all time, than every age, and than
all the works of nature, whom  no words can express,
whom no eye can see... What can we say concerning'
his imagCes?  Only let men understand that there is but
one divine nature; but whether the art of Phidias chiefly
preserves his memory among the Greeks, or the worship
of animals among the Egyptians, a river among these, or
a flame among those, I do not blame the variety of the
representations-only let men understand that there is
but one; only let them love one, let them preserve one
in their memory.' 1
A third writer who, nearly at the same time as Maximus
of Tyr, lmade some efforts in the same direction, was ApuD1 1isert. xxxviii.




TIHE PAGAN EMPIRE.                   343
leius, who, however, both as a moral teacher, and in his
freedom from superstition,' was far inferior to the preceding.  The religion he most admired was the Egyptian;
but in his philosophy he was a Platonist, and in that capacity, besides an exposition of the Platonic code of morals,
he has left us a singularly clear and striking disquisition
on the doctrine of dmmons.'These cdemons,' he says,'are the bearers of blessings and prayers between the
inhabitants of earth and heaven, carrying prayers from
thle one and assistance from the other.. By them also,
as Plato maintained in his "Banquet," all revelations, all
the various miracles of magicians, all kinds of omens,
are ruled.  They have their several tasks to  perform,
their different departments to  govern; some directing
dreams, others the disposition of the entrails, others the
flight of birds..  The supreme deities do not descend
to these things —they leave them  to  the intermediate
divinities.'l But these intermediate spirits are not simply
the agents of supernatural phenomena —they are also the
guardians of our virtue and the recorders of our actions.'Each manl has in life witnesses and guards of his deeds,
visible to no one, but always present, witnessing not only
every act but every thought.  When life has ended and
we must return whence we came, this same genius who
had charge over us, takes us away and hurries us in his
custody to judgment, and then assists us in pleading our
cause.  If any thing is falsely assertedl  e corrects it-if
true, he substantiates it, and according to his witness our
sentence is determined.'2
There are many aspects in which these attempts at
religious reform are both interesting and important. They' On the dcemon of Socrates.' Ibid. See, on the office of dcemons or genii, Arrian i. 14, and a curious
chapter in Ammianis liarcell; xxi. 14. See, too, Plotinus, 3rd Ezzn. lib. iv.




344        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
are interesting, because the doctrine of dclmons, mingled,
it is true, with the theory of Euhemerus about the origin
of the deities, was universally accepted by the fathers as
the true explanation of the Pag'an theology, because the
notion and, after the third century, even the artistic
type of the guardian genius, reappeared in that of the
guardian angel, and because the transition from  polytheisnm to the conception of a single deity acting by the
delegation or ministration of an army of subsidiary
spirits, was manifestly fitted to prepare the way for the
reception of Christianity.  They are interesting, too, as
showing the anxiety of the human mind to sublimate its
religious creed to the level of the moral and intellectual
standard it had attained, and to make religious ordinances
in some degree the instruments of moral improvement.
But they are interesting above all, because the Greek
and Egyptian methods of reform  represent with typical
distinctness the two great tendencies of religious thought
in all succeeding periods. The Greek spirit was essentially
rationalistic and eclectic; the Egyptian spirit was esselltially mystical and devotional.  The Greek sat in judgment upon his religion. He modified, curtailed, refined,
allegorised or selected.  He treated its inconsistencies,
or absurdities, or immoralities, with precisely the same
freedom of criticism as those he encountered in ordinary
life.  The Egyptian, on the other hand, bowed low before
the Divine presence.  He veiled his eyes, he ]lumbled his
reason, he represented the introduction of a new element
into the moral life of Europe, the spirit of religious reverence and awe.'The Egyptian deities,' it was observed by Apuleius,'were chiefly honoured by lamentations, and the Greek
divinities by dances.'l  The truth of the last part of this
1 De Dcenmone Socratis.




THE PAGAN EBIPIRE.                  345
very significant remark appears in every page of Greek
history.  No nation had a richer collection of games and
festivals growing out of its religious system; in none did
a light, sportive, and often licentious fancy play more
fearlessly around the popular creed, in none was religious
terrorism  more rare.  The Divinity was seldom  looked
upon as holier than man, and a due observance of certain
rites and ceremonies was deemed an ample tribute to pay
to him. In the Egyptian system the religious ceremonies
wvere veiled in myster'y and allegory.  Chastity, abstinence
from  animal food, ablutions, long and mysterious ceremonies of preparation or initiation, were the imost prominent features of worship.  The deities representing
the great forces of nature, and shrouded by mysterious
symbols, excited a degree of awe which no other ancient
religion approached.
The speculative philosoply, and  the conceptions of
morals, that accompanied the inroad of oriental religion,
were of a kindred nature.  The mlost prominent elaracteristic of the first was its tendency to supersede the
deductions of the reason by the intuitions of ecstasy.
Neoplatonism, and the philosophers that were allied to
it, were fundamentally pantlheistic,' but they  differed
widely from  the pantheism  of the Stoics.  The Stoics
identified mall with God, for the purpose of glorifying
man —the NTeoplatonists for the purpose of aggrandising
God.  In the conception of the first, man independent,
self-controlled, and participating in the highest nature of
the universe, has no superior in creation.  According to
the latter, man is almost a passive being, swayed and permeated by a divine impulse.  Yet he is not altogether
divine.  The divinity is latent in his soul, but dulled,
1 I should except Plotinus, however, who was faithful in this point to
Plato, and was in consequence much praised by the Christian fathers.




"4G         IIISTORY OF EUItOPEAN  1MORALS.
dimmed, and crushed by the tyranny of the body.'To
bring the God that is in us into conformity withl the
God that is in  the  universe,' to elicit the ideas tbat
are graven in the mind, but obscured and hidden by the
passions of thle flesh- above all, to subdue the body, which
is the sole obstacle to our complete fruition of Deitywas the main  object of life.  Porphyry described all
philosophy as an anticipation of death —not in the stoical
sense of teaching us to look calmly on our end,' but
because death realises the ideal of iphilosophy, the complete separation of soul and body.  Hence followed an
ascetic morality, and a supersensual philosophy.'The
greatest of all evils,' we are told,'is pleasure; because
by it the soul is nailed or riveted to the body, and thinks
tlhat true which the body persuades it, and is thus deprived of the sense of divine things.'l'Justice, beauty,
and goodness, and all thinFgs that are formed by them, no
eye has ever seen, no bodily sense can apprehend.  Philosophy must be pursued by pure and unminled reason
and with deadened  senses; for the body disturbs the
mind, so that it cannot follow after wisdom.  As long as
it is lost and mingled in the clay, we shall never sufficiently
possess the truth we desire.'2
But the reason which is thus extolled as the revealer
of truth must not be confounded with the process of
reasoning.  It is something quite different from criticism,
analysis, comparison, or  deduction.   It is essentially
intuitive, but it only acquires its power of transcendental
intuition after a long process of discipline.  When a man'Omniumr malorum maxilum voluptas, qua tanquam clavo et fibula
anima corpori nectitur; putatque vera cqur et corpus suadet, et ita spoliatur
rerum divinarum aspectu.'-Ialrblichus, De Secta Pythalor. (Rommu 1556),
p. 38. Plotinus, 1st Enn. vi. 6.
2 De &ct. Pyth. pp. 36, 37.




THE PAGAN ESPIRE.                  347
passes from  the daylight into a room  which is almost
dark, he is at first absolutely unable to see the objects
around lhim; but gradually his eye grows accustomed to
the feeble light, the outline of the room becomes dimly
visible, object after object emerges into silght, until at
last, by intently gazing, he acquires the power of seeing
around him. with tolerable distinctness.  In this fact we
have a partial image of the Neoplatonic doctrine of the
knowledge of divine things.  Our soul is a dark clamber,
darkened by contact with the flesh, but in it there are
graven divine ideas, there exists a living divine element.
The eye of reason, by long and steady introspection, can
learn to decipher these characters; the will, aided by
an appointed course of discipline, can evoke this divine
element, and cause it to blend with the universal spirit
from which it sprang.  The power of mental concentration, and of metaphysical abstraction, are therefore the
higlhest intellectual gifts, and quietism, or the absorption
of our nature in God, is the last stage of virtue.'The
end of man,' said Pythagoras,'is God.' The mysterious'One,' the metaphysical abstraction without attributes
and without form, which  constitutes the First Persoln
of the Alexandrian Trinity, is the acme of human thought
and the condition of ecstasy of moral perfection.  Plotinus, it was said, had several times attained it. Porphyry,
after years of discipline, once, and but once,l —the process
of reasoning is  here not only useless, but pernicious.'An innate knowledge of the gods is implanted in our
minds prior to all reasoning.'   In divine things the task
of man is not to create or to acquire, but to educe.  His
means of perfection are not dialectics or research, but
1 Porphyry, zife of Plotinus.  2 Iamblichus, Doe Mysteriis, 1,




348        HI-ISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIOlRALS.
long and patient meditation, silence, abstinence from the
distractions and occupations of life, the subjugation of the
flesh, a life of continual discipline, a constant attendance
on those mysterious rites which detach him from material
objects, overawe and elevate his mind, and quicken his
realisation of the Divine presence.'
The system  of Neoplatonismn  represents a mode of
thought which in many forms, and under many names,
may be traced through the most various ages and creeds.
Mysticisln, transcendentalism, inspiration and grace, are
all words expressing the deep-seated belief that we possess
fountains of knowledge apart from all the acquisitions of
the senses; that there are certain states of mind, certain
flashes of moral and  intellectual illumination, which
cannot be accounted for by any play or combination of our
ordinary faculties.  For the sobriety, the timidity, the fluctuations of the reasoning spirit, Neoplatonism substituted
the transports of the imagination; and though it cultivated
the power of abstraction, every other intellectual gift was
sacrificed to the discipline of asceticism.  It made men
credulous, because it suppressed that critical spirit which
is the sole barrier to the ever-encroaching imagination,
because it represented superstitious rites as especially
conducive to that state of ecstasy which was the condition
of revelation, because it formed a nervous, diseased, expectant temperament, ever prone to hallucinations, ever agitated by vague and uncertain feelings that were readily
attributed to inspiration.  As a moral system it carried,
indeedl, the purification of the feelings and imagination to
a ligher perfection than any preceding school, but it had
the deadly fault of separating sentiment from action.  In
tlis respect it was well fitted to be the close, the final
1 See, on this doctrine of ecstasy, Vacherot, 1}ist. de l'.cole dAlextclndrie,
tome i. p. 576, &c.




THE PA-GAN EMPIPIE.                   349
suicide, of Roman philosophy. Cicero assigned a place of
happiness in the future world to all who faithfully served
the state.'  The Stoics had taught that all virtue was vain
that did not issue in action. Even Epictetus, in his portrait
of the ascetic cynic-even Marcus Aurelius, in his minute
self-examination, had never forgotten the outer world.
The  early Platonists, though they dwelt very strongly
on mental discipline, were equally practical.  Plutarch
reminds us that the same word is used for light,2 and for
man, for the duty of man is to be the lighlt of the world;
anld he shrewdly remarked that Hesiod exhorted  the
husbandman to pray for the harvest, but to do so with
his hand upon the plough.  Apuleius, expounding Plato,
tatught'that he who is inspired by nature to seek after
good must not deem  himself born for himself alone, but
for all mankind, though with diverse kinds and degrees
of obligation, for he is formed first of all for his country,
then for his relations, then for those with  whom  he is
joined by occupation or knowledge.'  M[aximus of Tyr
devoted two noble essays to showiing the vanity of all
virtue which exhausts itself in mental transports without
radiating in  action among mankind.' What use,' he
asked,'is there in knowledge unless we do those things
for which knowledge is profitable?  VWhat use is there
in the skill of the physician unless by that skill he heals
the sick, or in the art of Plhidias, unless he chisels the
ivory or the gold....  Hercules was a wise man, but
not for himself, but that by his wisdom  he might diffuse
benefits over every land and sea.. Had he preferred to
1'Sic habeto omnibus qui patrianm conservaverint, adjuverint, auxerint,
certumn esse in coelo ac definitumn locumn ubi beati evo sempiterno fruantur.'Cic. Sonmz. Scip.
-2 DN7, which is poetically used for man. See Plut. DeLatenter Vivendo. A
similar thoiught occurs in MI. Aurelius, who speaks of the good man as light
which only ceases to shine when it ceases to be.




.350    ~ HISTORY OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
lead a life apart from men, and to follow  an idle wisdom,
Hercules would indeed have been a Sophist, and no one
would call him  the son of Zeus.  For God himself is
never idle; were He to rest, the sky would cease to move
and the earth to produce, and the rivers to flow into the
ocean, and the seasons to pursue their appointed course.'l
But the Neoplatonists, thouygh they sometimes spoke of
civic virtues, regarded the condition of ecstasy as not
only transcending but including all, and that condition
could only be arrived at by a passive life.  The saying of
Anaxagoras, that his missionl was' to contemplate the sun,
the stars, and the course of nature, and that this contemplation was wisdom,' was accepted as an epitome of their
philosoph]y.2   A  senator named Ilogantianus, who had
followed the teaching of Plotinus, acquired so intense a
disgust for the things of life, that he left all his property,
refused  to fulfil the duties of a pritor, abandoned his
senatorial functions, and withdrew  himself from  every
form  of business and pleasure.  Plotinus, instead of reproaclaing' him, overwhelmed him  with eulogy, selected
him as his favourite disciple, and continually represented
him as the model of a philosopher.3
The two characteristics I have noticed-the abandonment of civic duties, and the discouragement of the critical spirit-had from  a very early period been manifest in
the Pythagorean school.4  In the blending philosophies of
Diss. xxi. ~ 6.           2 Iamblichus, -De Sect. Pytlagoree, p. 35.
3 Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, cap. vii.; Plotinus, 1st Enn. iv. 7. See on
this subject Degerando, Hist. de la Pzilos. iii. p. 383.
4 Thus it was said of Apollonius that in his teaching at Ephesus he did not
speak after the manner of the followers of Socrates, but endeavoured to
detach his disciplesfirom all occupation other than philosophy. —Plilost.. Apoll.
of Tyana, iv. 2. Cicero notices the aversion the Pythagoreans of his time
displayed to argumnent:' Quum ex iis qumreretur quare ita esset, respondere
solitos lpse dixit; ipse autem erat Pythagoras.' —)e lcat. Deorl i. 6.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.                  S51
the third and fourth century, they became continually
more apparent.  Plotinus was still an independent philosopher, inheriting the traditions of Greek thought, though
not the traditions of Greek life, building his system
avowedly by a rational method, and altogether rejecting
theurgy or religious magic.  His disciple, Porphyry, first
made Neoplatonism anti-Christian, and, in his violent antipathy to the new faith, began to convert it into a religious system.  Iambliclhus, who was himself an Egyptian
priest, completed the transformation,' resolved all moral
discipline into theurgy, and sacrificed all reasoning to faith.2
Julian attempted to realise the conception of a revived
Paganism, blending with and purified by philosophy. In
every form  the appetite for miracles and for belief was
displayed.  The theory of dmmons completely superseded
the old stoical naturalism, which regarded the different
pagan divinities as allegories or personifications of the
Divine attributes. The Platonic ethics were again, for the
most part, in the ascendant, but they were deeply tinctured by a foreign element. Thus, suicide was condemned
by the Neoplatonists, not merely on the principle of Plato,
that it is an abandonment of the post of duty to which
the Deity has called us, but also on the quietist ground,
that perturbation is necessarily a pollution of the soul, and
that, as mental perturbation accompanies the act, the soul
of the suicide departs polluted from  the body.3  The
belief in a future world, which was the common glory of
the schools of Pythagoras and of Plato, had become universal. As Roman greatness, in which men had long seen
the reward of virtue, faded rapidly away, the conception,
1 See Vacherot, tome ii. p. 66.
2 See Degerando, Hist. de la JPhilosophie, tome iii. pp. 400, 401.
3 Plotinus 1st Enn. ix.
24




352         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
of'a city of God' began to grow  more clearly in the
minds of men, and the countless slaves who were among
the chief propaigators of oriental faiths, and who had
begun to exercise an unprecedented influence in Roman
life, turned with a natural and a touching eagerness towards a happier and a freer world.1  The incredulity of
Lucretius, Caesar, and Pliny had disappeared. Above all,
a fusion had been effected between moral discipline and
religion, and the moralist sought his chief means of purification in the ceremonies of the temple.
I have now  completed the long and complicated task
to which the present chapter has been devoted. I have
endeavoured to exhibit, as far as can be done, by a description of general tendencies, and  by a selection  of
quotations, the spirit of the long series of Pagan moralists
who taught at Rome during the period that elapsed between the rise of Roman philosophy and the triumph of
Christianity. My object has not been to classify these
writers with minute accuracy, according to their speculative tenets, but rather, as I had proposed, to exhibit the
origin, the nature, and the fortunes' of the general notion
or type of virtue which each moralist had regarded as
supremely good.  History is not a mere succession of
events connected only by chronology. It is a chain of
causes and effects.  There is a great natural difference of
degree and direction in both the moral and intellectual
capacities of individuals, but it is not probable that the
1 See a strong passage, on the universality of this belief, in Plotinus, 1st.Enn. i. 12, and Origen, Cont. Cels. vii. A very old tradition represented
the Egyptians as the first people who held the doctrine of the immortality
of the soul. Cicero (Tuse. Quest.) says that the Syrian Pherecydes, master
of Pythagoras, first taught it. Maxim-s of Tyr attributes its origin to
Pythagoras, and his slave Zamolxis was said to have introduced it into Greece.
Others say that Thales first taught it. None of these assertions have any
real historical value.




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.               353
general average of ratural morals in great bodies of
men materially varies. When we find a society very virtuous or very vicious-when some particular virtue or
vice occupies a peculiar prominence, or when important
changes pass over the moral conceptions or standard of
the people, we have to trace in these things simply the
action of the circumstances that were dominant. The
history of Roman ethics represents a steady and uniform
current, guided by the general conditions of society, and
its progress may be marked by the successive ascendency
of the Roman, the Greek, and the Egyptian spirit.
In the age of Cato and Cicero the character of the ideal
was wholly Roman, although the philosophical expression
of that character was derived from the Greek Stoics. It
exhibited all the force, the grandeur, the hardness, the
practical tendency which Roman circumstances had early
created, combined with that catholicity of spirit which
resulted from very recent political and intellectual changes.
In the course of time, the Greek element, which represented the gentler and more humane spirit of antiquity,
gained an ascendency. It did so by simple propagandism,
aided by the long peace of the Antonines, by the effeminate habits produced by the increasing luxury, by the attractions of the metropolis, which had drawn multitudes
of Greeks to Rome, by the patronage of the Emperors,
and also by the increasing realisation of the doctrine of
universal brotherhood, which Panetius and Cicero had
asserted, but of which the full consequences were only
perceived by their successors. The change in the type of
virtue was shown in the influence of eclectic, and for the
most part Platonic moralists, whose special assaults were
directed against the stoical condemnation of the emotions,
and in the gradual softening of the stoical type. In
Seneca the hardness of the sect, though very apparent, is




854       IHISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
broken by precepts of a very great and extensive benevolence, though that benevolence springs rather from a
sense of duty than from tenderness of feeling. In Dion
Chrysostom the practical benevolence is not less prominent, but there is less both of pride and of callousness.
Epictetus embodied the sternest stoicism in his Manual,
but his dissertations exhibit a deep religious feeling and a
wide range of sympathies. In Marcus Aurelius the emotional elements had greatly increased, and the amiable
qualities began to predominate over the heroic ones. We
find at the same time a new stress laid upon purity of
thought and imagination, a growing feeling of reverence,
and an earnest desire to reform the popular religion.
This second stage exhibits a happy combination of the
Roman and Greek spirits. Disinterested, strictly practical,
averse to the speculative subtleties of the Greek intellect,
Stoicism weas still the religion of a people who were the
rulers and the organisers of the world, whose enthusiasm
was essentially patriotic, and who had learnt to sacrifice
everything but pride to the sense of duty. It had, however, become amiable, gentle, and spiritual. It had gained
much in beauty, while it had lost something in force.
In the world of morals, as in the world of physics,
strength is nearly allied to hardness. He who feels
keenly, is easily moved, and a sensitive sympathy which
lies at the root of an amiable character, is in consequence
a principle of weakness. The race of great Roman Stoics
which had never ceased during the tyranny of Nero or
Domitian began to fail. In the very moment when the
ideal of the sect had attained its supreme perfection, a
new movement appeared, the philosophy sank into disrepute, and the last act of the drama began.
In this, as in the preceding ones, all was normal and
regular. The long continuance of despotic government




THE PAGAN EMPIRE.               355
had gradually destroyed the active public spirit of which
Stoicism was the expression. The predominance of the
subtle intellect of Greece, and the multiplication of rhetbricians, had converted the philosophy into a school of
disputation and of casuistry. The increasing cultivation
of the emotions continued, till what may be termed the
moral centre was changed, and the development of feeling was deemed more important than the regulation of
actions. This cultivation of the emotions predisposed
men to religion. A reaction,~ intensified by many minor
causes, set in against the scepticism of the preceding
generation, and Alexandria gradually became the moral
capital of the empire. The Roman type speedily disappeared. A union was effected between superstitious
rites and philosophy, and the worship of Egyptian deities
prepared the way for the teaching of the Neoplatonists,
who combined the most visionary part of the speculations
of Plato with the ancient philosophies of the East. In
Plotinus we find most of the first; in Iamblichus most
of the second. The minds of men, under their influence,
grew introspective, credulous and superstitious, and found
their ideal states in the hallucinations of ecstasy and the
calm of an unpractical mysticism.
Such were the influences which acted in turn upon a
society which, by despotism, by slavery, and by atrocious
amusements, had been debased and corrupted to the very
core. Each sect which successively arose contributed
something to remedy the evil. Stoicism placed beyond
cavil the great distinctions between right and wrong.
It inculcated the doctrine of universal brotherhood, it
created a noble literature and a noble legislation, and it
associated its moral system with the patriotic spirit which
was then the animating spirit of Roman life. The early
Platonists of the empire corrected the exaggerations of




356       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
Stoicism, gave free scope for the amiable qualities, and
supplied a theory of right and wrong, suited not merely
for heroic characters and for extreme emergencies, but also
for the characters and the circumstances of common life.
The Pythagorean and Neoplatonist schools revived the
feeling of religious reverence, inculcated humility, prayerfulness and purity of thought, and accustomed men to
associate their moral ideals with the Deity, rather than
with themselves.
The moral improvement of society was now to pass
into other hands. A religion which had long been increasing in obscurity began to emerge into the light. By
the beauty of its moral precepts, by the systematic skill
with which it governed the imagination and habits of
its worshippers, by the strong religious motives to which
it could appeal, by its admirable ecclesiastical organisation, and, it must be added, by its unsparing use of the
arm of power, Christianity soon eclipsed or destroyed all
other sects, and became for many centuries the supreme
ruler of the moral world. - Combining the stoical doctrine
of universal brotherhood, the Greek predilection for the
amiable qualities, and the Egyptian spirit of reverence
and religious awe, it acquired from the first an intensity
and universality of influence which none of the philosophies it had superseded had approached. I have now to
examine the moral causes that governed the rise of this
religion in Rome, the ideal of virtue it presented, the
degree and manner in which it stamped its image upon
the characters of nations, and the perversions and distortions it underwent.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.             357
CHAPTER III.
THE CONVERSION OF ROME.
THERE is no fact in the history of the human mind more
remarkable than the complete unconsciousness of the importance and the destinies of Christianity, manifested by
the Pagan writers before the accession of Constantine.  So
large an amount of attention has been bestowed on the
ten or twelve allusions to it they furnish, that we are
sometimes apt to forget how few and meagre those allusions are, and how utterly impossible it is to construct
from them, with any degree of certainty, a history of the
early church. Plutarch and the elder Pliny, who probably
surpass all other writers of their time in the range of
their illustrations, and Seneca, who was certainly the most
illustrious moralist of his age, never even mention it.
Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius have each adverted to it
with a passing and contemptuous censure. Tacitus describes in detail the persecution by Nero, but treats the
suffering religion simply as' an execrable superstition;'
while Suetonius, employing the same expression, reckons
the persecution among the acts of the tyrant that were
either laudable or indifferent. Our most important document is the famous letter of the younger Pliny. Lucian
throws some light both on the extent of Christian charity,
and on the aspect in which Christians were regarded by
the religious jugglers of their age, and the long series of
Pagans who wrote the lives of the Emperors in that most




353         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
critical period from  the accession of Hadrian, almost to
the eve of the triumph of the church, among a crowd of
details concerning the dresses, games, vices, and follies of
the court, supply us with six or seven short notices of the
religion that was transforming the world.
The general silence of the pagan writers on this subject
did not arise from any restrictions imposed upon them by
authority, for in this field the widest latitude was conceded,
nor yet from the notions of the dignity of history, or the
importance of individual exertions, which have induced
some historians to resolve their task into a cataloogue of
the achievements of kings, statesmen, and generals.  The
conception of history, as the record and explanation of
moral revolutions, though of course not developed to
the same prominence as among some modern writers,
was by no means unknown in antiquity,1 and in many
branches our knowledge of the social changes of the
Roman Empire is extremely copious.  The dissolution of
old beliefs, the decomposition of the entire social and
moral system that had arisen under the republic, engaged
in the very highest degree the attention of the literary
classes, and they displayed the most commendable diligence in tracing its stages.  It is very curious and instructive to contrast the ample information  they have
furnished us concerning the growth of Roman luxury,
with their almost absolute silence concerning the growth
of Christianity.'The moral importance of the former
movement they clearly recognised, and they have accordingly preserved so full a record of all the changes
in dress, banquets, buildings, and spectacles, that it would
We have a remarkable instance of the clearness with which some even
of the most insignificant historians recognised the folly of concentrating
history on the biographies of the empprors, in the opening chapter of Capitolinus, Life of Macrinus.-Tacitus is full of beautiful episodes, describing
the manners and religion of the people.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.             359
be possible to write with the most minute detail the
whole history of Roman luxury, from the day when a
censor deprived an elector of his vote because his garden
was negligently cultivated, to the orgies of Nero or Heliogabalus.  The moral importance of the other movement
they altogether. overlooked, and their oversight leaves a
chasm in history which can never be supplied.
That the greatest religious change in the history of
mankind should have taken place under the eyes of a
brilliant galaxy of philosophers and historians, who were
profoundly conscious of the decomposition around them,
that all of these writers should have utterly failed to
predict the issue of the movement they were observing,
and that, during the space of three centuries, they should
have treated as simply contemptible an agency which all
men must now admit to have been, for good or for evil,
the most powerful moral lever that has ever been applied
to the affairs of man, are facts well worthy of meditation in every period of religious transition. The explanation is to be found in that broad separation between the
spheres of morals and of positive religion we have considered in the last chapter. In modern times, men who
were examining the probable moral future of the world,
would naturally, and in the first place, direct their attention to the relative positions and the probable destinies
of religious institutions.  In the stoical period of the
Roman Empire, the positive religion had come to be
regarded as merely an art for obtaining preternatural
assistance in the affairs of life, and the moral amelioration
of mankind was deemed altogether external to its sphere.
Philosophy lad become to the educated most literally
a religion. It was the rule of life, the exposition of the
Divine nature, the source of devotional feeling. The
crowd of oriental superstitions that had deluged the city




360        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3MORALS.
were regarded as peculiarly pernicious and contemptible,
and of these, none was less likely to attract the favour
of the philosophers than that of the Jews,1 who were
notorious as the most sordid, the most turbulent,2 and the
most unsocial 3 of the oriental colonists.  Of the ignorance
of their tenets, displayed even by the most eminent Romans, we have a striking illustration in the long series of
grotesque fables concerning their belief, probably derived
from some satirical pamphlet, which Tacitus has gravely
inserted in his history.4  Christianity, in the eyes of the
philosopher, was simply a sect of Judaism.
Although I am  anxious in the present work to avoid,
as far as possible, all questions that are purely theological,
and to consider Christianity merely in its aspect as a
moral agent, it will be necessary to bestow  a few preliminary pages upon its triumph in the Roman Empire,
in order to ascertain how far that triumph was due to
moral causes, and what were its relations to the prevailing philosophy.  There are some writers who have been
so struck with the conforrnity between some of the
doctrines of the later Stoics and those of Christianity,
that they have imagined that Christianity had early
obtained a decisive influence over philosophy, and that
the leading teachers of Rome had been in some measure
its disciples. There are others who reduce the conversion
of the Roman Empire to a mere question of evidences,
to the overwhelming proofs the Christian teachers produced of the authenticity of the gospel narratives. There
are others, again, who deem  the triumph of Christianity
simply miraculous.  Everything, they tell us, was against
The passages relating to the Jews in Roman literature are collected in
Aubertin's Bapports supposes entre &Sen~eue et St. Paul. Champagny, Rome
et Judie, tome i. pp. 134-137.
2 Cicero, pro Flacco, 28; Sueton. Claudius, 25.
3 Juvenal, Sat. xiv..            4 iist. v.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.             361
it. The oourse of the church was like that of a ship sailing rapidly and steadily to the goal, in direct defiance of
both wind and tide, and the conversion of the empire was
as literally supernatural as the raising of the dead, or the
sudden quelling of the storm.
On the first of these theories it will not, I think, be
necessary, after the last chapter, to expatiate at length. It
is admitted that the greatest moralists of the Roman
Empire either never mentioned Christianity, or mentioned
it with contempt; that they habitually disregarded the
many religions that had arisen among the ignorant;
and that we have no direct evidence of the slightest value
of their ever having come in contact with or favoured
the Christians.  The supposition that they were influenced by Christianity rests mainly upon their enforcement
of the Christian duty of self-examination, upon their
strong assertion of the universal brotherhood of mankind,
and upon the delicate and expansive humanity they at
last evinced.  But although on all these points the later
Stoics approximated much to Christianity, we have
already seen that it is easy to discover in each case
the cause of the tendency. The duty of self-examination
was simply a Pythagorean precept, enforced in that school
long before the rise of Christianity, introduced into Stoicism when Pythagorxanism became popular in Rome, and
confessedly borrowed from  this source.  The doctrine
of the universal brotherhood of mankind was the manifest expression of those political and social changes
which reduced the whole civilised globe to one great
empire, threw open to the most distant tribes the right
of Roman citizenship, and subverted all those class divisions around which moral theories had been formed.
Cicero asserted it as emphatically as Seneca.  The theory
of Pantheism, representing the entire creation as one great




362         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
body, pervaded by one divine soul, harmonised with it;
and it is a curious fact that the very phraseology con~
cerning, the fellow-membership  of all things in God,
which has been most confidently adduced by some modern
writers as  proving the connection between Seneca and
Christianity, was selected by Lactantius as the clearest
illustration of the pantheism  of Stoicism.'  The humane
character of the later stoical teachings -was obviously due
to the infusion of the Greek element into Roman life,
which becan before the foundation of the empire, and
received a new impulse in the reign of Hadrian, and also
to the softenincg influence qf a luxurious civilisation, and
of the long peace of the Antonines.  While far inferior to
the Greeks in practical and realised humanity, the Romans
never surpassed their masters in theoretical humanity
except in one respect.  The humanity  of the Greeks,
though very earnest, was confined within a narrow circle.
The social and political circumstances of the Roman
empire destroyed the barrier.
The only case in which any plausible arguments have
been urged in favour of the notion that the writings of
the Stoics were influenced by the New Testament, is that
of Seneca. This philosopher was regarded by all the
medieval writers as a Christian, on the ground of a correspondence with St. Paul, which formed part of a forged
account of the martyrdom  of St. Peter and St. Paul,
attributed to St. Linus.  Those letters, which were absolutely unnoticed during the first three centuries, and
are first mentioned by St. Jerome, are now almost universally abandoned as forgeries;2 but many curious coin1 Lact. inst. -Div. vii. 3.
2 See their history fully investigated in Aubertin. Augustine followed
Jerome in mentioning the letters, but neither declared their belief in
them. Lactantius nearly at the same time (Inst. Div. vi. 24) distinctly
spoke of Seneca as a Paogan, as Tertullian (Apol. 50) had done before. The




THE CONVERSION OF RIOME.                   363
cidences of phraseology have been pointed out between
the writings of Seneca and the epistles of St. Paul; and
the presumption derived from them has been strengthened
by the facts that the brother of Seneca was that Gallio,
who refused to hear the disputes between St. Paul and
the Jews, and that Burrhus, who was the friend and colleague of Seneca, was the officer to whose custody St.
Paul had  been entrusted at Rome.  Into the minute
verbal criticism to which this question has given rise,l it
is not necessary for me to enter. It has been shown that
much of what was deemed Christian phraseology grew
out of the pantheistic notion of one great body including,
and one divine mind animating and guiding, all existing
things; and many others of the pretended coincidences
are so slight as to be altogether worthless as an argument;
but I think most persons who review what was written
on the subject, will conclude that it is probable some fragments at least of Christian language had come to the ears
of Seneca.  [But to suppose that his system  of morals is
in any degree formed after the model, or under the
influence of Christianity, is to be blind to the most
obvious characteristics of both Christianity and Stoicism;
for no other moralist could be so aptly selected as
representing their extreme divergence. Reverence and
humility, a constant sense of the supreme majesty of God
and of the weakness and sinfulness of man, and a perpetual
reference to another world, were the essential characimmense number of forged documents is one of the most disgraceful features
of the church history of the first few centuries.
I IM. Fleury has written an elaborate work maintaining the connection
between the apostle and the philosopher. MN. Troplong (Iyl~uenee dtu Christianisme sur le Droit) has adopted the same view. NI. Aubertin, in the work
I have already cited, has maintained the opposite view (which is that of all
or nearly all English critics) with masterly skill and learning. The Abb6
Dourif (Rapports du Stoicisnze et dZu Christianiisme) has placed side by side
the passages from each writer which are most alike.




364         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
teristics of Christianity, the source of all its power, the
basis of its distinctive type. Of all these, the teaching of
Seneca is the direct antithesis.  Careless of the future
world, and profoundly convinced of the supreme majesty
of man, he laboured to emancipate his disciples' from
every fear of God and man;' and the proud language in
which he claimed for the sage an equality with the gods,
represents, perhaps, the highest point to which philosophic
arrogance has been carried.  The Jews, with whom the
Christians were then universally identified, he emphatically describes as' an accursed race.'  One man, indeed,
there was among the latter Stoics, who had almost realised
the Christian type, and in whose pure and gentle nature
the arrogance of his school can be scarcely traced; but
Marcus Aurelius, who of all the Pagan world, if we argued
by internal evidence alone, we should have most readily
identified with Christianity, was a persecutor of the faith,
and he has left on record in his' meditations' his contempt
for the Christian martyrs.2
The relation between the Pagan philosophers and the
Christian religion was a subject of much discussion and of
profound difference of opinion in the early Church.3
While the writers of one school apologised for the murder
of Socrates, described the martyred Greek as' the buffoon of Athens;'4 and attributed his inspiration to diabolical influence,5  while they  designated the writings of
the philosophers as' the school of heretics,' and collected
with a malicious assiduity all the calumnies that had' Quoted by St. Augustine. —De Civ. Dei, vi. 11.  a xi. 3.
S The history of the two schools has been elaborately traced by Ritter,
Pressense, and many other writers. I would especially refer to the fourth
volume of M. De Gerando's most fascinating Histoire de la Philosophie.
4' Scurra Atticus,' Min. Felix, Octav. This term is said by Cicero to have
been given to Socrates by Zeno. (Cic. De Nat. Deor, i. 34.)
T5 ertull. De Anima, 39.




lIE CONVERSION OF ROME.           865
been heaped upon their memory, there were others who
made it a leading object to establish a close affinity
between Pagan philosophy and the Christian revelation.
Imbued in many instances, almost from childhood, with
the noble teaching of Plato, and keenly alive to the analogies between his philosophy and their new faith, these
writers found the exhibition of this resemblance at once
deeply grateful to themselves and the most successful
way of dispelling the prejudices of their Pagan neighbours. The success that had attended the Christian prophecies attributed to the Sibyls and the oracles, the
passion for eclecticism, which the social and commercial
position of Alexandria had generated, and also the
example of the Jew  Aristobulus, who had some time
before contended that the Jewish writings had been
translated into Greek, and had been the source of much
of the Pagan wisdom, encouraged them in their course.
The most conciliatory, and at the same time the most
philosophical school, was the earliest in the Church.
Justin Martyr-the first of the fathers whose writings
possess any general philosophical interest-cordially recognises the excellence of many parts of the Pagan philosophy, and even attributes it to a divine inspiration, to
the action of the generative or'seminal Logos,' which
from the earliest times had existed in the world, had
inspired teachers like Socrates and Musonius, who had
been persecuted by the dcemons, and had received in
Christianity its final and perfect manifestation.'  The
samle generous and expansive appreciations may be traced
in the writings of several later fathers, although the school
was speedily disfigured by some grotesque extravagances.
Clement of Alexandria-a writer of wide sympathies,
1 See especially his Apol. ii. 8, 12, 13. He speaksl of the arEparcbrc




366         HISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
considerable originality, very extensive learning, but of a
feeble and fantasticjudgment-who immediately succeeded
Justin Martyr, attributed  all the wisdom  of antiquity
to two sources.  The first source was tradition; for the
angels, whllo had been fascinated by the antediluvian ladies,
had endeavoured to ingratiate themselves with their fair
companions by giving them an abstract of the metaphysical
and other learning which was then current in heaven, and
the substance of these conversations being transmitted by
tradition supplied the pagan philosophers with their leading
notions. The angels did not know everything, and therefore
the Greek philosophy was imperfect; but this event formed
the first great epoch in literary hist6ry. The second and
most important source of pagan wisdom was the Old Testament,l of which many of the early Christians traced the
influence in every department of ancient wisdom.  Plato
had borrowed from it all his philosophy, Homer the noblest
conceptions of his poetry, Demosthenes the finest touches
of his eloquence. Even Miltiades owed his military skill
to an assiduous study of the Pentateuclh, and the ambuscade by which lhe won the battle of Marathon was imitated from the strategy of Mloses.2   Pythagoras, moreover,
had been himself a circumcised Jew.3   Plato had been
I See on all this Clem. Alex. Strom. v., and also i. 22.
2 St. Clement repeats this twice (Strom. i. 24, v. 14). The writings of
this father are full of curious, and sometimes ingenious, attempts to trace
different phrases of the great philosophers, orators, and poets to Ioses.
A vast amount of learning and ingenuity has been expended in the same
cause by Eusebius. (Pr2ep. Evang. xii. xiii.) The tradition of the derivation of pagan philosophy from the Old Testament found in general little
favour among the Latin writers. There is some curious information on this
subject in Waterland's' Charge to the Clergy of Middlesex, to prove that
the wisdom of the ancients was borrowed from revelation, delivered in
1731.' It is in the 8th volume of Waterland's works (ed. 1731).
3 St. Clement (Strom. i.) mentions that some think him to have been
Ezekiel, an opinion which St. Clement himself does not hold. See on the




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                   807
instructed in Egypt by the prophet; Jeremiah   The god
Serapis was no other than  the patriarch  Joseph, his
Egyptian name being manifestly derived from his greatgrandmother Sarah.l
Absurdities of this kind, of which I have given extreme
but by no means the only examples, were usually primarily
intended to repel arguments against Christianity, and they
are illustrations of the tendency which has always existed
in an uncritical age to invent, without a shadow of foundation, the most elaborate theories of explanation rather than
recognise the smallest force in an objection. Thus, when
the Pagans attempted to reduce Christianity to a normal
p)roduct of the human mind, by pointing to the very
numerous pagan legends which were precisely parallel to
the Jewish histories, it was answered that the dclmons
were careful students of prophecy, that they foresaw with
terror the advent of their Divine Conqueror, and that, in
order to prevent men believing in him, they had invented,
by anticipation, a series of legends resembling the events
which were foretold.2  More frequently, however, the
early Christians retorted the accusatiofns of plagiary, and
by forged writings attributed to pagan  authors, or by
pointing out alleged traces of Jewish influence in genuine
pagan writings, they endeavoured to  trace through the
past the footsteps of their faith.  But this method of assimilation which culminated in the Gnostics, the Neoplapatristic noticns,about Pythagoras Legendre, Trait de 1' Opinion, tome i.
p. 164.
1 This is the opinion of Julius Firmicus Maternus, a Latin writer of the
age of Constantine,'N am quia SartM pronepos fuerat.... Serapis dictus est
GrTeco sermone, hoc est -Eapai a=o6.' —Julius Firmicus Iaternus, De Errore
Profainarwum Religionuzm, cap. xiv.
2 Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 54; Trypho. 69-70. There is a velry curious
collection of pagan legends that were parallel to Jewish incidents, in La
Motihe le Vaye;, let. xciii.
25




3G8       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MlIORALS.
tonists, and especially in Origen, was directed not to the
later Stoics of the empire, but to the great philosophers
who had preceded Christianity. It was in the writings
of Plato, not in those of Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius,
that the fathers of the first three centuries found the
influence of the Jewish Scriptures, and at the time when
the passion for discovering these connections was most
extravagant, the notion of Seneca and his followers being
inspired by the Christians was unknown.
Dismissing then, as altogether groundless, the notion
that Christianity had obtained a complete or even a
partial influence over the philosophic classes during the
period of stoical ascendency, we come to the opinion of
those who suppose that the Roman empire was converted
by a system of evidences-by the miraculous proofs of
the divinity of Christianity, submitted to the adjudication
of the people.  To estimate this view aright, we have to
consider both the capacity of the men of that age for
judging miracles, and also-which is a different question
-the extent to which such evidence would weigh upon
their minds. To treat this subject satisfactorily, it may
be advisable to enter at some little length into the broad
question of the evidence of the miraculous.
With the exception of a small minority of the priests of
the Catholic Church, a general incredulity on the subject of
miracles now underlies the opinions of almost all educated
men. Nearly every one, however cordially he may admit
some one particular class of miracles, as a general rule
regards the accounts of such events, which are so frequent
in all old historians, as false and incredible, even when
he fully believes the natural events that are authenticated,
by the same testimony.  The reason of this incredulity is
not altogether the impossibility or even extreme natural
improbability of miracles; for, whatever may be the




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                    369
case with some, there is at least one class or conception
of them  which is perfectly free from  logical difficulty.
There is no contradiction involved  in  the  belief that
spiritual beings, of power and  wisdom  immeasurably
transcending  our  own, exist, or that, existing, they
might, by the normal exercise of their powers, perform
feats as far surpassing the understanding of the most
gifted of mankind, as the electric telegraph and the prediction of an eclipse surpass the faculties of a savage.
Nor does the incredulity arise, I think, as is commonly
asserted, from  the want of that amount and kind of evidence which in other departments is deemed sufficient.
Very few of the minor facts of history are authenticated
by as much evidence as the Stigmata of St. Francis, or
the miracles of the holy thorn, or at the  tomb  of the
Abbe Paris.  We believe, with  tolerable  assurance, a
crowd of historical events on the testimony of one or two
Roman historians; but when Tacitus and Suetonius describe how Vespasian restored a blind man to sight, and
a cripple to strength,1 their deliberate assertions do not
even beget in our minds a suspicion that the narrative
may possibly be true. We are quite certain that miracles
were not ordinary occurrences in classical or medieval
times, but nearly  all the  contemporary  writers from
whom  we derive our knowledge of those periods were
convinced that they were.
If, then, I have correctly interpreted the opinions of' Suet, T'esp. 7; Tacit. Hist. iv. 81. There is a slight difference between the
two historians about the second miracle. Suetonius says it was the leg,
Tacitus that it was the hand that was diseased. The god Serapis was said
to have revealed to the patients that they would be cured by the Emperor.
Tacitus says that Vespasian did not believe in his own power; that it was
only after much persuasion he was induced to try the experiment; that the
blind man was well known in Alexandria, where the event occurred, and
that, when he wrote, eJe-witnesses who had no motive to lie still attested
the miracle.




370        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
ordinary educated people on this subject, it appears
that the common attitude towards miracles is not that
of doubt, of hesitation, of discontent with the existing
evidence, but rather of absolute, derisive, and even unexamining incredulity. Such a fact, when we consider
that the antecedent possibility of at least some miracles is
usually admitted, and in the face of the vast mass of
tradition that may be adduced in their favour, appears at
first sight a striking anomaly, and the more so, because it
can be shown that the belief in miracles has in most cases
not been reasoned down, but has simply faded away.'In order to ascertain the process by which this state of
mind has been attained, we may take an example in a
sphere which is happily removed from controversy. There
are very fevw persons with whom the fictitious character
of fairy tales has not ceased to be a question, or. wlho
would hesitate to disbelieve or even to ridicule any anecdote
of this nature which was told them, without the very
smallest examination of its evidence. Yet, if we ask in
what respect the existence of fairies is naturally contradictory or absurd, it would be difficult to answer the
question. A fairy is simply a being possessing a mloderate share of human intelligence, with little or no moral
faculty, with a body pellucid, winged, and volatile, like
that; of an insect, with a passion for dancing, and, perhaps,
with an extraordinary knowledge of the properties of
different plants.  That such beings should exist, or that,
existing, they should be able to do many things beyond
human power, are propositions which do not present the
smallest difficulty.  For many centuries their existence
was almost universally believed. There is not a country,
not a province, scarcely a parish, in which traditions of
their appearance were not long preserved. So great a
weight of tradition, so many independent trains of evidence




iHE CONVERSION OF ROME.               371
attesting statements perfectly free from intrinsic absurdity,
or even improbability, might appear sufficient, if not to
establish conviction, at least to supply a very strong primza.facie case, and ensure a patient and respectful investigation
of the subject.
It has not done so, and the reason is sufficiently plain.
The question of the credibility of fairy tales has not been
resolved by an examination of evidence, but by an observation of the laws of historic development. Wherever
we find an ignorant and rustic population, the belief in
fairies is found to exist, and circumstantial accounts of
their apparitions are circulated.  But invariably with
increased education, this belief passes away. It is not that
the fairy tales are refuted or explained away, or even narrowly scrutinised. It is that the fairies cease to appear.
From  the uniformity of this decline, we infer that fairy
tales are the normal product of a certain condition of the
imagination; and this position is raised to a moral certainty when we find that the decadence of fairy tales is
but one of a long series of similar transformations.
When the savage looks around upon the world and
begins to form  his theories of existence, he falls at once
into three great errors, whllich become the first principles
of his subsequent opinions. He believes that this earth is
the centre of the universe, and that all the bodies encircling
it are intended for its use; that the disturbances and dislocations it presents, and especially the master curse of death,
are connected with some event in his history, and also that
the numerous phenomena and natural vicissitudes he sees
around him are due to direct and isolated volitions, either
of spirits presiding over or of intelligences inherent in
matter. Around these leading conceptions a crowd of
particular legends speedily cluster. If a stone falls beside
him. he naturally infers that some one has thrown it.  If




372        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3MORALS.
it be an aerolite, it is attributed to some celestial being.
Believing that each comet, tempest, or pestilence results
from a direct and isolated act, he proceeds to make theories
regarding the motives which have induced his spiritual persecutors to assail him, and the methods by which he may
assuage their anger.  Finding numerous distinct trains
or series of phenomena, he invents for each appropriate
presiding spirits. Miracles are to him  neither strange
events nor violations of natural law, but simply the unveiling or manifestation of the ordinary government of the
world.
With these broad intellectual conceptions several minor influences concur. A latent fetichism, which is betrayed in that love of direct personification, or of applying epithets derived from  sentient beings to inanimate
nature, which appears so largely in all poetry and eloquence, and especially in those of an early period of
society, is the root of a great part of our opinions. Ifto employ a very familiar illustration-the most civilised
and rational of mankind will observe his own emotions,
when by some accident he has struck his head violently
against a door-post, he will probably find that his first
exclamation was not merely of pain but of anger, and of
anger directed against the wood. In a moment reason
checks the emotion; but if he observes carefully his own
feelings, he may easily convince himself of the unconscious
feticlhism which is latent in his mind, and which, in the
case of a child or a savage, displays itself without reserve.
SMan instinctively ascribes volition to whatever powerfully
affects him. The feebleness of his imagination conspires
with other causes to prevent an uncivilised man rising
above the conception of an anthropomorphic Deity, and
the capricious or isolated acts of stlch a being form his
exact notion of miracles.  The same feebleness of imagi



THE CONVERSION OF ROME.             373
nation makes him  clothe all intellectual tendencies, all
conflicting emotions, all forces, passions, or fancies, in
material forms. Iis mind naturally translates the conflict
between opposing feelings into a history of the combat
between rival spirits. A vast accumulation of myths is
spontaneously formed —each legend being merely the
material expression of a moral fact. The simple love of
the wonderful, and the complete absence of all critical
spirit, aid the formation.
In this manner we find that in certain stages of society,
and under the action of the influences I have stated, an
accretion of miracles is invariably formed around every
prominent personage or institution. We look for them
as we look for showers in April, or for harvest in autumn.
TWe can very rarely show with any confidence the precise
manner in which a' particular legend is created or the
nucleus of truth which it contains, but we can analyse
the general causes that have impelled men towards the
miraculous; we can show that these causes have never
failed to produce the effect, and we can trace the gracldual
alteration of mental conditions invariably accompanying
the decline of the belief.  When men are destitute of
critical spirit, when the notion of uniform  law is yet
unborn, and when their imaginations are still incapable of
rising to abstract ideas, histories of miracles are always
formed and always believed, and they continue to flourish
and to multiply until these conditions have altered.  Miracles cease when men cease to believe and to expect them.
In periods that are equally credulous, they multiply or
diminish in proportion to the intensity with which the
imagination is directed to theological topics. A comparison of the histories of the most different nations shows
the mythical period to have been common to all; and we
may trace in many quarters substantially the same




-37,4     IIISTOPY' OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
miracles, though varied by national clharacteristics, and
with a certain local cast and colouring. As among the
Alps the same shower falls as rain in the sunny valleys,
and as snow among the lofty peaks, so the same intellectual conceptions which in one moral latitude take
the form of nymphs, or fairies, or sportive legends, appear
in another as dramons or appalling apparitions.  Sometimes we can discover the precise natural fact which the
superstition had misread.  Thus, epilepsy, the phenomenon of nightmare, and that form of madness which
leads men to imagine themselves transformed into some
animal, are doubtless the explanation of many tales of
demoniacal possession, of incubi, and of lycanthropy. In
other cases we may detect a single error, such as the notion
that the sky is close to the earth, or that the sun revolves
around the globe, which had suggested the legend.  But
more frequently we can give only a general explanation,
enabling us to assign these legends to their place, as the
normal expression of a certain stage of knowledge or
intellectual power; and this explanation is their refutation. We do not say that they are impossible, or even
that they are not authenticated by as much evidence as
many facts we believe.  We only say that, in certain conditions of society, illusions of this kind inevitably appear.
No one can prove that there are no such things as ghosts;
but if a man whose brain is reeling with fever declares
that he has seen one, we have no great difficulty in forming an opinion about his assertion.
The gradual decadence of miraculous narratives which
accompanies advancing civilisation may be chiefly traced
to three causes.  The first is that general accuracy of
observation and of statement which all education tends
more or less to produce, which checks the amplifications
of the undisciplined imagination, and is speedily followed by




TIIE CONVERSION OF ROME.             375
a muclh stronger moral feeling on the subject of truth
than ever exists in a rude civilisation.  The second is an
increased power of abstraction, which is likewise a result
of general education, and which, by correcting the early
habit of personifying all phenomena, destroys one of the
nmost prolific sources of legends, and closes the mythical
period of history.  The third is the progress of physical
science, which gradually dispels that conception of a universe governed by perpetual and arbitrary interference,
from which, for the most part, these legends originally
sprang.  The whole history of physical science is one
continued revelation of the reign of, law.  The same
law that g6verns the motions of a grain of dust, or the
light of the glowworm's lamp, is shown to preside over
the march of the most majestic planet or the fire of the
most distant sun.  Countless phenomena, which were
for centuries universally believed to be the results of
spiritual agency, portents of calamity, or acts of Divine
vengeance, have been one by one explained, have been
shown to rise from blind physical causes, to be capable
of prediction, or amenable to human remedies.  Forms
of madness which were for ages supposed to result from
possession, are treated successfully in our hospitals.  The
advent of the comet is predicted.  The wire invented by
the sceptic Franklin defends the crosses on our churches
from  the lightning  stroke of heaven.  Whether we
examine the course of the planets or the world of the
anirnalcule; to whatever field of physical nature our
research is turned, the uniform, invariable result of scientific enquiry is to show that even the most apparently
irregular and surprising phenomena are governed by
natural antecedents, and are parts of one great connected
system.  From this vast concurrence of evidence, from
this uniformity of experience in so many spheres, there




376       IIISTORY OF EURPOPEAN MOIRALS.
arises in the minds of scientific men a conviction, amounting to absolute moral certainty, that the whole course of
physical nature is governed by law, that the notion of the
perpetual interference of the Deity with some particular
classes of its phenomena is false and unscientific, and that
the theological habit of interpreting the catastrophes of
nature as Divine warnings or punishments, or disciplines, is
a baseless and a pernicious superstition.
The effects of these discoveries upon miraculous legends
are of various kinds. In the first place, a vast number
which have clustered around the notion of the irregularity
of some phenomenon which is proved to be regular-such
as the innumerable accounts collected by the ancients to
corroborate their opinion of the portentous nature of comets
-are directly overthrown.  In the next place, the revelation of the interdependence of phenomena greatly increases
the improbability of some legends which it does not actually disprove.  Thus, when men believed the sun to be
simply a lamp revolving around and lighting our world,
they had no great difficulty in believing that it was one
day literally arrested in its course, to illuminate an army
which was engaged in massacring its enemies; but the
case became different when it was perceived that the
sun was the centre of a vast system of worlds, which a
suspension of the earth's motion must have reduced to
chaos, without a miracle extending through it all. Thus,
again, the old belief that some animals became for the
first time carnivorous in consequence of the sin of Adam,
appeared tolerably simple as long as this revolution was
supposed to be only a change of habits or of tastes; but it
became more difficult of belief, when it was shown to
involve a change of teeth; and the difficulty was, I suppose,
still further aggravated when it was proved that every




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.             377
animal, having digestive organs specially adapted to its
food, these also must have been changed.
In the last place, physical science exercises a still
wider influence by destroying what. I have called the
centre ideas out of which countless particular theories
were evolved, of which they were the natural expression,
and upon which their permanence depends.  Proving
that our world is not the centre of the universe, but is a
simple planet, revolving with many others around a
common sun; proving that the disturbances and sufferings
of the world do not result from an event which occurred
but 6,000 years ago; that long before that period the
earth was dislocated by the most fearful convulsions; that
countless generations of sentient animals, and also, as
recent discoveries appear conclusively to show, of men, not
anly lived but died; proving, by an immense accumulation of evidence, that the notion of a universe governed
by isolated acts of special intervention is untrue-physical
science had given new directions to the currents of the ilagination, supplied the judgment with new measures of probability, and thus affected the whole circle of our beliefs.
With most men, however, the transition is as yet but
imperfectly accomplished, and that part of physical nature
which science has as yet failed to explain is regarded as a
sphere of special interposition. Thus, multitudes who
recognise the fact that the celestial phenomena are subject to inflexible law, imagine that the dispensation of
rain is in some sense the result of arbitrary interpositions, determined by the conduct of mankind. Near the
equator, it is true, it is tolerably constant and capable of
prediction; but in proportion as we recede from the
equator, the rainfall becomes more variable, and consequently, in the eyes of some, supernatural; and although no




378        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
scientific man has the faintest doubt that it- is governed by
laws as inflexible as those which determine the motions of
the planets, yet because, owing to the great complexity of
the determining causes, we are unable fully to explain
them, it is still customary to speak of'plagues of rain
and water' sent on account of our sins, and of'scarcity
and dearth, which we most justly suffer for our iniquity.'
Corresponding language is employed about the forms of
disease and death which science has but imperfectly
explained.  If men are employed in some profession
which compels them to inhale steel filings or noxious
vapours, or if their abode is in a pestilential marsh, the
diseases that result from these conditions are not regarded
as a judgment or a discipline, for the natural cause is obvious and decisive.  But if the conditions that produced
the disease are very subtle and very complicated, if physicians are incapable of tracing with certainty its nature
or its effects, if, above all, it assumes the character of an
epidemic, it is continually treated as a Divine judgment.
The presumption against this view arises not only from
the fact that in exact proportion as medical science advances, diseases are proved to be the necessary consequence of physical conditions, but also from many characteristics of unexplained disease which unequivocally
prove it to be natural.  Thus, cholera, which is frequently
treated according to the theological method, varies with
the conditions of temperature, is engendered by particular
forms of diet, follows the course of rivers, yields in some
measure to medical treatment, can be aggravated or mitigated by courses of conduct that have no relation to vice
or virtue, takes its victims indiscriminately fromn all grades
of morals or opinion. Usually, when defiuite causes are
assigned for a supposed judgment, they lead to consequences of the most grotesque absurdity.  Thus, when a




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.             379
deadly and mysterious disease fell upon the cattle of
England, some divines, not content with treating it as a
judgment, proceeded to trace it to certain popular writings
containing what were deemed heterodox opinions about
the Pentateuch, or about the eternity of punishment.  It
may be true that the disease was imported from a country
where such speculations are unknown; that the authors
objected to had no cattle; that the farmers, who chiefly
suffered by the disease, were for the most part absolutely
unconscious of the existence of these books, and if they
knew them  would have indignantly repudiated them;
that the town populations, who chiefly read them, were
only affected indirectly by a rise in the price of food,
which falls with perfect impartiality upon the orthodox
and upon the heterodox; that particular counties were
peculiarly sufferers, without being at all conspicuous
for their scepticism; that similar writings appeared in
former periods, without cattle being in any respect the
worse; and that, at the very period at which the plague
was raging, other countries, in which far more audacious
speculations were rife, enjoyed an absolute immunity.
In the face of all these consequences, the theory has been
confidently urged and warmly applauded.
It is not, I think, sufficiently observed how large a
proportion of such questions are capable of a strictly
inductive method of discussion. If it is said that plagues
or pestilences are sent as a punishment of error or of
vice, the assertion must be tested by a comprehensive
examination of the history of plagues on the one hand,
and of periods of great vice and heterodoxy on the other.
If it be said that an influence more powerful than any
military agency directs the course of battles, the action
of this force omust be detected as we would detect electricity, or any other force, by experiment.  If the attri



380        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
bute of infallibility be ascribed to a particular church,
an inductive reasoner will not be content with enquiring
how far an infallible church would be a desirable thing,
or how far certain ancient words may be construed as
a prediction of its appearance; he will examine, by a wide
and careful survey of ecclesiastical history, whether this
church has actually been immutable and consistent in its
teaching; whether it has never been affected by the ignorance or the passion of the age; whether its influence has
uniformly been exerted on the side which proved to be true;
whether it has never supported by its authority scientific
views which were afterwards demonstrated to be false,
or countenancedl and consolidated popular errors, or
thrown obstacles in the path of those who were afterwards recognised as the enlighteners of mankind.  If
ecclesiastical deliberations are said to be specially inspired
or directed by an illuminating and supernatural power,
we should examine whether the councils and convocations
of clergymen exhibit a degree and harmony of wisdom
that cannot reasonably be accounted for by the play of
our unassisted faculties.  If institutions are said to owe
their growth to special supernatural agencies, distinct
from the ordinary system of natural laws, we must
examine whether their courses are so striking and so
peculiar that natural laws fail to explain them.  Whenever, as in the case of a battle, very many influences
concur to the result, it will frequently happen that that
result will baffle our predictions.  It will also happen
that strange coincidences, such as the frequent recurrence of the same number in a game of chance, will
occur. But there are limits to these variations from
what we regard as probable.  If, in throwing the dice,
we uniformly attained the same number, or if in war
the army which was most destitute of all military ad



TIIE CONVERISION OF ROME.           881
vantages was uniformly victorious, we should readily
infer that some special cause was operating to produce
the result. We must remember, too, that in every great
historical crisis, the prevalence of either side will bring
with it a long train of consequences, and that we only
see one side of the picture. If Hannibal, after his victory
at Canny, had captured and burnt Rome, the vast series
of results that have followed from the ascendency of the
Roman empire would never have taken place, but the
supremacy of a maritime, commercial, and comparatively
pacific power would have produced an entirely different
series, which would have formed the basis and been
the essential condition of all the subsequent progress;
a civilisation, the type and character of which it is
now impossible to conjecture, would have arisen, and its
theologians would probably have regarded the career of
Hannibal as one of the mlost manifest instances of special
interposition on record.
If we would form sound opinions on these matters,
we must take a very wide and impartial survey of the
phenomena of history. We must examine whether
events have tended in a given direction with a uniformity
or a persistence that is not naturally explicable. We
must examine not only the facts that corroborate our
theory, but also those which oppose it.
That such a method is not ordinarily adopted must be
manifest to all. As Bacon said, men'mark the hits,
but not the misses;' they collect industriously the examples in which  many, and  sometimes improbable
circumstances have converged to a result which they
consider good, and they simply leave out of their consideration the circumstances that tend in the opposite
direction. They expatiate with triumph upon the careers
of emperors who have been the unconscious pioneers




382          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
of some great step of human progress, but they do not
dwell upon those whose genius was expended in a hopeless resistance to the stream of progress, or upon those who,
like Btajazet or Tamerlane, having inflicted incalculable
evils upon mankind, passed away, leaving no enduring
fruit behind them.  A  hundred  missionaries start upon
an enterprise, the success of which appears exceedingly
improbable.  Ninety-nine perish and are forgotten.  One
missionary  succeeds, and  his  success is attributed  to
supernatural interference, because the probabilities were
so greatly against him.  It is observed that a long train
of political or military events ensured the triumph of
Protestantism  in certain nations and periods.  It is forgotten that another train of events destroyed the same
faith  in  other lands, and  paralysed  the  efforts of its
noblest martyrs.  We are told of showers of rain that
followed public prayer, but we are not told how  often
prayers for rain proved abortive, or how  much longer
than usual the dry weather had already continued when
they were offered.l  As the old philosopher observed,
the votive tablets of those who escaped are suspended
in the temple, while those who were shipwrecked are
forgotten.
1 The following is a good specimen of the language which may still
be employed, apparently without exciting any protest, from the pulpit in one
of the great centres of English learning:-' B ut we have prayed, and not been
heard, at least in this present visitation.  Have we deserved to be heard?
In former visitations it was observed commonly how the cholera lessened
from the day of the public humiliation. When we dreaded famine from
long-continued drought, on the morning of our prayers the heaven over our
head was of brass; the clear burning sky showed no token of change. Men
looked with awe at its unmitigated clearness. In the evening was the cloud
like a man's hand; the relief was come.' (And then the author adds, in a note)'This describes what I myself saw on the Sunday morning in Oxford, on
returning from the early communion at St. Mary's, at eight. There was
no visible change till the evening.' —Pusey's Miracles of Pra yer, preached at
Oxford, 1860.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                    383
Unfortunately, these inconsistencies do not arise simply
from intellectual causes.  A  feeling which was intended
to be religious, but which was in truth deeply the reverse,
once led men to shrink from  examining the causes of
somle of the more terrible of physical phenomena, because it was thought that these should be deemed special
instances of Divine interference, and should, therefore,
be regarded as too sacred for investigation.'  In the
world of physical science this mode of thought has almost
vanished, but a corresponding sentiment may be often
detected in tlhe common judgments of history.  Very
many well-meaning men-censuring the pursuit of truth
in the name of the God of Truth-while they regard it
as commendable and religious to collect facts illustrating
or corroborating the theological theory of life, consider
it irreverent and wrong to apply to those facts, and to
that theory, the ordinary severity of inductive reasoning.
Wlat I have written is not in any degree inconsistent
with the belief that, by the dispensation of Providence,
moral causes have a natural and often  overwhelming
influence upon happiness and upon success, nor yet with
the belief that our moral nature enters into a very real,
constant, and immediate contact with a higher power.
Nor does it at all disprove the possibility of Divine interference with the order even of physical nature.  A
world governed by special acts of intervention, such as
that which mediaeval theologians imagined, is perfectly
I E.g.:'A master of philosophy, travelling with others on the way, when
a fearful thunderstorm arose, checked the fear of his fellows, and discoursed
to them of the natural reasons of that uproar in the clouds, and those sudden
flashes wherewith they seemed (out of the ignorance of causes) to be too
much affrighted: in the midst of his philosophical discourse he was struck
dead with that dreadful eruption which he slighted. What could this be
but the finger of that God who will have his works rather entertained with
wonder and trembling than with curious scanning?'- Bishop Hall, The inzvisible WTorld, ~ vi.
26




8I4         I-STORY OF EUROPEAN 3MORALS.
conceivable, thoulgh it is probable that most impartial enquirers will convince themselves that this is not the system
of the planet we inhabit; and if any instance of such interference be sufficiently attested, it should not be rejected as
intrinsically impossible.  It is, however, the fundamental
error of most writers on miracles, that they confine their
attention to two points —the possibility of the fact, and the
nature of the evidence.1   There is a third element, which
in these questions is of capital importance: the predisposition of men in certain stages of society towards the
miraculous, which is so strong that miraculous stories are
then invariably circulated and credited, and which makes
an amount of evidence that would be quite sufficient to
establish a natural fact, altogether inadequate to establish
a supernatural one.  The positions for which I have been
contending are that a perpetual interference of the Deity
with  the  natural course of events is the earliest and
simplest notion of miracles, and that this notion, which
is implied in so many systems of belief, arose in part
from an ignorance of the laws of nature, and in part also
from an incapacity for inductive reasoning, which led men
merely to collect facts coinciding with their preconceived
opinions, without attending to those that were inconsistent
-with them.  By this method there is no superstition that
could not be defended. Volumes have been written giving
perfectly authentic histories of wars, famines, and pestilences that followed the appearance of comets.  There
is not an omen, not a prognostic, however childish, that
has not, in the infinite variety of events, been occasionally
1 This appears to me to be the fault of three very able productions which
have recently appeared on the subject of miracles-the Bampton Lectures,
by Mr. Mlozely, the Essays and Letters of Professor Tyndall, and the Reign
of Law, by the Duke of Argyll. The first is especially valuable for the
clearness with which it enforces the identity of a miracle and a special providence.




TIlE CONVERSION OF ROME.             385
verified, and to minds which are under the influence of
a superstitious imagination these occasional verifications
more than outweigh all the instances of error.  Simple
knowledge is wholly insufficient to correct the disease.
Nio one is so firmly convinced of the reality of lucky and
unlucky days, and of supernatural portents, as the sailor,
who has spent his life in watching the deep, and has
learnt to read with almost unerring skill the promise of
the clouds.  No one is more persuaded of the superstitions about fortune than the habitual gambler.  Sooner
than abandon his theory, there is no extravagance of
hypothesis to which the superstitious man will not resort.
The ancients were convinced that dreams were usually
supernatural. If the dream was verified, this was plainly
a prophecy. If the event was the exact opposite of what
the dream foreshadowed, the latter was still supernatural,
for it was a recognised principle that dreams should
sometimes be interpreted by contraries.  If the dream
bore no relation to subsequent events, unless it ~were
transformed into a fantastic allegory, it was still supernatural, for allegory was one of the most ordinary forms
of revelation.  If no ingenuity of interpretation could
find a prophetic meaning in a dream, its supernatural
character was even then not necessarily destroyed, for
Homer said there was a special portal through whiclh
deceptive visions passed into the mind, and the Fathers
declared that it was one of the occupations of the dmamons
to perplex and bewilder us with unmeaning dreams.
To estimate aright the force of the predisposition to
the miraculous, should be the first task of the enquirer in
these subjects; and no one, I think, can examine the subject with impartiality without arriving at the conclusion,
that in many periods of history it has been so strong
as to accumulate around pure delusions, an amount of




386         HISTORY OF EU'ROPEAN MORALS.
evidence far greater than would be sufficient to establish
even improbable natural facts.  Through the entire duration of Pagan Rome, it was regarded as an unquestionable
truth, established by the most ample experience, that prodigies of various kinds announced every memorable event,
and that sacrifices had the power of mitigating or arresting calamity.  In the republic, the Senate itself officially
verified and explained the prodigies.1 In the Empire there
is not an historian, from  Tacitus down  to the meanest
writer in the Augustan history, who was not convinced
that numerous prodigies foreshadowed the accession and
death  of every sovereign, and every great catastrophe
that fell upon the people.  Cicero could say with truth,
that there was not a single nation of antiquity from  the
polished Greek to the rudest savage, who did not admit
the existence of a real art enablingt men to foretell the
future, and that the splendid temples of the oracles, which
for so many centuries commanded the reverence of mankind, sufficiently attested the intensity of the belief.2
The reality of the witch miracles was established by a
critical tribunal, which, however imperfect, was at least
the most searching then existing in the world, by  the
judicial decisions of the law courts of every European
country, supported by the unanimous voice of public
opinion, and corroborated by the investigation of some of
the ablest men during several centuries.  The belief that
the king's touch can cure scrofula, flourished in the most
brilliant periods of English history. 3  It was unshaken
1 Sir C. Lewis On the Credibility of RZoman tlist. vol. i. p. 50.
2 Cic. De D)ivin., lib. i. c. 1.
3'The days on which the miracle rof the king's touch] was to be wrought
were fixed at sittings of the Privy Council, and were solemnly notified by
the clergy to all the parish churches of the realm. When the appointed
time came, several divines in full canonicals stood round the canopy of state.
the surgeon of the royal household introduced the sick. A passage of




THE CONVERSION  OF ROME.                       387
by the most numerous and  public experiments.  It was
asserted by the privy council, by the bishops of two religions, by the general voice of the clergy in the palmiest
days of the English Church, by the University of Oxford,
and  by  the  enthusiastic  assent of the people.  It survived the ages of the Reformation, of Bacon, of Milton,
and of Hobbes.  It was by no means extinct in the age of
Locke, and would probably have lasted still longer, had
not the change of dynasty at the Revolution assisted the
tardy scepticism.1  Yet there is now scarcely an educated
Mtark xvi. was read. When the words " They shall lay their hands on the
sick and they shall recover," had been pronounced, there was a pause, and
one of the sick was brought to the king. His Majesty stroked the ulcers.... Then came the Epistle, &-c. The Service may still be found in the
Prayer Books of the reign of Anne. Indeed, it was not until some time
after the accession of George I. that the University of Oxford ceased to
reprint the Office of healing, together with the Liturgy. Theologians of
eminent learning, ability, and virtue gave the sanction of their authority to this
mummery, and, what is stranger still, medical men of high note believed, or
affected to believe, it...Charles II., in the course of his reign, touched
near 100,000 persons.... In 1682 he performed the rite 8,500 times. In
1084 the throng was such that six or seven of the sick were trampled to
death. James, in one of his progresses, touched 800 persons in the choir of
the cathedral of Chester.'-Macaulay's History of Engcland, c.xiv.
1 One of the surgeons of Charles II., named John Brown, whose official
duty it was to superintend the ceremony, and who assures us that he has
witnessed many thousands touched, has written an extremely curious
account of it, called Chtarisnza Basilicon (London, 1684). This miraculous
power existed exclusively in the English and French royal families, being
derived, in the first, from Edward the Confessor, in the second, from St.
Lewis. A surgeon attested the reality of the disease before the miracle was
performed. The king hung a riband with a gold coin round the neck of
the person touched; but Brown thinks the gold, though possessing great
virtue, was not essential to the cure. He had known cases where the cured
person had sold, or ceased to wear, the medal, and his disease returned. The
gift was unimpaired by the Reformation, and an obdurate Catholic was conuverted on finding that Elizabeth, after the Pope's excommunication, could
cure his scrofula. Francis I. cured many persons when prisoner in Spain.
Charles I., when a prisoner, cured a man by his simple benediction, the
Puritans not permitting him to touch him. His blood had the same efficacy;
and Chailes IT., when an exile in the Netherlands, still retained it. There
were, however some'Atheists, Sadducees, and ill-conditioned Pharisees'




888          HI-STORY OF EUROPEAN 3IOPRALS.
man who will defend these miracles.  Considered abstractedly indeed, it is perfectly conceivable that Providence
might have announced coming events by prodigies, or imparted to some one a miraculous power, or permitted
evil spirits to exist among mankind and assist them  in
their enterprises. The evidence establishing these miracles
is cumulative, and it is immeasurably greater than that
which we possess establishing many natural facts, such as
the earthquakes at Antioch, which no one would dream of
questioning. We disbelieve them, because an overwhelming experience proves, that in certain intellectual conditions, and under the influence of certain errors which we
are enabled to trace, superstitions of this order invariably
appear, and  flourish, and that, when these intellectual
conditions have passed, the prodigies as invariably cease,
and the whole fabric of superstition melts silently away.
It is extremely difficult for an ordinary man, who is little
conversant with the writings of the past, and who unconsciously transfers to other ages the critical spirit of his own,
to realise the fact that histories of the most grotesquely
extravagant nature  could, during  the  space  of many
centuries, be continually propounded without either provoking the smallest question or possessing the smallest
truth.  We may, however, understand something of this
credulity when we remember the diversion of the ancient
who even then disbelieved it; and Brown gives the letter of one who went,
a complete sceptic, to satisfy his fiiends, and came away cured and converted.
It was popularly, but Brown says erroneously, believed that the touch was
peculiarly efficacious on Good: Friday. An official register was kept for
every month, in the reign of Charles II, of the persons touched, but two
years and a half appear to be wanting. The smallest number touched in
one year was 2,983 (in 1669); the total, in the whole reign, 92,107. Brown
gives numbers of specific cases with great detail. Shalkspeare has noticed
the power (Macbeth, Act iv. Scene 3). Dr. Johnson, when a boy, was
touched by Queen Anne; but at that time few persons, except Jacobites
believed the miracle.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                   389
mind from physical science to speculative philosophy; the
want of the  many checks upon error which  printing
affords; the complete absence of that habit of cautious, experimental research which Bacon and his contemporaries
infused into modern philosophy; and in Christian times,
the theological notion that the spirit of belief is a virtue,
and the spirit of scepticism  a sin.  We must remember,
too, that before men had found the key to the motions of
the heavenly bodies-before the false theory of the vortices, or the true theory of gravitation, when the multitude
of apparently capricious phenomena was very great-the
notion that the world was governed by distinct and isolated influences was that which appeared most probable
even to the most rational intellect.  In such a condition
of knowlcdge —-which was that of the most enlightened
days of the Roman empire-the hypothesis of universal
law was justly regarded as a rash and premature generalisation.  Every enquirer was confronted with innumerable phenomena that were deemed plainly miraculous.
When Lucretius sought to banish the supernatural from
the universe, he was compelled to employ much ingenuity
in endeavouring to explain, by a natural law, why a miraculous fountain near the temple of Jupiter Ammon was hot
by night and cold by day, and why the temperature of
wells was higher in winter than in summer.'  Eclipses
were supposed by the populace to foreshadow calamity;
1 Lucretius, lib. vi. The poet says there were certain seeds of fire in the
earth, around the water, which the sun attracts to itself, but which the cold
of the night represses, and forces back upon the water.
The fountain of Jupiter Ammon, and many others that were deemed miraculous, are noticed by Pliny, llist.  Nat. ii. 106.'Fly not yet; the fount that played
In times of old through Amrmon's shade,
Though icy cold by day it ran,
Yet still, like souls of mirth, began
To burn when night was near.'-Moore's AMelodies.




300          HfISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
but the IRoman  soldiers believed  that by beating drums
and cymbals they could cause the moon's disc to regain
its brightness.-  In obedience to dreams, the great emperor Augustus went begging money through the streets of
Rome,2 and the historian  who records the  act himself
wrote to Pliny, entreating  the postponement of a trial.3
The  stroke  of the lightning  was  an  augury,4 and  its
menace was directed  especially  against the  great, who
cowered in abject terror during  a thunder-storm.   Augustus used to  guard  himself against thunder by wearing the skin of a sea-calf.5   Tiberius, who professed to be
a complete freethinker, had greater faith in laurel leaves.6
Caligula  was  accustomed   during   a  thunder-storm   to
creep beneath his bed.7   During the games in honour of
Tacit. Annal. i. 28. Long afterwards the people of Turin were accustolled to greet every eclipse with loud cries, and St. Maximus of Turin
energetically combated their superstition.  (Ceillier, Hist. des Auteulrs sacr}s,
tome xiv. p. 607.)
2 Suet. Aug. xci.
See the answer of the younger Pliny (Pp. i. 18), suggesting that dreams
should often be interpreted by contraries. A great many instances of dreams
that were believed to have been verified are given in Cic. (De Divinatione,
lib. i.) and Valerius 3Maximus (lib. i. c. vii.). MIarcus Aurelius (Capitolinus)
was said to have appeared to many persons after his death in dreams, and
predicted the future.
4 The augurs had noted eleven different hinds of lightning with different
significations. (Pliny, Hist. Nit. ii. 53.)  Pliny says all nations agree in
clapping their hands when it lightens. (xxviii. 5.)  Cicero very shrewdly
retmarked that the Roman considered lightning a good omen when it shone
upon his left, while the Greeks and barbarians believed it to be auspicious
when it was upon the right. (Cic. De Divinat. ii. 39.)  When Constantine
prohibited all other forms of magic, he especially authorised that which was
intended to avert hail and lightning.  (Cod. Thleod. lib. ix. tit. xvi. 1. 3.)
5 Suet. Aug. xe.
6 Ibid. Tiber. lxix.  The virtue of laurel leaves, and of the skin of a seacalf, as preservatives against lightning, are noticed by Pliny (Hist. Nat. ii.
56), who also says (xv. 40) that the laurel leafis believed to have a natural
antipathy to fire, which it shows by its angry crackling when in contact
with that element.
7 Suet. Calig. li.




TIIE  CONVERSION  OF ROME.                       391
Julius Cesar, a comet appearing  for seven  days in the
sky, the people believed it to be the soul of the dead,1
and  a temple was erected  in its honour.'2  Sometimes
we find this credulity broken by curious inconsistencies of
belief, or semi-rationalistic explanations. ILivy, who relates
-with  perfect faith innumerable  prodigies, has observed,
nevertheless, that the  more  prodigies  are believed, the
more they  are announced.3   Those who admitted  most
fully the reality of the oracles, occasionally represented
them  as natural, contending that a prophetic faculty was
innate  in  all men, though  dormant in  most;  that it
might be quickened  into  action  by sleep, by a pure and
ascetic life, or in  the prostration  that precedes death,
or in the delirium produced by certain vapours; and
they added, that the gradual enfeebling  of the  last was
the cause of the cessation  of the  oracles.4   Earthquakes
Suet. Jiul. Cces. lxxxviii.               2 Plin. Hist. NAat. ii. 23.
3'Prodigia eo anno multa nuntiata sunt, qume quo magis credebant simplices ac religiosi homines eo plura nuntiabantur' (xxiv. 10). Compare
-with this the remark of Cicero on the oracles:-' Quando autem. illa vis
evanuit? An postquani homines minus creduli esse cceperunt.?' (De 1Div.
ii. 57.)
4 This theory, which is developed at length by the Stoic, in the first
book of the De Divinatione of Cicero, grew  out of the pantheistic
notion that the human soul is a part of the Deity, and therefore by
nature a participator in the Divine attribute of prescience. The soul,
however, was crushed by the weight of the body, and there were two
ways of evoking its prescience-the ascetic way, which attenuates the body,
and the magical way, which stimulates the soul. Apollonius declared that
his power of prophecy was not due to magic, but solely to his abstinence
from animal food. (Philost. Ap. of Tyana, viii. 5.)  Among those who
believed the oracles, there were two theories. The first was that they were
inspired by daemons or spirits of a degree lower than the gods. The second
was, that they were due to the action of certain vapours which emanated
from the caverns beneath the temples, and which, by throwing the
priestess into a state of delirium, evoked her prophetic powers. The first
theory was that of the Platonists, and it was adopted by the Christians,
who, however, changed the signification of the word demon. The second
theory, which appears to be due to Aristotle (Baltus, ]6p1onse a l'Histoire
des Oracles, p. 132), is noticed by Cic. De Div. i. 19; Plin. H. N. ii. 95;
and others.  It is closely allied to the modern belief in clairvoyance.




392          I-IISTORY OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
were believed to result from supernatural interpositions,
and to call for expiatory sacrifices, but at the same
time they had  direct natural antecedents.   The Greeks
believed that they  were caused by  subterranean  waters,
and they accordingly sacrificed to Poseidon.  The Romans
were uncertain as to their physical antecedents, and therefore inscribed no name on the altar of expiation.l' Pythagoras is said to have attributed them  to the struggligngs of
the dead.2   Pliny, after a long discussion, decided that they
were produced by air forcing itself through fissures of the
earth, but he immediately  proceeds to  assert that they
are  invariably  tile  precursors of calamity.3   The  same
writer, having recounted the triumphs of astronomers in
predicting and explaining eclipses, bursts into an eloquent
apostrophe to those great men who had thus reclaimed man
from  the dominion of superstition, and in high and enthusiastic terms urges them  to pursue still further their labour
in breaking the thraldom  of ignorance.4   A  few  clapters
later he professes his unhesitating  belief in  the ominous
character of comets.5  The notions, too, of magic  and astroPlutarch, in his treatises on the decline of the oracles, attributes that decline sometimes to the death of the dremons (who vwere believed to be mortal),
and sometimes to the exhaustion of the vapours. The oracles themselves,
according to Porphyry (Fontenelle, Hist. des Oracles, pp. 220-222, first ed.),
attributed it to the second cause. Iamblichus; (De Myst. ~ iii. c. xi.) combines both theories, and both are very clearly stated in the following curious
passage:' Quamquam Platoni credam inter:deos atque homines. natura et
loco medias quasdam  divorum  potestates intersitas, easque divinationes
cunctas et magorum  miracula gubernare.  Quin et illud mecum reputo,
posse aninmum humanum, presertim puerilem et simplicem, seu carminum
avocamento, sive odorum  delenimento, soporari, et ad oblivionem prfesentiumn externari: et paulisper remota corporis memoria, redigi ac redire ad
natural suam, que est immortalis scilicet et divina; atque ita veluti
quodam sopore, futura rerum prmsagir.'- -Apuleius, Apolog.
Aul. Gell. Noct. ii. 28. Florus, however (Hist. i. 19), mentions a
Roman general appeasing the goddess Earth on the occasion of an earthquake that occurred during a battle.
2 ~lian, Hist. Vat. iv. 17.              s Hist. Nat. ii. 81-86.
4 Ibid. ii. 9.                           5 Ibid. ii. 23.




THE CONVERSION OF ROMIE.                  393
logy, were detached from all theological belief, and might
be found among many who were absolute atheists.l
These few  examples will be sufficient to show  how
fully the Roman soil was prepared for the reception of
miraculous histories, even after the writings of Cicero and
Seneca, in the brilliant days of Augustus and the Antonines.  The feebleness of the uncultivated mind, which
cannot rise above material conceptions, had indeed passed
away, the legends of the  popular theology  had lost
all power over the educated, but at the same time
an, absolute ignorance of physical science and of inductive reasoning remained.  The facility of belief that was
manifested by some of the most eminent men, even on
matters that were not deemed  supernatural, can only
be realised by those who have an intimate acquaintance
with their works.  Thus, to give but a few examples, that
great naturalist whom I have so often cited, tells us with
the utmost gravity how  the fiercest lion trembles at the
crowing of a cock,2 how elephants celebrate their religious
ceremonies;3 how the stag draws serpents by its breath
from their holes, and then tramples them to death;4 how the
salamander is so deadly, that the food cooked in water, or
the fruit grown on trees it has touched, are fatal to man; I
how, when a ship is flying before so fierce a tempest that
no anchors or chains can hold it,: if only the remora or
echinus fastens on its keel, it is arrested in its course, and
remains motionless and rooted among the waves.6   On
I have referred in the last chapter to a striking passage of Am. Marcellinus on this combination. The reader may find some curious instances
of the superstitions of Rtoman sceptics in Champagny, Les Antonins, tome
iii. p. 46.
2 viii. 19. This is also mentioned by Lucretius.  3 viii. 1.
4 viii. 50. I have noticed in a former work that this was one of the
reasons why the early Christians sometimes adopted the stag as a symbol
for Christ.
5 xxix. 23.                          6 xxxii. 1.




394         IIflTOPTY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
matters that would appear the most easily verified, he
is equally confident.  Thus, the human saliva, he assures
us, has many mysterious properties.  If a man, especially
when fasting, spits into the throat of a serpent, it is said
that the animal speedily dies.' It is certain that to anoint
the eyes with spittle is a sovereign remedy against ophthalmia.2 If a pugilist, having struck his adversary, spits
into his own hand, the pain he caused instantly ceases.  If
he spits into his hand before striking, the blow is the more
severe.3 Aristotle, the greatest naturalist of Greece, had
observed that it was a curious fact, that on the sea-shore no
animal ever dies except during the ebbing of the tide.
Several centuries later, Pliny, the greatest naturalist of an
empire that was washed by many tidal seas, directed his
attention to this statement.  He declared that after careful
observations which had been made in Gaul, it had been
found to be inaccurate, for what Aristotle stated of all
animals, was in fact only true of man.4  It,vas in 1727 and
the two following years, that scientific observations made at
Rochefort and at Brest finally dissipated the delusion.5
Volumes might be filled with  illustrations of how
readily, even in the most enlightened days of the Roman
Empire, strange, and  especially miraculous, tales were
believed, even under circumstances that would appear to
give every facility for the detection of the imposture. In
the field of the supernatural, however, it should be remembered that a movement, which I have traced in the
last chapter, had produced a very exceptional amount of
vii. 2.
2 xxviii. 7. The blind man restored to sight by Vespasian was cured by
anointing his eyes with spittle. (Suet. Vesp. 7; Tacit. Iist. iv. 81.)
3 Ibid. The custom of spitting in the hand before striking still exists
among pugilists.
4 ii. 101.
5 Leogendre,  Traite de l'Opinzon, tome ii. p. 17. The superstition is,
however, said still to linger.in many sea-coast towns.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                      395
credulity  during the  century  and  a half that preceded
the conversion of Constantine.  Neither the writings of
Cicero and Seneca, nor even those of Pliny and Plutarch,..1a  be regarded  as fair samples of the  belief of the
educated.  The Epicurean philosophy which rejected, the
Academic philosophy which doubted, and the Stoic philosophy which simplified and sublimated superstition, had
alike disappeared.  The' Meditations' of Marcus Aurelius
closed the period of stoical influence, and the'Dialogues' of
Lucian were the last solitary protest of expiring scepticism.1
The aim of the philosophy of Cicero had been to ascertain
truth by the free exercise of the  critical powers.  The
aim  of the Pythagorean ph]ilos6phy was to attain the state
of ecstasy, and  to  purify  the mind by  religious rites.
Every philosopher soon plunged into magical practices,
and was encircled, in the eyes of his disciples, with a halo
of legend.  Apollonius  of Tyana, whom   the  Pagans
opposed to Christ, had raised the dead, healed the sick,
cast out devils, freed  a young  man from  a lamina or
vampire with whom  he was enamoured, prophesied, seen
in one  country  events that were occurring in another,
and filled the world with the fame of his miracles and
of his sanctity.2   A  similar power, notwithstanding his
l Lucian is believed to have died about two years before Marcus Aurelius.
2 See his very curious Life by Philostratus. This Life-was written at the
request of Julia Domna, the wife of Septinlus Severus, whether or not with
the intention of opposing the gospel narrative is a question still fiercely discussed. Among the most recent Church historians, Pressens6 maintains the
affirmative, and Neander the negative. Apollonius was born nearly at the
same time as Christ, and lived after Domitian. The traces of his influence
are widely spread through the literature of the empire. Eunapius calls him'.Arro\XX)cLto5 6'sc rvuc'wv, o0tcgrL ~X6ao~oc O tXS \XV rt eW1 v re ICOl alOp'7rVt,:;aov.'-Lives of the Sophists.' Xiphilin relates (lxvii. 18) the story told
]so by Philostratus, how Apollonius, being at Ephesus, saw the assassination of Domitian at Rome. Alexander Severus placed (Lalnpriclius
Sevenrus) the statues of Apollonius with those of Orpheus, Abraham, and




B96           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
own disclaimer, was popularly attributed to the Platonist
Apuleius.1 Lucian has left us a detailed account of the
impostures by which  the philosopher Alexander endeavoured to acquire the fame of a miracle worker.2   When
a magician  plotted  against Plotinus, his spells recoiled
miraculously  against  himself,  and  when  an  Egyptian
priest endeavoured by incantations to evoke the guardian
dlemon  of the  philosopher, instead  of  a  daemon, the
temple of Isis was irradiated by the presence of a god.3
Porphyry was said to have  expelled  an evil dcemon from
a bath.4   It was reported  amllong his disciples that when
lalmblichus prayed he was raised (like the saints of another
creed) ten cubits from  the ground, and that his body and
his dress assumed  a golden hue.5   It was well known
Christ, for worship in his oratory. Aurelian was reported to have been
diverted from his intention of destroying Tyana by the ghost of the philosopher, who appeared in his tent, rebukled him, and saved the city (Vopiscus,
Aurelian); and, lastly, the pagan philosopher Hierocles wrote a book opposing
Apollonius to Christ, which was answered by Eusebius. The fathers of the
fourth century always spoke of him as a great magician. Some curious
passages on the subject are collected by 1I. Chassalg, in the introduction
to his French translation of the work of Philostratus.
See his defence against the charge of magic. Apuleius, who was at
once a brilliant rhetorician, the writer of an extremely curious novel (The
Metamorphoses, or Golden Ass), and of many other works, and an indefatigable student of the religious mysteries of his time, lived through the
reigns of Hadirian and his two successors. After his death his fame was
for about a century apparently eclipsed; and it has been noticed as very
remarkable that Tertullian, who lived a generation after Apuleius, and who,
like him, was a Carthaginian, has never even mentioned him. During the
fourtl century his reputation revived, and Lactantius, St. Jerome, and St.
Augustine relate that many miracles were attributed to him, and that he
was placed by the Pagans on a level with Christ, and regarded by some as
even a greater magician. See the sketch of his life by M3. Bdtolaud,
prefixed to the Pancoucke edition of his works.
2 Life of AlexCaider. There is an extremely curious picture of the religious jugglers, who were wandering about the emlpire, in the eighth and
ninth books of the Metamorl2hoses of Apuleius. See, too, Juvenal, Sat. vi.
610-585.
3 Porphyry's Life of Plotinus.            4 Eunapius, Porph.
Ibid. Iamb. Iamblichus himself only laughed at the report.




TIlE CONVERSION OF ROME..397
that he had at Gadara drawn forth from  the waters of
two fountains their guardian spirits, and exhibited them
in bodily form  to  his disciples.'  A  woman named
Sospitra had been visited by two spirits under the form of
aged Chaldeans, and had been endowed with a transcendent
beauty and with a superhuman knowledge.  Raised above
all human frailties, save only love and death, she was
able to see at once the deeds which were done in every
land, and the people, dazzled by her beauty and her
wisdom, ascribed to her a share of the omnipresence of
the Deity.2
Christianity floated into the Roman Empire on the
wave of credulity that brought with it this long train of
oriental superstitions and legends.  In its moral aspect
it was broadly distinguished from  the systems around it,
but its miracles were accepted by both friend and foe
as the ordinary accompaniments of religious teaching.
The Jews, in the eyes of the Pagans, had long been proverbial for their credulity,3 and the Christians inherited a
double measure of their reputation.  Nor is it possible
to deny that in the matter of the miraculous this reputation was deserved.  Among the Pagans the theory of
Euheinerus, who believed the gods to be but deified
men, had been the stronghold of the Sceptics; while the
Platonienotion  of dxmnons was adopted by the more
believing philosophers.  The Christian  teachers combined both theories, maintaining that deceased kings had
originally supplied the naimes of the deities, but that
malevolent drxmons had taken their places; andl without
a single exception the fathers maintained the reality of
the Pagan miracles as fully as their own.4  The oracles,
1 Eunapius, Iamb.     2 See her life in Eunapius, rc'deseus.
s' Credat Judmeus Apella.'-Hor. Sat. v. 100.
4 This appears from all the writings of the fathers. There were, however,




398          HISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
as we have seen, had been  ridiculed  and rejected by
niumbers of the  philosophers, but the  Christians unanimously admitted their reality. They appealed to a long
series of oracles as predictions of their faith; and there
is, I believe, no example of the denial of their supernatural character in the Christian Church till 1696, when
a Dutch Anabaptist minister, named Van Dale, in a remarkable book,l which was abridged and translated by
Fontenelle, asserted, in opposition to the unanimous voice
of ecclesiastical authority, that they were simple impostures, a theory which is now almost universally accepted.
To suppose that men who held these opinions were ca)pable, in the second or third centuries, of ascertaining with
any degree of just confidence whether miracles had taken
place in Judxa. in the first century, is grossly absurd; nor
would the conviction  of their reality have  made any
great impression on their minds at a time when miracles
were supposed to be so abundantly diffused.
In truth, the question of the reality of the Jewish
miracles must be carefully distinguished from that of the
conversion of the Roman Empire.  With the light that is
furnished to us by modern  investigations and habits of
thought, we weigh the testimony of the Jewish writers;
but most of the more judicious of modern apologists, considering the extreme credulity of the Jewish people, decline
two forms of pagan miracles about which there was some hesitation in the
early church-the beneficent miracle of healing, and the miracle of prophecy.
Concerning the first, the common opinion was that the dremons only cured
diseases they had themselves caused, or that, at least, if they ever (in
order to enthrall men more effectually) cured purely natural diseases,
they did it by natural means, which their superior lnowledge and power
placed at their disposal. Concerning prophecy, it was the opinion of some
of the fathers that intuitive prescience was a Divine prerogative, and that
the prescience of the deemnons was only acquired by observation. Their
immense knowledge enabled them to forecast events to a degree far transcending human faculties, and they employed this power in the oracles.
i lDe Origine aCc Progressu Idolatrfie (Amsterdam).




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                399
to make the question simply one of evidence, and occupy
themselves chiefly in endeavouring to show that miracles
are possible, that those recorded in the biblical narratives
are related in such a manner, and are so interwoven with
the texture of a simple and artless narrative, as to carry
with them an internal proof of their reality; that they differ
in kind from later miracles, and especially that the character and destinies of Christianity are such as to render
its miraculous origin antecedently probable.  But in the
ages when the Roman Empire was chiefly converted, all
sound and discriminating historical investigation of the
evidence of the early miracles was impossible, nor was
any large use made of those miracles as proofs of the
religion.  The rhetorician Arnobius is probably the only
one of the early apologists who gives, among the evidences
of the faith, any prominent place to the miracles of Christ.l
When evidential reasoning was employed, it was usually
an appeal not to miracles, but to prophecy.  But here,
tgain, the opinions of the patristic age must be pronounced absolutely worthless.  To prove that events
had taken place in Judta, accurately corresponding with
the prophecies, or that the prophecies were themselves
genuine, were both tasks far transcending the critical
powers of the Roman converts.  The wild extravagance
of fantastic allegory, commonly connected with Origen,
but which appears at a much earlier date in the writings
of Justin -Martyr and Irenmeus, had thrown the interpretation of prophecy into hopeless confusion, while the
deliberate and apparently perfectly unscrupulous forgery
of a whole literature, destined to further the propagation
either of Christianity as a whole, or of some particular
1 This characteristic of early Christian apology is forcibly exhibited by
Pressense', list. des troisppremsies Sicls, 2me s6rie, tomue ii.
27




400         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
class of tenets that had arisen within its border,l made
criticism  at once pre-eminently difficult and necessary.
A long series of oracles were cited, predicting in detail
the sufferings of Christ. The prophecies forged by the
Christians, and attributed by thenl to the heathen Sibyls,
were accepted as genuine by the entire Church, and were
continually appealed to as among the most powerful evidences of the faith.  Justin Martyr declared that it was
by the instigation of damons that it had been made a
capital offence to read them.2   Clement of Alexandria
preserved  the tradition  that St. Paul had  urged the
brethren to study them.3  Celsus designated tie Christians
Sibyllists, on account of the pertinacity with which they
insisted upon them.4  Constantine the Great adduced them
in a solemn speech before the Council of Nice.5 The fish
was adopted by the early Church as its sacred symbol,
because the Greek word for fish, which  contains the
initial letters of the name and titles of Christ, contains
also the initial letters of some prophetic lines ascribed to
the Sibyl of Erythra.6  The Pagans, it is true, accused
their opponents of having forged or interpolated these
prophecies; 7 but there was not a single Christian writer
of the patristic period who disputed their authority, and
there were very few  even of the most illustrious who
did not appeal to them.  Unanimously admitted by the
Church of the fathers, they were unanimously admitted
during the middle ages, and an allusion to them passed into
1 The immense number of these forged writings is noticed by all candid
historians, and, there is, I believe, only one instance of any attempt being
made to prevent this pious fraud. A priest was degraded for having forged
some voyages of St. Paul and St. Thecla. (Tert. De Baptisnmo, 17.)
2 Apol. i.      3 rSt7om. vi. C. 5.     4 Origen, Cont. Cels. v.
5 Oratio (apud Euseb.) xviii.     6 De Civ. Dei, xviii. 23.
7 Constantine, Oratio xix.'IIis testimoniis quidam revicti solent eo
confugere ut aiant non esse illa carmina Sibyllina, sed a nostris conficta
atqpue composita.'-Lactant. Div. Inst. iv. 15.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                401
the most beautiful lyric of the Missal. It was only at the
period of the Reformation that the great but unhappy
Castellio pointed out many passages in them which could
not possibly be genuine.  He was, followed, in the first
years of the seventeenth century, by a Jesuit named Possevin, who observed that the Sibyls were known to have
lived at a later period than Moses, and that many passages in the Sibylline books purported to lhave been
written before Moses.  Those passages, therefore, he
said, were interpolated; and he added, with a characteristic sagacity, that they had doubtless been inserted by
Satan, for the purpose of throwing suspicion upon the
books.1  It was in 1649 that a French Protestant minister, named Blondel, ventured for the first time in the
Christian Church to denounce these writings as deliberate
and clumsy forgeries, and after much angry controversy
his sentiment has acquired an almost undisputed ascendency in criticism.
But although the opinion of the Roman converts was
extremely worthless, when dealing with past history or
with literary criticism, there was one branch tf miracles
concerning which their position was somewhat different.
Contemporary miracles, often of the most extraordinary
character, but usually of the nature of visions, exorcisms,
or healing the sick, were from the time of Justin Martyr
uniformly represented- by the fathers as existing among
thlem,2 and they continue steadily along the path of history, till in the pages of Evagrius and Theodoret, in the
Lives of Hilarion and Paul, by St. Jerome, of Antony,
by St. Athanasius, and of Gregory Thaumaturgus, by his
namesake of Nyssa, and in the Dialogues of St. Gregory
1 Antonius Pcssevinus, Apparatus Sacer (1606), verb.  Sibylla.'
2 This subject is fully treated by Middleton in his /tee.zEnuzry, whom
t have closely followed.




402        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
the Great, they attain as grotesque an extravagance
as the wildest medimval legends.  Few things are more
striking than the assertions hazarded on this matter
by some of the ablest of the fathers. Thus, St. Irenmus
assures us that all Christians possessed the power of
working miracles; that they prophesied, cast out devils,
healed the sick, and sometimes even raised the dead;
that some who had been thus resuscitated lived for many
years among them, and that it would be impossible to
reckon the wonderful acts that were daily performed.'
St. Epiphanius tells us that some rivers and fountains
were annually transformed into wine, in attestation of the
miracle of Cana; and he adds that he had himself drank
of one of these fountains, and his brethren of another.2
St. Augustine notices that miracles were less frequent and
less widely known than formerly, but that many still
occurred, and some of them  he had himself witnessed.
Whenever a miracle was reported, he ordered that a
special examination into its circumstances should be made,
and that the depositions of the witnesses should be read
publicly to'the people.  He tells us, besides many other
miracles, that Gamaliel in a dream revealed to a priest
named Lucianus the place where the bones of St. Stephen
were buried; tlhat those bones, being thus discovered, were
brought to Hippo, the diocese of which St. Augustine
was bishop; that they raised five dead persons to life; and
that, although only a portion of the miraculous cures they
effected had been registered, the certificates drawn up in
two years in the diocese, and by the orders of the saint,
were nearly seventy.  In the adjoining diocese of Calama they were incomparably more numerous.3  In the
height of the great conflict between St. Ambrose and the
Arian Empress Justina, the saint declared that it had
1 Irenpeus, Contr. Hateres. ii. 02.  E Epiphan. Adv..leres. ii. 30.
S St. Au, De C.  ) C,' o xv~,




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.               403
been revealed to him by. an irresistible presentiment, or,
as St. Augustine, who was present on the occasion, says,
in a dream, that relics were buried in a certain spot which
he indicated.  The earth being removed, a tomb was
found filled with blood, and containing two gigantic
skeletons, with their heads severed from  their bodies,
which were pronounced to be those of St. Gervasius and
St. Protasius, two martyrs of remarkable physical dimensions, who were said to have suffered about 300
years before.  To prove that they were genuine relics,
the bones were brought, in contact with a blind man,
who was restored to sight, and with demoniacs, who
were cured; the. dmons, however, in the first place,
acknowledging that the relics were genuine; that St.
Ambrose was the deadly enemy of the powers of hell;
that the Trinitarian doctrine was true; and that those who
rejected it would infallibly be damned.  The next day
St. Ambrose delivered an invective against all who questioned the miracle.  St. Augustine recorded it in his
works, and spread the worship of the saints through
Africa.  The transport of enthusiasm  with which the
miracles were greeted at Milan, enabled St. Ambrose to
overcome every obstacle; but the Arians treated it with
a derisive incredulity, and declared that the pretended
demoniacs had been bribed by the saint.1
Statements of this kind, which  are selected from
very many that are equally positive, though not equally
precise, suggest many veins of thought of obvious interest and importance. We are now, however, only concerned with the fact, that, with the exception of one or
two isolated miracles, such as the last I have noticed,
This history is related by St. Ambrose in a letter to his sister MIarcellina; by St. Paulinus of Nola, in his Life of Ambrose; and by St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei; xxii. 8; Confess. ix. 7.




404        IIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
and of one class of miracles which I shall proceed to
describe, these prodigies, whether true or false, were
wrought for the exclusive edification of confirmed believers.  The exceptional miracles were those of exorcism,
which occupied a very singular position in the early
Church.  The belief that certain diseases were inflicted
by Divine agency was familiar to the ancients, but among
the early  Greeks the notion of diabolical possession
appears to have been unknown.  A  dmmon, in the philosophy of Plato, though inferior to a deity, was not an
evil spirit, and it is extremely doubtful whether the
existence of evil d'mmons was known either to the Greeks
or Romans till about the time of the advent of Christ.x
The belief was introduced with the oriental superstitions
which then poured into Rome, and it brought in its train
the notions of possession and exorcism.  The Jews, who
in their own country appear to have regarded it as a
lnost ordinary occurrence to meet mten walking  about
visibly possessed by devils, and who professed to have
learnt from Solomon the means of expelling them, soon
became the principal exorcists, accomplishing their feats
partly by adjuration, and partly by means of a certain
miraculous root named B3aaras.  Josephus assures us that
he had himself, in the reign of Vespasian, seen a Jew
named Eleazar drawing by these means a demon through
the nostrils of a possessed person, who fell to the ground
on the accomplishment of the miracle; while, upon the
command of the magician, the devil, to prove that it had
really left its victim, threw down a cup of water which
had been placed at a distance.2  The growth of Neopla1 Plutarch thought they were known by Plato, but this opinion has been
much questioned. See a very learned discussion on the subject in Farmer's
Dissertation on Miracles, pp. 129-140; and Fontelnelle, Jist. des Oracles,
pp. 26, 27. Porphyry speaks much of evil demons.
2 Josephus, Antiq. viii. 2, ~ 5.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                          405
tonism, and kindred philosophies, greatly strencthened the
belief, and some of the later philosophers, as well as many
religious charlatans, practised exorcism.  But of all classes,
the Christians became in this respect the most famous.
From  the time of Justin Martyr, for about two  centuries,
there is, I believe, not a single Christian writer who does
not solemnly and explicitly assert the reality and freqluent
employment of this power;1 and although, after the Council
of Laodicea, the instances became less numerous, they by
no  means ceased.   The Christians fully  recognised  the
supernatural power possessed by the Jewish  and Gentile
exorcists, but they claimed to be in many respects their
s-uperiors.   By  the simple sign  of the cross, or by  repeating the name of their Master, they  professed to be
able to cast out devils which had resisted all the enchantments of Pagan exorcists, to silence the oracles, to compel
the  daemons to  confess the truth  of the Christian faith.
Sometimes their power extended still further.  Demons,
we are told, were accustomed to enter into  animals, and
1 This very curious subject is fully treated by Baltus (BReponse c l'ffistozre
des Oracles, Strasburg, 1707, published anonymously in reply to Van Dale
and Fontenelle), who believed in the reality of the Pagan as well as the
Patristic miracles; by Bingham  (Antiquities of the Christian Church, vol. i.
pp. 316-324), who thinks the Pagan and Jewish exorcists were impostors,
but not the Christians; and by Middleton (Free Enquiry, pp. 80-96), who
disbelieves in all the exorcists after the apostolic times. It has also been
the subject of a special controversy in England, carried on by Dodwell,
Church, Farmer, and others.  Archdeacon Church says,'If we cannot
vindicate them [the fathers of the first three centuries] on this article, their
credit must be lost for ever; and we must be obliged to decline all further
defence of them. It is impossible for any words more strongly to express
a claim to this miracle than those used by all the best writers of the second
and third centuries.'- Vindication of the Jliracles of the F2irst Tfhree Centuries, p. 199. So, also, Baltus,' De tous les anciens auteurs eccl6siastiques,
n'y en ayant pas un qui n'ait parlM de ce pouvoir admirable que les chr6tiens
avoient de ehasser les d6mons' (p. 296). Gregory of Tours describes exorcism as sufficiently common in his time, and mentions having himself seen
a monk named Julian cure by his words a possessed person. (list. iv. 32.)




406-          IIISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
these also were expelled by the Christian adjuration.  St.
Jerome in his'Life of St. Hilarion' has given us a graphic
account of the courage with which that saint confronted,
and the success with which he relieved, a possessed
camel.1 In the reign of Julian, the very bones of the
martyr Babylas were sufficient to  silence the oracle of
Daphne; and when, amid the triumphant chaunts of the
Christians, the relics, by the command of Julian, were removed, the lightning descended from  heaven  ahd  consumed the temple.2   St. Gregory Thaumaturgus having
expelled the demons from an idol temple, the priest,
finding his means of subsistence destroyed, came to the
saint, imploring him  to permit the oracles to be renewed.
St. Gregory, who was then on his journey, wrote a note
containing the words'Satan, return,' which  was immediately obeyed, and the priest, awe-struck by the miracle,
was converted to Christianity.3   Tertullian, writing to the
Pagans in a time of persecution, in language of the most
deliberate earnestness, challenges his opponents to bring
forth any person who is possessed by a deemon, or any of
those virgins or prophets who are supposed to be inspired' Vit. IHilcar. Origen notices that cattle were sometimes possessed by
devils. See Middleton's Free Enquiry, pp. 88, 89.
2"The miracle of St. Bab ylas is the subject of a homily by St. Chrysostom, and is related at length by Theodoret, Sozomen, and Socrates. Libanius mentions that, by the command of Julian, the bones of St. Babylas
were removed from the temple. The Christians said the temple was destroyed by lightning; the Pagans declared it was burnt by the Christians,
and Ju!ian ordered measures of reprisal to be taken. Atom. Marcellinus,
however, mentions a report that the fire was caused accidentally by one
of the numerous candles employed in the ceremony. The people of Antioch
defied the emperor by chaunting, as they removed the relics,' Confounded
be all they that trust in graven images.'
3 See the Life of Gregory Thlaumatur~/us, by Gregory of Nyssa. St. Gregory
the Great assures us (Dial. iii. 10) that Sabinus, Bishop of Placentia, wrote
a letter to the river Po, which had overflowed its banks and flooded some
church lands. WThen the letter was thrown into the stream the waters at
once subsided.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                     407
by a divinity.  He asserts that, in reply to the interrogation of any Christian, the dxmons will be compelled
to confess their diabolical character; he invites the Pagans, if it be otherwise, to put the Christian immediately
to death; and he proposes this as at once the simplest
and most decisive  demonstration  of the faith.l  Justin
Mlvartyr,2 Origen,3 Lactantius,4 Athanasius,5 and Minucius
Felix,6 all in  language  equally  solemn  and  explicit,
call upon the Pagans to form  their opinions from  the confessions wrung from their own gods.  We hear from them,
that when a Christian began to pray, to make the sign of
the cross, or to utter the name of his Master in the presence of a possessed or inspired person, the  latter, by
screams and frightful contortions, exhibited the torture that
was inflicted, and by this torture the evil spirit was compelled to avow its nature.  Several of the Christian writers
declare  that this was generally  known to the Pagans.
In one respect, it was observed, the miracle of exorcism
was especially available for evidential purposes; for, as
dramons would not expel darmons, it was the only miracle
which was necessarily divine.
It would be curious to examine the manner in which
the challenge was received by the Pagan writers; but
unhappily the writings which were directed agrainst the
faith having been destroyed by the Christian emperors, our
means of information on this point are very scanty. Some
information, however, we possess, and it would appear' Edatur hic aliquis sub tribunalibus vestris, quem daemone agi constet.
Jussus a quolibet Chlristiano loqui spiritus ille, tam se daemonem confitebitur de vero, quam alibi deum de falso..Eque producatur aliquis ex iis
qui de deo pati existimantur, qui aris inhalantes numen de nidore concipiunt... nisi se daemones confessi fuerint, Christiano mentiri non audentes,
ibidem illius Christiani procacissimni sanguinem fundite. Quid isto opera
imanifestius? quid hlec probatione fidelius?'-Tert. Apol. xxiii.
2 Apol. i.; Trypho.    3 Cont. Cels. vii.    4 Inst. Div. iv. 27.
5 Life of Antony.      6 Octaviu3,




408         HIISTORY OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
to show that, among the educated classes at least, these
phenomena, did  not extort any great admiration.  The
eloquent silence about diabolical possession observed by
the early philosophers, when  discussing  such questions
as the nature of the soul and of the spiritual world,
decisively show  that in their time  possession  had  not
assumed any great prominence  or acquired any general
credence.  Plutarch, who admitted the reality of evil deemons, and who was the most strenuous defender of the
oracles, treats the whlole class of superstitions to which
exorcism  belongs with  much  contempt.1  Marcus  Aurelius, in recounting the benefits he had received from
different persons with  whom  he had  been  connected,
acknowledges his debt of gratitude to the philosopher
Diognetus for having taught him to give no credence to
magicians, jugglers, and expellers of Cdimons.2  Lucian
declares that every cunning juggler could make his fortune
by going over to the Christians and preying upon their
simplicity.3   Celsus described the Christians as jugglers
performing  their  tricks  among  the  young  and  the
credulous.4   The most decisive  evidence, however, we
possess, is a law of Ulpian, directed, it is thought, against
the Christians, which condemns those' who use incantations or imprecations, or (to employ the common word of
impostors) exorcisms.'5 Modern criticism  has noted a few
1 De Superstitione.      2 i. 6.        s De Mort. Peregrin.
4 Origen, Adv. Cels. vi.  Compare the curious letter which Vopiscus
(Saturninus) attributes to Hadrian,'Nemo illic [i.e. in Egypt] archisynagogus Judmeorum, nemo Samarites, nemo Christianorum presbyter, non
mathematicus, non aruspex, non aliptes.'
5' Si incantavit, si imprecatus est, si (ut vulgari verbo impostorum utor)
exorcizavit.'-B3ingham, Antiquities of the Christian Church (Oxf., 1855),
vol. i. p. 318. This law is believed to have been directed specially against
the Christians, because these were very prominent as exorcists, and because Lactantius (Inst. Div. v. 11) says that Ullpian had collected the
laws against them.




THE CONVERSION OF ROIME.             409
facts which may throw  some light upon this obscure
subject.  It has been observed that the symptoms of
possession were for the most part identical with those of
lunacy or epilepsy; that it is quite possible that the
excitement of an imposing religious ceremony might
proauce or suspend the disorder; that leading questions
might in these cases be followed by the desired answers;
and that some passages from the fathers show that the
exorcisms were not always successful, or the cures always
permanent. It has been observed, too, that at first the power
of exorcism was open to all Christians without restraint;
that this license, in an age when religious jugglers were
very common, and in a church whose members were very
credulous, gave great facilities to impostors; that when
the Laodicean Council, in the fourth century, forbade any
one to exorcise, except those who were duly authorised
by the bishop, these miracles speedily declinedl; and that,
in the very beginning of the fifth century, a physician
namied Posidonius denied the existence of possession.'
To sum up this whole subject, we may conclude that
what is called the evidential system had no prominent
place in effecting the conversion of the Roman empire.
Historical criticisms were far too imperfect to make appeals to the miracles of former days of any value, and the
notion of the wide diffusion of miraculous or magical
powers, as well as the generally private character of the
alleged miracles of the Patristic age, made contemporary
wonders very unimpressive.  The prophecies attributed
to the Sibyls, and the practice of exorcism, had, however,
a certain weight, for the first were connected with a religious authority long and deeply revered at Rome, and
the second had been forced by several circumstances into
great prominence.  But the effect even of these may
I Philostorgius, Mlist. Eccl. viii. 10.




410       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
be safely regarded as altogether subsidiary, and the main
causes of the conversion must be looked for in another
and a wider sphere.
These causes were the general tendencies of the age.
They are to be found in that vast movement of mingled
scepticism and credulity, in that amalgamation or dissolution of many creeds, in that profound transformation of
habits, of feelings, and of ideals, which I have attempted
to paint in the last chapter.  Under circumstances more
favourable to religious proselytism than the world had
ever before known, with the path cleared by a long
course of destructive criticism, the religions and philosophies of mankind were struggling for the mastery in
that great metropolis where all were amply represented,
and in which alone the destinies of the world could be
decided. Among the educated a frigid stoicism, teaching
a majestic but unattainable grandeur, and scorning the
support of the affections, the hope of another world, and
the consolations of worship, had for a time been in the
ascendant, and it only terminated its noble and most
fruitful career when it had become manifestly inadequate
to the religious wants of the age.  Among other classes,
religion after religion ran its conquering course.  The
Jews, although a number of causes had made them the
most hated of all the Roman subjects, and although
their religion, from its intensely national character, seemed
peculiarly unsuited for proselytism, had yet, by the force
of their monotheism, their charity, and their exorcisms,
spread the creed of Moses far and wide. The Empress
Poppma is said to have been a proselyte.  The passion
of Roman women for Jewish rites was one of the complaints of Juvenal.  The Sabbath and the Jewish fasts
became familiar facts in all the great cities, and the




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                411
antiquity of the Jewish law the subject of eager discussion.  Other oriental religions were  even more successful.  The worship of Mlithra, and, above all, of the
Egyptian divinities, attracted their thousands, and during
more than three centuries the Roman writings are crowded
with allusions to their progress.  The mysteries of the
Bona Dea,1 the solemn worship of Isis, the expiatory
rites that cleansed the guilty soul, excited a very delirium
of enthusiasm.  Juvenal describes the Roman women, at
the dawn of the winter day, breaking the ice of the Tiber
to plunge three times into its sacred stream, dragging
themselves on bleeding knees in penance around the field
of Tarquin, ofering to undertake pilgrimages to Egypt
to seek the holy water for the shrine of Isis, fondly
dreaming that they had heard the voice of the goddess.2
Apuleius has drawn a graphic picture of the solemn
majesty of her processions, and the spell they cast upon
the most licentious and the most sceptical.3  Commodus,
Caracalla, and Heliogabalus were passionately devoted to
them.4  The temples of Isis and Serapis, and the statues
of Mithra, are among the last prominent works of Roman
art.  In all other forms the same credulity was manifested  The oracles that had been silent were heard
again; the astrologers swarmed in every city; the philosophers were surrounded with an atmosphere of legend.
The Pythagorean school had raised credulity into a system.
On all sides, and to a degree unparalleled in history, we
find men who had discarded their old local religion,
thirsting for belief, passionately and restlessly seeking for
a new faith.
1 See Juvenal, Sat. vi. lines 314-335.
2 Ibid. lines 520-530.           3 M'etamo2lhoses, book x.
4 See their Lives, by Lampridius and Spaxtianus.




412       IIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
In the midst of this movement, Christianity gained its
ascendency, and we can be at no loss to discover the
cause of its triumph.  No other religion, under such circumstances, had ever combined so many distinct elements
of power and attraction.  Unlike the Jewish religion, it
was bound by no local ties, and was equally adapted for
every nation and for every class.  Unlike Stoicism, it
appealed in the strongest manner to the affections, and
offered all the charm of a sympathetic worship.  Unlike
the Egyptian religions, it united with its distinctive teaching a pure and noble system of ethics, and proved itself
capable of realising it in action. It proclaimed, amid a
vast movement of social and national amalgamation, the
universal brotherhood of mankind.  Amid the softening influence of philosophy and civilisation, it taught the
supreme sanctity of love.  To the slave, who had never
before exercised so large an influence over RIoman religious life, it was the religion of the suffering and the
oppressed.  To the philosopher it was at once the echo
of the highest ethics of the later Stoics, and the expansion
of the best teaching of the school of Plato.  To a world
thirsting for prodigy, it offered a history replete with
wonders more strange than those of Apollonius; while
the Jew and the Chaldean could scarcely rival its exorcists,
and the legends of continual miracles circulated among
its followers. To a world deeply conscious of political
dissolution, and prying eagerly and anxiously into the
future, it proclaimed with a thrilling power the immediate
destruction of the globe-the glory of all its friends, and
the damnation of all its foes. To a world that had grown
very weary gazing on the cold passionless grandeur which
Cato realised, and which Lucan sung, it presented an
ideal of compassion and of love-an ideal destined for
centuries to draw around it all that was greatest, as well




TIlE CONVERSION OF ROMIE.           413
as all that was noblest upon earth-a Teacher who could
weep by the sepulchre of His friend, who was touched
with the feeling of our infirmities.  To a world, in fine,
distracted by hostile creeds and colliding philosophies, it
taught its doctrines, not as a human speculation, but as a
Divine revelation, authenticated much less by reason than
by faith.' With the heart man believeth unto righteousness;''H ie that doeth the will of my Father will know
the doctrine, whether it be of God;''Unless you believe
you cannot understand;''A heart naturally Christian;'' The heart makes the theologian,' are the phrases which
best express the first action of Christianity upon the
world. Like all great religions, it was more concerned
with modes of feeling than with modes of thought. The
chief cause of its success was the congruity of its teaching
with the spiritual nature of mankind.  It was because it
was true of the moral sentiments of the age, because it
represented faithfully the supreme type of excellence to
which men were then tending, because it corresponded
with their religious wants, aims, and emotions, because
the whole spiritual being could then expand and expatiate under its influence, that it planted its roots so
deeply in the hearts of men.
To all these elements of attraction, others of a different
order must be added.  Christianity was not merely a
moral influence, or a system of opinions, or an historical
record, or a collection of wonder-working men; it was
an institution definitely, elaborately, and skilfully organised, possessing a weight and a stability which isolated or
undisciplined teachers could never rival, and evoking, to a
degree before unexampled in the world, an enthusiastic
devotion to its corporate welfare, analogous to that which
the patriot bears to his country. The many forms of
Pagan worship were pliant in their nature.  Each offered




414        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
certain advantages or spiritual gratifications; but there
was no reason why all should not exist together, and
participation in one by no means implied disrespect to
the others.  But Christianity was emphatically exclusive;
its adherent was bound to detest and abjure the faiths
around him  as the worklmanship of daxmons, and to
consider himself placed in the world to destroy them.
Hence there sprang a stern, aggressive, and at the same
time disciplined enthusiasm, wholly unlike any other that
had been witnessed upon earth. The duties of public
worship; the sacraments, which were represented as the
oaths of the Christian warrior; the fasts and penances and
commemorative days, which  strengthened the Church
feeling; the intervention of religion in the most solemn
epochs of life, conspired to sustain it. Above all, the
doctrine of salvation by belief, which then for the first
time.flashed upon the world; the persuasion, realised
with all the vividness of novelty, that Christianity opened
out to its votaries eternal happiness, while all beyond its
pale were doomed to an eternity of torture, supplied a
motive of action as powerful as it is perhaps possible to
conceive.  It struck alike the coarsest chords of hope
and fear, and the finest chords of compassion and love.
The Polytheist, admitting that Christianity might possibly
be true, was led by a mere calculation of prudence to
embrace it, and the fervent Christian would shrink from
no suffering to draw those whom he loved within its pale.
NTor were other inducements wanting.  To the confessor
was granted in the Church a great and venerable authority, such as the bishop could scarcely claim.l To the
martyr, besides the fruition  of heaven, belonged the
1 The conflict between St. Cyprian and the confessors, concerning the
power the latter claimed to remit penance, though it ended in the defeat of
the confessors, shows clearly the influence they had obtained.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                   415
highest glory on earth.  By winning that bloodstained
crown, the neanest Christ Cristian slave might gain a reputation as glorious as that of a Decius or a Regulus.  IHis
body was laid to rest with a sumptuous splendour;1 his
relies, embalmed or shrined, were venerated with an almost
idolatrous homage.  The anniversary of his birth into
another life was commemorated in the Church, and before
the great assembly of the saints his heroic sufferings were
recounted.2  How, indeed, should he not be envied?  He
had passed away into eternal bliss. He had left upon earth
an abiding name.  By the'baptism of blood' the sins of
a life had been in a moment effaced.
Those who are accustomed to recognise heroic enthusiasm as a nornmal product of certain natural conditions,
will hlave no difficulty in understanding that, under such
circumstances as I have described, a transcendent courage
should have been evoked.  M[en seemed indeed to be in
love with death.  Believing, with St. Ignatius, that they
were'the wheat of God,' they panted for the day when
tlley should be'ground by the teeth of wild beasts into
the pure bread of Christ!'  Beneath this one burning
enthusiasm  all the ties of earthly love were snapt in
twain.  Origen, when a boy, being restrained by force
from going forth to deliver himself up to the persecutors,
wrote to his imprisoned father, imploring him not to let
any thought of his family intervene to quench his resolution or to deter him  from  sealing his faith with his
blood. St. Peripetua, an only daughter, a young mother of' Thura plane lon emimus; si Arabise queruntur scient Sabtei pluris et
carioris suas merces Christianis sepeliendis profligari quam diis fumligandis.'
-Apol. 42. Sometimes the Pagans burnt the bodies of the martyrs, in
order to prevent the Christians venerating their relies.
2 Many interesting particulars about these commemorative festivals are
collected in Cave's Primzitive Chlristiancty, part. i. c. vii. The anniversaries
were called' Natalia,' or birth-days.
28




41G0        ISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
twenty-two, had embraced the Christian creed, confessed
it before her judges, and declared herself ready to endure
for it the martyr's death.  Again and again her father
came to her in a paraxoysm of agony, entreating her not to
deprive him of the joy and the consolation of' his closing
years.  He appealed to her by the memory of all the
tenderness he had lavished upon her-by her infant child
-by his own grey hairs, that were soon to be brought
down in sorrow to the grave. Forgetting in his deep
anguish all the dignity of a parent, he fell upon his knees
before his child, he covered her hands with kisses, and,
the tears streaming from his eyes, implored her to have
mercy upon him.  But she was unshaken though not
untouched; she saw her father, frenzied  with grief,
dragged from before the tribunal; she saw him tearing
his white beard, and lying prostrate and broken-hearted on
the prison floor; she went forth to die for a faith she
loved more dearly-for a faith that told her that her
father would be lost for ever.'  The desire for martyrdom became at times a form of absolute madness, a kind of
epidemic of suicide, and the leading minds of the Clhurch
found it necessary to exert all their authority to prevent
their followers thrusting themselves into the hands of the
persecutors.2  Tertullian mentions how, in a little Asiatic
town, the entire population once flocked to the proconsul,
declaring themselves to be Christians, and imploring him
to execute the decree of the emperor and grant them
the privilege of martyrdom. The bewildered functionary
asked them whether, if they were so weary of life, there
were no precipices or ropes by which they could end
their days; and he put to death a small number of the
1 See her acts in Ruinart.
2 St. Clem. Alex. Strom. iv. 10. There are other passages of the same
hind in other fathers.




TIIE CONVERSION OF ROME.                   417
suppliants, and  dismissed  the others.l  Two illustrious
Pagan moralists and  one profane  Pagan  satirist have
noticed this passion with a most unpleasing scorn.'There
are some,' said Epictetus,' whom madness, there are others,
like the Galilmans, whom  custom, makes indifferent to
death.'2' What mind,' said Marcus Aurelius,' is prepared
if need be to go forth from the body, whether it be to be
extinguished, or to be dispersed, or to endure-prepared
by deliberate reflection, and not by pure obstinacy, as is
the custom  of the Christians.'"'These wretches,' said
Lucian, speaking of the Christians,'persuade themselves
that they are going to be altogether immortal, and to live
for ever, wherefore they despise death, and many of their
own accord give themselves up to be slain.'4'I send against you men who are as greedy of death
as you are of pleasures,' were the words which, in after
days, the Mahometan chief addressed to the degenerate
Christians of Syria, and which were at once tile presage
and the explanation of his triumph.  Such words might
with equal propriety have been employed by the early
Christian leaders to their Pagan adversaries.  The zeal of
the Christians and of the Pagans differed alike in degree
and in kind. When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the State, it is probable that its adherents were
but a minority in Rome.  Even in the days of Theodosius
1'Ad Scap3. v. Eusebius (Martyrs of Palestine, ch. iii.) has given a
detailed account of six young men, who in the very height of the Galerian
persecution, at a time when the most hideous tortures were applied to the
Christians, voluntarily gave themselves up as believers.  Sulp. Severus
(Hist. ii. 32), speaking of the voluntary martyrs under Diocletian, says, that
Christians then'longed for death as they now long for bishoprics.'   Cogi
qui potest, nescit mori,' was the noble maxim of the Christians.
2 Arrian iv. 7. It is not certain, however, that this passage alludes to
the Christians. The followers of Judas of Galilee were called Galilseans,
and they were famous for their indifierence to death. See Joseph. Adtiq.
x1iii. 1.
8 xi:. 3                            Peregrinus.




418        HISTORY OF EUNIOPEAN MORALS.
the Senate was still wedded to Paganism;1 yet the measures
of Constantine were both natural and necessary.  The
majority were without inflexible belief, without a moral
enthusiasm, without definite organisation, without any of
those principles that inspire the heroism either of resistance or aggression.  The minority formed a serried
phalanx, animated by every motive that could purify,
discipline, and sustain their zeal.  When once the Christians had acquired a considerable position, the question
of their destiny was a simple one.  They must either be
crushed or they must reign. The failure of the persecution
of Domitian conducted them inevitably to the throne.
It may indeed be confidently asserted that the conversion of the Roman Empire is so far from being of the
nature of a miracle or suspension of the ordinary principles of human nature, that there is scarcely any other
great movement on record in which the causes and effects so manifestly correspond.  The apparent anomalies
of history are not inconsiderable, but they must be sought
for in other quarters.  That within the narrow limits and
scanty population of the Greek States should habve arisen
men who, in almost every conceivable form of genius, in
philosophy, in epic, dramatic, and lyric poetry, in written
and spoken eloquence, in statesmanship, in sculpture, in
painting, and probably also in music, should have attained
almost or altogether the highest limits of human perfection
-that the creed of Mahomet should have preserved its pure
monotheism and its freedom from all idolatrous tendencies, when adopted by vast populations in that intellectual
condition in which, under all other creeds, a gross and
material worship has proved inevitable, both these are facts
which we can only very imperfectly explain.  Considerations of climate, and still more of political, social, and
intellectual customs and institutions, may palliate the first
1  It7 _i......l




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.             419
difficulty, and the attitude Mlahomet assumed to art may
supply us with a partial explanation of the second; but I
suppose that, after all has been said, most persons will feel
that they are in presence of phenomena very exceptional
and astonishing. The first rise of Christianity in Judea is
a subject wholly apart from this book. We are examining
only the subsequent movement in the Roman Empire.
Of this movement it may be boldly asserted that the assumption of a moral or intellectual miracle is utterly gratuitous. 4Never before was a religious transformation so
manifestly inevitable. Nlo other religion ever combined
so many forms of attraction as Christianity, both from its
intrinsic excellence, and from its manifest adaptation to
the special wants of the time.  One great cause of its
success was that it producel more heroic actions and
formed more upright menthan any other creed; but that
it should do so was precisely what might have been
expected.
To these reasonings, however, those who maintain that
the triumph of Christianity in Rome is naturally inexplicable, reply by pointing to the persecutions which
Christianity had to encounter. As this subject is one on
which many misconceptions exist, and as it is of extreme
importance on account of its connection with later persecutions, it will be necessary briefly to discuss it.
It is manifest that the reasons that may induce a ruler
to suppress by force some form of religious worship or
opinion, are very various. He may do so on moral
grounds, because they directly or indirectly produce immorality; or on religious grounds, because he believes
them to be offensive to the Deity; or on political grounds,
because they are injurious either to the State or to the
Government; or on corrupt grounds, because he desires
to gratify some vindictive or avaricious passion. From




420       H-IlSTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
the simple fact, therefore, of a religious persecution, we
cannot at once infer the principles of the persecutor, but
must examine in detail by which of the above motives, or
by what combination of them, he has been actuated.
Now, the persecution which has taken place at the
instigation of the Christian priests differs in some respects
broadly from all others.  It has been far more sustained,
systematic, and unflinching. It has been directed not
merely against acts of worship, but also against speculative opinions. It has been supported not simply as a
right but also as a duty.  It has been advocated in a
whole literature of theology, by the classes that are especially devout, and by the most opposing sects, and it has
invariably declined in conjunction with a large portion of
theological dogmas.
I have elsewhere examined in great detail the history
of Christian persecutions, and have endeavoured to show
that while exceptional causes have undoubtedly occasionally occurred, they were, in the overwhelming majority
of cases, simply the natural, legitimate, and inevitable
consequence of a certain portion of the received theology.
That portion is the doctrine that correct theological
opinions are essential to salvation, and that theological
error necessarily involves guilt.  To these two opinions
may be distinctly traced almost all the sufferings that Christian persecutors have caused, almost all the obstructions
they have thrown in the path of human progress; and
those sufferings have been so grievous, that it may be
reasonably questioned whether superstition has not often
proved a greater curse than vice, and that obstruction
was so pertinacious, that the contraction of theological
influence has been at once the best measure, and the
essential condition of intellectual advance.  The notion
that he might himself be possibly mistaken in his opinions,




THE CONVERSION OF ROMAE.              421
which alone could cause a man who was thoroughly
imbued with these principles to shrink from persecuting,
was excluded by the theological virtue of faith, which,
whatever else it might involve, implied at least an absolute unbroken certainty, and led the devotee to regard
all doubt, and therefore all action based upon doubt,
as sin.
To this general cause of Christian persecution I have
shown that two subsidiary influences may be joined.  A
large portion of theological ethics was derived from
writings in which religious massacres, on the whole the
most ruthless and sanguinary upon record, were said to
have been directly enjoined by the Deity, in which the
duty of suppressing idolatry by force was given a greater
prominence than any article of the moral code, and in
which the spirit of intolerance has found its most eloquent
and most passionate expressions.l Besides this, the destiny theologians represented as awaiting the misbeliever
was so ghastly and so appalling, as to render it almost
childish to lay any stress upon the earthly suffering that
might be inflicted in the extirpation of error.
That these are the true causes of the great bulk of
Christian persecution, I believe to be one of the most
certain as well as one of the most important facts in
history.  For the detailed proof I can only refer to what
I have elsewhere written; but I may here notice that that
proof combines every conceivable kind of evidence that
in such a question can be demanded.  It can be shown
that these principles Wvould naturally lead men to persecute. It can be shown that from the time of Constantine
to the time when the rationalistic spirit wrested the bloodstained sword fromn the priestly hand, persecution was
1'Do not I hate them, 0 Lord, that hate thee?-yea, I hate them
with a perfect hatred.'




022       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
uniformly defended upon them —defended in long, learned,
and elaborate treatises, by the best and. greatest men the
Church had produced, by sects that differed on almost all
other points, by multitudes who proved in every conceivable manner the purity of their zeal. It can be
shown, too, that toleration began with the distinction
between fLundamental and non-ftldamental doctrines, expanded in'exact proportion to the growing latitudinarianism, and triumlphed only when indifference to dogma
had become a prevailing sentiment among legislators.
It was only when the battle had been won —when the
anti-dogmatic party, acting in opposition to thle Church,
had rendered  persecution impossible —that the great
body of theologians revised their arguments, and discovered that to punish men for their opinions was wholly
at variance with their faith.  With the merits of this
pleasing though somewhat tardy conversion I am  not
now concerned; but few persons, I think, can follow the
history of Christian persecution, without a feeling of
extreme astonislhment that some modern writers, not
content with maintaining that the doctrine of exclusive
salvation ought not to have produced persecution, have,ventured, in defiance of the unanimous testimony of the
theologians of so many centuries, to dispute the plain
historical fact that it did produce it.  They argue that
the Pagans, who did not believe in exclusive salvation,
persecuted, and that therefore that doctrine cannot be
the cause of persecution. I answer that no sane man
ever maintained that all the persecutions on record were
from the same source. WVe can prove by the clearest
evidence that Christian persecutions sprang chiefly from
the causes I have alleged. The causes of Pagan persecutions, though different, are equally manifest, and I shall
proceed shortly to indicate them.




TIIE CONVEIRSION OF ROME.               423
They were partly political and partly religious.  The
Governments in most of the ancient States, in the earlier
stages of their existence, undertook the complete education of the people, professed to control and regulate all
the details of their social life, even to the dresses they
wore, or the dishles that were served upon their tables,
and in a word, to mould their whole lives and characters
into a uniform type. HIence, all organisations and corporations not connected with the State, and especially all
that emanated from foreign countries, were looked upon
with distrust or antipathy. But this an.tipathy was greatly
strengthened by a religious consideration.  N'o belief was
more deeply rooted in the ancient mind than that fortune
or misfortune sprang from  the intervention of spiritual
beings, and that to neglect the sacred rites was to bring
down calamity upon the city.  In the diminutive Greek
States, where the function of the Government was immensely enlarged, a strong  intolerance existed, which
extended for some time not merely to practices, but to
writings and discourses.  The well-known persecutions of
Anaxagoras, Theodorus, Diagoras, Stilpo, and Socrates;
the laws of Plato, which were as opposed to religious as
to domestic freedom; the existence of an inquisitorial
tribunal, sufficiently attested it. But long before the final
ruin of Greece, speculative liberty had been fully attained.
The Epicurean and the sceptical schools developed unmolested, and even in the days of Socrates, Aristophanes
was able to ridicule the gods upon the stage.
In the earlier clays of Rome religion was looked upon
as a function of the State; its chief object was to make
the gods auspicious to the national policy,1 and its prin1 M. Pressens6 very truly says of the Romans,'Leur religion etait essentiellement un art-l'art de decouvrir les desseins des dieux et d'agir sur
eux par des rites vari6s.' —Ilist. des trois premiers Sikcles, tome i. p. 192.




424        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
cipal ceremonies were performed at the direct command
of the Senate. The national theory on religious matters
was that the best religion is always that of a man's own
country. At the same time, the widest tolerance was
granted to the religions of conquered  nations.  The
temples of every god were respected by the Roman army.
Before besieging a city, the Romans were accustomed to
supplicate the presiding deities of that city.  With the
single exception of the Druids, whose human sacrifices
it was thought a matter of humanity to suppress,l and
whose fierce rebellions it was thoucht necessary to crush,
all national religions continued unmolested by the conqueror.
This policy, however, applied specially to religious
rites practised in the countries in which they were indigenous.  The liberty to be granted to the vast confluence
of strangers attracted to Italy during the Empire was
another question.  In the old Republic days, when the
censors regulated with the most despotic authority the
minutest affairs of life, and when the national religion
was interwoven with every detail of political and even
domestic transactions, but little liberty could be expected.
When Carneades endeavoured to inculcate his universal
scepticism upon the Romans, by arguing alternately for and
against the same proposition, Cato immediately urged the
Senate to expel him from the city, lest the people should
be corrupted by his teaching.2  For a similar reason all
rhetoricians had been banished from the Republic.3  The
most remarkable, however, and at the same time the
most extreme expression of Roman intolerance that has
Mlontesquieu has written an interesting essay on the political nature of the
Roman religion.
1 Sueton. Claud. xxv.          2 Plin. Hifst. Nat. vii. 31.
3 Tacit. -De Orat. xxxv.; Aul. Gell. Ndct. xv. 11. It would appear from
this last authority, that the rhetoricians were twice expelled.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                42b
descended to us, is the advice which Mincenas is represented as having given to Octavius Caesar, before his
accession to the throne.' Always,' he said,' and everywhere, worship the gods according to the rites of your
country, and compel others to the same worship. Pursue
with your hatred and with punishments those vwho introduce foreign religions, not only for the sake of the gods
— the despisers of whom can assuredly never do anything
great-but also because they who introduce new  divinities entice many to use foreign laws. Hence arise conspiracies, societies, and assemblies, things very unsuited
to an homogeneous empire.  Tolerate no despiser of the
gods, and no religious juggler. Divination is necessary,
and therefore let the aruspices and augurs by all means be
sustained, and let those who will consult them; but the
magicians must be utterly prohibited, who, though they
sometimes tell the truth, more frequently, by false promises, urge men on to conspiracies.' "
This striking passage exhibits very clearly the extent
to which in some minds the intolerant spirit was carried
in antiquity, and also the blending motives that produced
it. We should be, however, widely mistaken if we regarded
it as a picture of the actual religious policy of the empire.
In order to realise this, it will be necessary to notice separately liberty of speculation and liberty of worship.
When Asinius Pollio founded the first public library in
iome, he placed it in the Temple of Liberty.  The lesson
which was thus taught to the literary classes was never forgotten. It is probable that in no other period of the history
of the world was speculative freedom so perfect as in the
Roman Empire.  The fearless scrutiny of all notions of
1 Dion Cassius, lii. 36..M1ost historians believe that this speech represents
the opinions, not of the Augustan age, but of the age of the writer who
relates it.




426         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3MORALS.
popular belief, displayed in the writings of Cicero, Seneca,
Lucretius, or Lucian, did not excite an effort of repression.
Philosophers were indeed persecuted by Domitian and
Vespasian for their ardent opposition to the despotism  of
the throne,l but on their own subjects they were wholly
untrammelled.  The Greek writers consoled themselves
for the extinction of the independence of their country,
by the reflection  that in the sphere of intellect the
meddling' policy of the Greek States was replaced by
an absolute and a majestic freedom.2  The fierceness of
the opposition of sects faded beneath its influence.  Of
all the speculative conflicts of antiquity, that which most
nearly approached the virulence of later theological controversies was probably that between the Stoics and the
Epicureans; but it is well worthy of notice, that some of
the most emphatic testimonies to the moral goodness of
Epicurus have come from the writings of his opponents.
But the policy of the Roman rulers towards religious
rites was very different from, and would at first sight
appear to be in direct opposition to, their policy towards
opinions.  An old law, which Cicero mentions, expressly
forbade the introduction of new religions,  and in the
republican days and the earliest days of the empire, there
are many instances of its being  enforced.  Thus, in
A.U.C. 326, a severe drought having led men to  seek
help from new gods, the Senate charged the adiles to
allow  none  but Roman  deities  to  be  worshipped.4
Lutatius, soon after the first Punic war, was forbidden by
the Senate to consult foreign gods,'because,' said the
historian,'it was deemed right the republic should be
1 On the hostility of Vespasian to philosophers, see Xiphilin, 1xvi. 13; on
that of Domitian, the Letters of Pliny and the Agzricola of Tacitus.
2 See a remarkable passage in Dion Chrysostom, Or. lxxx. De Lizbertate.
3 Cic. De Legib. ii. 11; Tertull. Apol. v.  4 Livy, iv. 30.




THE CONVERSION  OF ROME.                     427
administered according to the national auspices, and not
according to those of other lands.'l   Durincr the second
Punic war, a severe edict of the  Senate  enjoined  the
suppression of certain recent innovations.2   About A.U.C.
615 the prxtor Hispalus exiled those who had introdued
the  worship  of the  Sabasian  Jupiter.3    The  rites  of
Bacchus, being  accompanied  by  gross  and scandalous
obscenity, were suppressed, the consul, in a remarkable
speech, calling upon  the people to revive the religious
policy  of their ancestors.4   The  worship  of Isis and
Serapis only gained its footing after a long struggle, and
no small amount of persecution.   The gross immorality
it sometimes favoured, its wild and abject superstition, so
thoroughly alien to the whole  character of PRoman life
and tradition, and also the organisation of its priesthood,
rendered  it peculiarly  obnoxious  to the Government.
When the first edict of suppression was issued, the people
hesitated to destroy a temple whichl seemed so venerable in
their eyes, and the consul.Emilius Paulus dispelled their
fears, by seizing an axe and striking the first blow himself.5   During the latter days of the republic, edicts had
commanded  the  destruction  of the  Egyptian temples.
Octavius, however,  in  his younger  days, favoured the
new  worship, but soon after it was again suppressed.6
1 Val. Maxnimus, i. 3, ~ 1.    2 Livy, xxv. 1.    3 Val. Max. i. 3, ~ 2.
4 See the account of these proceedings, and, of the very remarkable speech
of Postumius. in Livy, xxxix. 8-19. Postumius notices the old prohibition
of foreign rites, and thus explains it:-' Judicabant enim prudentissimi viri
oninis divini humanique juTis, nihil sque dissolvendre religionis esse, quani
ubi non patrio sed externo ritu sacrificaretur.' The Senate, though suppressing these rites on account of the outrageous irmmoralities connected with
them, decreed, that if any one thought it a matter of Teligious duty to
perform religious ceremonies to 13acchus, he should be allowed to do so on
applying for permission to the senate, provided there were not more than
five assistants, and that there was no common purse and no presiding
priest.
5 Vat. I. 3i.  6 See Dion Cassius, xl. 47; xlii. 26; xlvii. 15; liv. 6.




423          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3MOPIALS.
Under Tiberius it had once more crept in, but the priests
of Isis having  enabled a patrician named  Mundus  to
disguise himself as the god Anubis, and win the favours
of a devout worslhipper, the temple, by  order of the
emperor, was destroyed, the images thrown into the
Tiber, the priests crucified, and the seducer banished.'
Under the same emperor, four thousand persons were
exiled to  Sardinia, as affected with Jewish  and Egyptian superstitions.  They were commissioned to repress
robbers; but the Roman historian observed, with a characteristic scorn, that if they died through the unhealthiness of the climate, it would be but a'small loss.'2
These  measures  represent together a  considerable
amount of religious repression, but they were produced exclusively by notions of policy or discipline. They grew out
of that intense national spirit which sacrificed every other
interest to the State, and resisted every form of innovation,
whether secular or religious, that could impair the unity
of the national type, and dissolve the discipline which the
predominance of the military spirit and the stern government of the republic had formed.  They were also, in
some cases, the result of moral scandals.  When, however,
it became evident that the  internal condition  of the
Republic was unsuited for the Empire, the rulers frankly
acquiesced in the change, and from the time of Tiberius,
with the single exception of the Christians, perfect liberty
of practising their respective rites seems to have been
granted to all religions in Rome.3   The old law upon the
1 Joseph. Anztiq. xviii. 3.           2 Tacit. Annal. ii. 85.
3 Tacitus relates (Ann. xi. 15), that under Claudius a senatus consultus
ordered the pontiffs to take care that the old Roman (or, more properly,
Etruscan) system of divination was observed, since the influx of foreign
superstitions had led to its disuse; but it does not appear that this measure
was intended to interfere with any other form of worship. Tertullian expressly says that the laws of intolerance were enforced against the Christians
alone-' Leges istae quas adversus nos soli exequuntur impii.' —Apol. v.




TIlE CONVERSION OF ROME.                     429
subject was not revoked, but it was not generally enforced.  Sometimes the new  creeds were expressly authorised.  Sometimes they were tacitly permitted.  With
a single exception, all the religions of the world raised
their heads unmolested in the'Holy City.'1
The liberty, however, of professing and practising a
foreign worship did not dispense the Roman from  the
obligation of performing also the sacrifices or other religious rites of his own land.  It was here that whatever
religious fanaticism mingled with Pagan persecutions was
displayed.  Eusebius tells us that religion was divided
by the Romans into three parts, the mythology, or legends
that had  descended from  the poets, the interpretations
or theories by which  the philosophers endeavoured to
rationalise, filter, or explain away these legends, and the
ritual or official religious observances. In the first two
spheres perfect liberty was accorded, but the ritual was
placed under the control of the Government, and was
made a matter of compulsion.2  In order to realise the
strength of the feeling that supported it, we must remember that the multitude firmly believed that the prosperity
and adversity of the empire depended chiefly upon the
zeal or indifference that was shown in conciliating the
national divinities, and also tlhat the philosophers, as I
have noticed in the last chapter, for the most part not
only practised but warmly  defended  the official observances.  The love of truth in many forms was exhibited
1'Sacrosanctam istami civitatem accelo.'- Apuleius, llfetam. lib. x.
It is said there were at one time no less than 420 redes saerm in Rome.
Nieupoort, De 1itibus ZRomanorum. (1716), p. 276.
2 Euseb. Prcep. Evany. iv. 1. FontenellQ says very truly,'I1 y a lieu
de croire que chez les payens la religion n'estoit qu'une pratique, dont la
speculation estoit indifferente. Faites comme les autres et croyez ce qu'il
vous plaira.'- -tist. cdes Oracles, p. 95. It was a saying of Tiberius, that
it is for the gods to care for the inj uries done to them:'Deorum injurias diis
curae.' (Tacit. Annal. i., 73.)




430          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
among  the Pagan philosophers, to a degree which has
never been surpassed; but there was one form in which
it was absolutely unknown. The belief that it is wrong for
a man in religious matters to act a lie, to sanction by his
presence and by his example what he regards as baseless superstitions, had no place in the ethics of antiquity.
The religious flexibility which Polytheism  had originally
generated, the strong political feeling that pervaded all
classes, and  also  the manifest impossibility  of making
philosophy the creed of the ignorant, had rendered nearly
universal among philosophers a state of feeling which is
often exhibited, but rarely openly professed among ourselves.l  The religious opinions of men lhad but little
influence on their religious practices, and  the  sceptic
considered it not merely lawful, but a duty to attend the
observances of his country.  No one did more to scatter
the ancient superstitions than Cicero, who was himself an
augur, and who strongly asserted the duty of complying
with the national rites.2   Seneca,having recounted in the
most derisive terms the absurdities of the popular worship, concludes his enumeration by declaring that' the
sage will observe all these things, not as pleasing to the
Divinities, but as commanded by the law,' and that he
should remember,' that his worship is due to  custom,
not to belief.'3 Epictetus, whose austere creed rises to
1 The most melancholy modern instance I remember is a letter of IIume
to a young man who was thinking of taking orders, but who, in the course of
his studies, became a complete sceptic. Hlume strongly advised him not to allow this consideration to interfere with his career. (Burton, Life of /H2me,
vol. ii. pp. 187-188.) The utilitarian principles of the philosopher were
doubtless at the root of his judgment.
2 De DIivinat. ii. 33; De ANat. Deor. ii. 3.' Que omnia sapiens servabit tanquam legibus jussa non tanquam diis
grata.... Meminerimus cultumrn  ejus magis ad llorem quam ad reim pertinere.'-St. Aug. Be Civ. Dei, vi. 10. St. Augustine denounces this view
with great power, See, too, Lactantius, I.nst. Div. ii. 3.




THE CONVERSION OF ROMIE.             43)
the purest Mlonotheism, teaches it as a fundamental religious maxim, that every man in his devotions should' conform to the customs of his country.'l  The Jews and
Christians, who alone refused to do so, were the representatives of a moral principle that was unknown to the
Pagan world.
It should be remembered, too, that the Oriental custom
of deifying emperors having been introduced into Rome,
to burn incense before their statues had become a kind
of test of loyalty; and although this adoration does not
appear to have implied any particular article of belief,
and was probably regarded by most men as we regard
the application of the term' Sacred Majesty' to a sovereign, and the custom of kneeling in his presence, yet it
was regarded as inconsistent with Christianity, and the
conscientious refusal of the Christians to comply with it
aroused a feeling resembling that which was long produced in Christendom by the refusal of Quakers to comply
with the usages of courts.
The obligation to perform the sacred rites of an idolatrous worship, if rigidly enforced, would have amounted,
in the case of the Jews and the Christians, to a complete
proscription.  It does not, however, appear that the Jews
were ever persecuted on this ground.  They formed a
large and influential' colony at Rome.  They retained
undiminished, in the midst of the Pagan population, their
exclusive habits, refusing not merely all religious conmmunion, but most social intercourse with the idolaters,
occupying a separate quarter of the city, and sedulously
practising their distinctive rites.  Tiberius, as we have
seen, appears to have involved them in his proscription of
Egyptian superstitions; but they were usually perfectly
1 Enchiid. xxxi.
29




432         IIISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3MORALS.
unmolested, or were molested only when their riotous
conduct had attracted the attention of the rulers.  The
Government was so far from compelling them to perform
acts contrary to their religion, that Augustus expressly
changed the day of the distribution of corn, in order that
they might not be reduced to the alternative of forfeiting
their share, or of breaking the Sabbath.'
It appears, then, that the old Republican intolerance
had in the empire been so modified as almost to have
disappeared.  The liberty of speculation and discussion
was entirely unchecked. The liberty of practising foreign
religious rites, though  ostensibly  limited  by  the law
against unauthorised religions, was after Tiberius equally
secure.   The liberty  of abstaining  from  the  official
national rites, though more precarious, was fully conceded to the Jews, whose jealousy of idolatry was in no
degree inferior to that of the Christians. It remains, then,
to examine what were the causes of the very exceptional
fanaticism  and animosity that were directed against the
latter.
The first cause of the persecution of the Christians was
the religious notion to which I have already referred.
The belief that our world is governed by isolated acts of
Divine intervention, and that, in consequence, every great
calamity, whether physical, or military, or political, may
be regarded as a punishment or a warning,  was the basis
of the whole religious system of antiquity.2  In the days
of the Republic every famine, pestilence, or drought was
followed by a searching investigation of the sacred rites,
1 This is noticed by Philo.
2 The ship in which the atheist Diag'oras sailed was once nearly wrecked
by a tempest, and the sailors declared that it was a just retribution from the
gods because they had received the philosopher into their vessel. Diag'oras,
pointing to the other ships that were tossed bythe same storm, asked whether
they imagined there was a Diagoras in each. (Cic. De Nat. Deor. iii. 37.)




TIIE CONVERSION  OF ROME.                  433
to ascertain what irregularity or neglect had caused the
Divine anger, and two instances are recorded in which
vestal virgins were put to death because their unchastity
was believed to have provoked a national calamity.'  It
might appear at first sight that the fanaticism which this
belief would naturally produce would have been directed
against the Jews as strongly as against the Christians; but
a moment's reflection is sufficient to explain the difference. The Jewish religion was essentially conservative
and unexpansive.  Although, in the passion for Oriental
religions, many of the Romans had begun to practise its
ceremonies, there was no spirit of proselytism in the sect;
and it is probable that almost all who followed this religion, to the exclusion of others, were of Hebrew nationality.
The Christians, on the other hand, were  ardent missionaries; they were, for the most part, Romans who had
thrown off the allegiance of their old gods, and their
activity was so great, that from  a very early period the
temples were in some districts almost deserted.2  Besides
this, the Jews simply abstained from  and despised the
religions around them.  The Christians denounced them
as the worship of daemons, and lost no opportunity of
insulting theml.  It is not, therefore, surprising that the
populace should have been firmly convinced that every
great catastrophe that occurred was due to the presence
of the enemies of the gods.' If the Tiber ascends to the
walls,' says Tertullian,' or if the Nile does not overflow
the fields, if the heaven refuses its rain, if the earth
1 The vestal Oppia was put to death because the diviners attributed to
her unchastity certain'prodigies in the heavens,' that had alarmed the
people at the beginning of the war with Vei. (Livy ii. 42.) The vestal
Urbinia was bufned alive on account of a plague that had fallen upon
the Roman women, which was attributed to her incontinence, and which
is said to have ceased suddenly upon her execution. (Dion. Ilalicar. ix.)
2 Pliny, in his famous letter to Trajan about the Christians, notices that
this lead been the case in Bithynia.




434-         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
quakes, if famine and pestilence desolate the land, immediately the cry is raised, " The Christians to the lions!"'I' There is no rain-the Christians are the cause,' had become a popular proverb in Rome.2   Earthquakes, which
on account of their peculiarly appalling, and, to ignorant
men, mysterious nature, have played a very large part in
the history of superstition, were very frequent and terrible
in the Asiatic provinces, and in three or four instances
the persecution of the Christians may be distinctly traced
to the fanaticism they produced.
There is no part of ecclesiastical history more curious
than the effects of this belief in alternately assisting or
impeding the progress of different churches.  In the first
three centuries of Christian history, it was the cause of
fearful calamities to the faith; but even then the Christians usually accepted the theory  of their adversaries,
though they differed concerning its application. Tertullian and Cyprian strongly maintained sometimes that the
calamlities were due to the anger of the Almighty against
idolatry, sometimes that they were intended to avenge
the persecution of the truth. A collection was early made
of men who, having been hostile to the Christian faith, had
died by some horrible death, and their deaths were pronounced to be Divine punishments.3   The victory which
established the power of the first Christian emperor, and' Tert. Apol. xl. See, too, Cyprian in Demetrian, and Arnobius, Apoo.
lib. i.2 St. Aug. De Civ. Dei, ii. 3.
3 Instances of this are given by Tertullian Adc ScaLpulamn, and the
whole treatise On the.Deathzs of the Persecuiors, attributed to Lactantius, is a
development of the sanme theory. St. Cyprian's treatise against Demetrianus
throws mueh light on the mode of thought of the Christians of his time.
In the later historians, anecdotes of adversaries of the Church dying horrible
deaths became very numerous. They were said especially to have been
eaten by worms. lany examples of this kind are collected by Jortin.
(Remnarks on.Eccles. Itist. vol. i. p. 432.)




TIIE CONVERSION OF ROME.                    438
the sudden death of Arius, were afterwards accepted as
decisive proofs of the truth of Christianity, and of the
falsehood of Arianism.'  But soon the manifest signs of
the  dissolution of the empire  revived the zeal of the
Pagans, who began to reproach themselves for their ingratitude to their old gods, and who recognised in the
calamities of their country the vengeance of an insulted
Heaven.  When the altar of Victory was removed  contemptuously from the Senate, when the sacred college of
the vestals was suppressed, when, above all, the armies of
Attila encircled the Imperial city, angry murmurs arose
which distulrbed  the Christians in their triumph.  The
standing-point of the theologians  was then  somewhat
altered.  St. Ambrose dissected with the most unsparing
rationalism the theory that ascribed the national decline to
the suppression of the vestals, traced it to all its consequences, and exposed all its absurdities. Orosius wrote his
history to prove that great misfortunes had befallen the
empire before its conversion.  Salvian wrote his treatise on
Providence to prove that the barbarian invasions were a
Divine judgment on the immorality of the Christians. St.
Augustine concentrated all his genius on a great work,
written under the impression of the invasion of Attila,
and intended to prove that' the city of God' was not on
earth, and that the downfall of the empire need therefore
cause no disquietude to the Christians.  St. Gregory the
Great continually represented the calamities of Italy as
1'It is remarkable in all the proclamations and documents which Eusebius assigns to Constantine, some even written by his own hand, how,
almost exclusively, he dwells on this worldly superiority of the God adored
by the Christians over those of the heathens, and the visible temporal advantages which attend on the worship of Christianity. His own victory,
and the disasters of his enemies, are his conclusive evidences of Christianity.'
Milman, Hist. of Early Christianity (ed. 1867), vol. ii. p. 327.'It was a
standing argument of Athanasius, that the death of Arius was a sufficient
refutation of his heresy.'-Ibid. p. 382.




{.3B       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
warnings foreboding the destruction of the world. When
Rome sank finally before the barbarian hosts, it would
seem as thouglh the doctrine that temporal success was
the proof of Divine favour must be finally abandoned.
But the Christian clergy disengaged their cause from
that of the ruined empire, proclaimed its downfal to be
a fulfilment of prophecy and a Divine judgment, confronted the barbarian conquerors in all the majesty of
their sacred office, and overawed them in the very moment
of their victory.  In the conversion of the uncivilised
tribes, the doctrine of special intervention occupied a commanding place.  The Burgundians, when defeated by the
Huns, resolved, as a last resource, to place themselves under
the protection of the Roman god whom  they vaguely believed to be most powerful, and the whole nation in consequence embraced Christianity.1  In a critical moment
of a great battle, Clovis invoked the assistance of the God
of his wife.  The battle was won, and he, with many
thousands of Franks, was converted to the faith.2  In
England, the conversion of Northu1nbria was partly, and
the conversion of Mercia was mainly, due to the belief
that the Divine interposition had secured the victory of
a Christian king.3  A Bulgarian prince was driven into
the Church by the terror of a pestilence, and he speedily
effected the conversion of his subjects.4  The destruction
of so many shrines, and the defeat of so many Christian
armies, by the followers of Mahomet; the disastrous and
ignominious overthrow of the Crusaders, who went forth
protected by all the blessings of the Church, were unable
to impair tle belief.  All through the middle ages, and
for some centuries after the middle ages had past, every
1 Socrates,.ecl..ist. vii. 30.
2 Greg. Tur. ii. 30-31. Clovis wrote to St. Avitus,'Your faith is our,victory.'
3 Milman's Latin Christianity (ed. 1867), vol. ii. pp. 236-245.
4 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 248.




TILE CONVERSION  OF ROME.                  4:37
startling catastrophe was regaarded as a punishment, or a
warning, or a sign of the approaching termination of the
world.  Churches and monasteries were built.  Religious
societies were founded.  Penances were performed. Jews
were massacred, and a long catalogue might be given of
the theories by which men attempted to connect every
vicissitude of fortune, and every convulsion of nature, with
the wranglings of theologians. Thus, to give but a few examples: St. Ambrose confidently asserted that the death
of IMaximus was a consequence of the crime he had colmmitted in compelling the Christians to rebuild a Jewish
synago(gue they had destroyed.' One of the laws in the
Justinian code, directed against the Jews, Samaritans, and
Pagans, expressly attributes to them  the sterility of the
soil, which in an earlier age the Pagans had so often attributed to the Christians.2   A  volcanic  eruption that
broke out at the commencement of the iconoclastic persecution was adduced as a clear prqof that the Divine
anger was aroused, according to one party, by the hostility of the emperor to the sacred images; according to
the other party, by his sinful hesitation in extirpating
idolatry.3  Bodin, in a ]ater age, considered that the early
death of the sovereign who commanded the massacre of
St. Bartholomew was due to what he deemed the master
crime of that sovereign's reign.  He had spared the life
of a famous sorcerer.4  In the struggles that followed the
1 p. xl.
2  An diutius perferimus mutari temporum vices, irata cceli temperie?
Qume Paganorum  exacerbata perfidia nescit naturm libramenta servare.
Unde enim ver solitam gratiam abjuravit? unde,stas, messe jejuna, laboriosum agricolam in spe destituit aristarurnm? unde hyemis intemperata ferocitas uberitatem terrarum penetrabili frigore sterilitatis lcesione damnavit?
nisi quod ad impietatis vindictam transit lege sua naturcc decretum.'Novell.. ii. Theodos. De Judceis, Sa7macitanis, et Hce)reticis.
3 Milman's Latin ClGwistianoity, vol. ii. p. 384.
4 Derzonomanie dles SorcieWrs, p. 152.




4.9S      IHISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3IORALS.
Reformation, physical calamities were continually ascribed
in one age to the tolerance, in another to the endowment,
of either heresy or Popery.'  Sometimes, however, they
were traced to the theatre, and sometimes to the writings
of freethinkers.  But gradually, and almost insensibly,
these notions faded away.  The old language is often
heard, but it is no longer realised and operative, and the
doctrine which played so large a part in the history of
the world has ceased to exercise any appreciable influence upon the actions of mankind.
In addition to this religious motive, which acted chiefly
upon the vulgar, there was a political motive which rendered Christianity obnoxious to the educated. The Church
constituted a vast, highly organised, and in many respects
secret society, and as such was not only distinctly illegal,
but was also in the very highest degree calculated to
excite the apprelhensions of the Government.  There was
no principle in the Imperial policy more stubbornly
upheld than the suppression of all corporations that might
be made the nuclei of revolt.  The extent to which this
policy was carried is strikingly evinced by a letter from
Trajan to Pliny, in which the emperor forbade the formation even of a guild of firemen, on the ground that
they would constitute an association and hold meetings.
In such a state of feeling, the existence of a vast association, governed by countless functionaries, shrouding its
meetings and some of its doctrines in impenetrable obscurity, evoking a degree of attachment and devotion
greater than could be elicited by the State, ramifying
through the whole extent of the empire, and restlessly
extending  its  influence, woull  naturally -arouse  the
1 See a curious instance in Bayle's Izctionary, art.' Vergerius.'
2 Pliny, Ep. x. 43. Trajan noticed that Nicomedia was peculiarly turbu.
lent. On the edict against the hetmcrie or associations, see Eip. x. 97.




TIHE CONVERSION OF ROMAIE.           439
strongest apprehension.  That it did so is clearly recognisecl by the Christian apologists, who, however, justly
retorted upon the objectors the impossibility of showing
a single instance in which, in an age of continual conspiracies, the numerous and persecuted Christians had
proved disloyal. Whatever we may think of their doctrine
of passive obedience, it is impossible not to admire the
constancy with which they clung to it, when all their
interests were the other way.  But yet the Pagans were
not altogether wrong in regarding the new association as
fatal to the greatness of the empire. It consisted of men
who regarded the Roman Empire as a manifestation of
Antichrist, and who looked forward with passionate longingl to its destruction.  It substituted a new enthusiasm
for that patriotism which was the very life-blood of the
national existence.  Many of the Christians deemed it
wrong to fight for their country.  All of them aspired to
a type of character, and were actuated by hopes and
motives wholly inconsistent with that proud martial ardour
by which the triumphs of Rome had been won, and by
which alone her impending ruin could be averted.
The aims and principles of this association were very
imperfectly understood.  The greatest and best of the
Pagans spoke of it as a hateful superstition, and the
phrase they most frequently reiterated, when speaking of
its members, was'enemies' or'haters of the human
race.' Sutch a charge, directed persistently against men
whose main principle was the supreme excellence of love,
and whose charity unquestionably rose far above that of
any other class, was probably due in the first place to
the unsocial habits of the converts, who deemed it necessary to abstain from all the forms of public amusement,
to refuse to illuminate their houses, or hang garlands
from their portals in honour of the national triumphs,




40        HIIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
and who somewhat ostentatiously exhibited themselves
as separate and alien from  their countrymen.  It may
also have arisen from a knowledge of the popular doctrine
about the future destiny of the Pagans.  When the
toman learnt what fate the Christian assigned to the
heroes and sages of his nation, and to the immense mass
of his living fellow-countrymen, when he was told that
the destruction of the once glorious empire to which he
belonged was one of the most fervent aspirations of the
Church, his feelings were very likely to clothe themselves
in such language as I have cited.
But in addition to the general charges, specific accusations1 of the grossest kind were directed against Christian
morals.  At a time when the moral standard was very
low, they were charged with deeds so atrocious as to
scandalise the most corrupt.  They were represented as
habitually, in their secret assemblies, celebrating the most
licentious orgies, feeding on human flesh, and then, the
lights having been extinguished, indulging in promiscuous,
and especially in incestuous intercourse.  The persistence
with which these accusations are made is shown by the
great prominence they occupy, both in the writings of
the apologists, and in the narrations of the persecutions.
That these charges were absolutely false will now be
questioned by no one.  The fathers were long able to
challenge their adversaries to produce a single instance
in which any other crime than his faith was proved
against a martyr, and they urged with a just and noble
pride that whatever doubt there might be of the truth of
the Christian doctrines, or of the Divine origin of the
Christian miracles, there was at least no doubt that
I All the apologists are full of these charges. The chief passages have
been collected in that very useful and learned workl, ortholt, De Calumniis
contra Chiristianos. (Cologne, 1683.)




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.              441
Christianity had transformed the characters of multitudes,
vivified the cold heart by a new enthusiasm, redeemed,
regenerated, and emancipated the most depraved of mankind. Noble lives, crowned by heroic deaths, were the
best arguments of the infant Church.1  Their enemies
themselves not unfrequently acknowledged it.  The love
shown by the early Christians to their suffering brethren
has never been more emphatically attested than by Lucian,2
or the beautiful simplicity of their worship than by
Pliny,3 or their ardent charity than by Julian.4  There
was, it is true, another side to the picture; but even
when the moral standard of Christians was greatly lowered, it was lowered only to that of the community about
them.
These calumnies were greatly encouraged by the ecclesiastical rule, which withheld from  the unbaptised all
knowledge of some of the more mysterious doctrines of
the Church, and veiled, at least, one of its ceremonies in
great obscurity.  Vague rumours about the nature of
that sacramental feast, to which none but the baptised
Christian was suffered to penetrate, and which no ecclesiastic was permitted to explain either to the catechumens
or to the world, were probably the origin of the charge
of cannibalism, while the Agapm or love feasts, the ceremony of the kiss of love, and the peculiar and, to the
Pagans, perhaps unintellifgible language in which the Christians proclaimed themselves one body and fellow-members
in Christ, may have suggested the other charges.  The
eager credulity with which equally baseless accusations
against the Jews were for centuries believed, illustrates
the readiness with which they were accepted, and the
1 Justin Martyr tells us it was the brave deaths of the Christians that
converted him. (Apol. ii. 12.)
2 Pcregrinus,      3 Ep. x. x. 97     4   ii.




*442S       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
extremely imperfect system  of police which rendered the
verification of secret crimes very difficult, had no doubt
greatly enlarged the sphere of calumny. But, in addition
to these considerations, the orthodox were in some respects
exceedingly unfortunate.  In the eyes of the Pagans they
were regarded as a sect of Jews; and the Jews, on account
of their continual riots, their inextinguishable hatred of the
Gentile world,1 and the atrocities that frequently accompanied their rebellions, had early excited the anger and the
contempt of the Pagans.  01 the other hand, the Jew, who
deemed the abandonment of the law the most heinous of
crimes, and whose patriotism only shone with a fiercer flame
amid the calamities of his nation, regarded the Christian
with an implacable hostility.  Scorned. or hated by those
around hinm, his temple levelled with the dust, and the
last vestige of his independence destroyed, hIe clung with
a desperate tenacity to the hopes and privileges of his
ancient creed.  In his eyes the Christians were at once
apostates and traitors.  He could not forget that in the
last dark homr of his country's acgony, w. hen the armies of
the Gentile encompassed Jerusalem, and when the hosts
of the faithful flocked to its defence, the Christian Jews
had abandoned the fortunes of their race, and refused to
bear any part in the heroism  and the sufferings of the
closing scene.  They had proclaimed that the promised
Messiah, who was to restore the faded glories of Israel,
had already come; that the privileges which were so long
the monopoly of a single. people had passed to the Gentile
world; that the race which was once supremely blest was
for all future time to be accursed among mankind.  It is
1 Juvenal describes the popular estimate of the Jews:-'fTradidit arcano quodcunque volumine Moses;
Non monstrare vias, eadem nisi sacra colenti,
Quesituml ad fontem solos deducere verpos.'
Sat. xiv. 102-105.
It is not true that the Mosaic law contains these precepts.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                   443
not therefore surprising  that there should have arisen
between the two creeds an animosity which Paganism
could never rival.  While the Christians viewed with
too much exultation the calamities that fell upon the
prostrate people,1 whose cup of bitterness they were
destined through long centuries to fill to the brim, the
Jews laboured  with  unwearied hatred  to  foment by
calumnies the passions of the Pagan multitude.2   On the
other hand, the Catholic Christians showed themselves
extremely willing to draw down the sword of the persecutor upon the heretical sects.  When the Plagans accused
the Christians of indulging in orgies of gross licentiousness, the first apologist, while repudiating the charge, was
careful to add, of the heretics,'Whether or not these
people commit those  shameful and fabulous acts, the
putting out the light, indulging in promiscuous intercourse, and eating human flesh, I know not.'3  In a few
years the language of doubt and insinuation was exchanged for that of direct assertion, and if we may believe
St. Irenaus and St. Clement of Alexandria, the followers
of Carpocrates, the Marcionites, and some other Gnostic
sects, habitually indulged, in their secret meetings, in acts
of impurity and licentiousness as hideous and as monstrous as can be conceived, and their conduct was one of
the causes of the persecution of the orthodox.4  Even the
most extravagant charges of the Pagan populace were
reiterated  by  the fathers in  their accusations of the
Gnostics.  St. Epiphanius, in the fourth century, assures
us that some of their sects were accustomed to kill, to
dress with spices, and to eat the children born of their
See MIerivale's Jist. of.Rome, vol. viii. p. 176.
2 See Justin Martyr, Tl'rypho, xvii.  3 Justin 3Martyr, Apol. i. 26.
4 Eusebius expressly notices that the licentiousness of the sect of Carpocrates occasioned calumnies against the whole of the Christian body. (iv. 7.)
A number of passages from the fathers describing the immorality of these
heretics are referred to by Cave, Primitive ClGristiLaity, part ii. ch. v.




O44          IHISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MORA LS.
promiscuous intercourse.' The heretics, in their turn,
gladly accused the Catholics,2 while the Roman judge, in
whose eyes Judaism, orthodox  Christianity, and  heresy
were but slightly differing modifications of one despicable
superstition, doubtless found in this interchange of accusations a corroboration of his prejudices.
Another cause  of the peculiar animosity  felt against
the Christians was the constant interference with domestic life, arising from  the great number of female conversions.   The  Christian  teacher was early  noted  for his
unrivalled skill in  playing  on  tlhe chords of a woman's
heart.3  The graphic title of'Earpicker of ladies,' 4 which
1 Epiphanius, Adv. Icekr. lib. i. IHRer. 26. The charge of murdering children, and especially infants, occupies a very prominent place among the recriminations of religionists. The Pagans, as we have seen, brought it against
the Christians, and the orthodox against some of the early heretics. The
charge of murdering infants for magical purposes was brought by the
Christians against Julian, and the bed of the Orontes was said to have been
choked with their bodies. The accusation was then commonly directed
against the Jews, against the witches, and against the midwives, who were
supposed to be in confederation with the witches.
2 See an example in Eusebius, iii. 32. After the triumph of Christianity
the Arian heretics appear to have been accustomed to bring accusations of
immorality against the Catholics. They procured the deposition of St.
Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch, by suborning a prostitute to accuse him of
being the father of her child. The woman afterwards, on her deathbed,
confessed the imposture. (Theodor. list. i. 21-22.)  They also accused St.
Athanasius of murder and unchastity, both of which charges he most
triumphantly repelled.  (Ibid. i. 30.)
3 The great exertions and success of the Christians in making female
converts is indignantly noticed by Celsus (Origen) and by the Pagan interlocutor in Minucius Felix (Octavzius), land a more minute examination of ecclesiastical history amply confirms their statements. I shall have in a future
chapter to revert to this matter. Tertullian graphically describes the anger of
a man he knew, at the conversion of his wife, and declares he would rather
have had her' a prostitute than a Christian.'-Ad Nationes, i. 4. Hie also
lentions a governor of Cappadocia, named Herminianus, whose motive for
persecuting the Christians was his anger at the conversion of his wife, and
who, in consequence of his having persecuted, was devoured by worms. (Ad
Scapul. 3.)
4' Matronarum Auriscalpius.' The title was given to Pope St. Damasus.




TIIE  CONVERSION  OF ROME.                      445
was given  to  a  seductive  pontiff of a somewhat later
period, might have been applied to many in the days of
the persecution, and to the Roman, who regarded the
supreme  authority  of the  head  of the  family, in  all
religious matters, as the very foundation of domestic
morality, no  character could  appear more infamous or
more revolting.'A  wife,' said Plutarch, expressing the
deepest conviction of the Pagan world,' should  have no
friends but those of her husband, and, as the gods are the
first of friends, she should know  no gods but those whom
her husband adores.  Let her shut the door, then, against
idle  religions  and  foreign  superstitions.   No  god  can
take pleasure in sacrifices offered by a wife without the
knowledge of her husband.' 1  But these principles, upon
which the whole  social system  of Paganism  had  rested,
were  now   disregarded.   Wives in  multitudes deserted
their homes to frequent the nocturnal meetings2 of a sect,
See Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesitstical Hlistory, vol. ii. p. 27. Amminnus
MIarcellinus notices (xxvii. 3) the great wealth the Roman bishops of his
time bad acquired through the gifts of women. Theodoret (Hist. Eccl.
ii. 17) gives a curious account of the energetic proceedings of the Roman
ladies upon the exile of Pope Liberius.
1 Conz. Prcecept. This passage has been thought to refer to the Christians; if so, it is the single example of its hind in the writings of Plutarch.
2 Pliny, in his letter on the Christians, notices that the assemblies of the
Christians were before daybreak. Tertullian and Mlinucius Felix speak frequently of the' nocturnes convocationes' or' nocturnes congregationes' of
the Christians. The following passage, which the last of these writers puts
into the mouth of a Pagan, describes forcibly the popular feeling about the
Christians:-' Qui de ultima f ce collectis imperitioribus et mulieribus credulis sexus sui facilitate labentibus, plebem profanme conjurationis instituunt: quam nocturnis congregationibus et jejuniis solennibus et inhumanis
cibis non sacro quodam sed piaculo fcederantur, latebrosa et lucifugax natio,
in publico muta, in angulis garrula; templa ut busta despiciunt, deos despuunt, rident sacra.' —Octavius. Tertullian, in exhorting the Christian women
not to intermarry withPPngans, gives as one reason that they would not permit
them to attend this' nightly convocation.' (Ad Uxoremn ii. 4.)  This whole
chapter is a graphic but deeply painful picture of the utter impossibility of




446        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
which was looked upon with the deepest suspicion, and
was placed under the ban of the law. Again and again,
the husband, as he laid his head on the pillow by his
wife, had the bitterness of thinking that all her sympathies
were withdrawn from him; that her affections belo'nged
to an alien priesthood and to a foreign creed; that though
she might discharge her duties with a gentle and uncomplaining fidelity, he had for ever lost the power of touching her heart —he was to her only as an outcast, as a brand
prepared for the burning. Even to a Christian mind
there is a deep pathos in the picture which St. Augustine
has drawn of the broken-lhearted husband imploring the
assistance of the gods, and receiving from the oracle the
bitter answer,'You may more easily write in enduring
characters on the wave, or fly with feathers through the
air, than purge the mind of a woman when once tainted
by the superstition.' 1
I have already noticed the prominence which the
practice of exorcism had acquired in the early Church,
the contempt with which it was regarded by the more
philosophic Pagans, and the law which had been directed
against its professors. It is not, however, probable that
this practice, though it lowered the Christians in the
eyes of the educated as much as it elevated them in the
eyes of the populace, had any appreciable influence in
provoking persecution. In the crowd of superstitions
that were invading the Roman Empire, exorcism had a
prominent place; all such practices were popular with
the masses; the only form  of magic which under the
empire was seriously persecuted was political astrology,
a Christian woman having any real community of feeling with a' servant of
the devil.'
De Civ. Dei, xix. 23.




TH'E  CONVERSION  OF ROMIE.                     447
or divination, with a view to discovering the successors to
the throne, and of this the Christians were never accused.l
There was, however, another form  of what was deemed
superstition connected  with  the  Church, which  was regarded by Pagan plhilosophers with a much deeper feeling
of aversion.  To agitate the minds of men with  religious
terrorism, to fill the unknown world with hideous images
of suffering, to govern the reason by alarming the imagination, was in the eyes of the Pagan world one of the most
heinous of criles.2   These fears were to the ancients the
very  definition  of superstition, and their destruction was
a main object both of the Epicurean and of the Stoic.
To men holding such sentiments, it is easy to perceive how
obnoxious must have  appeared  religious  teachers  who
maintained that an eternity  of torture  was reserved for
the entire human race then existing in the world, beyond
the range of their own community, and who made the assertion of this doctrine one of their main instruments of
success.3 Enquiry, among the early theologians, was much
The policy of the Romans with reference to magic has been minutely
traced by Malury, list. de MaSlaie. )Dr. Jeremie conjectures that the exorcisms
of the Christians may have excitedc the antipathy of Marcus Aurelius, he, as
I have alleady noticed, being a disbeliever on this subject. (Jeremie, Hist. of
Ctaurch in the Second and Third Cent. p. 26.) But this is mere conjecture.
2 See the picture of the sentiments of the Pagans on this matter, in Plutarch's noble Treatise on SuXferstition.
3 Thus Justin Martyr:'Since sensation remains in all men who ilave
been in existence, and everlasting punishment is in store, do not hesitate to
believe, and be convinced that what I say is true... This Gehenna is a
place where all will be punished who live unrighteously, and who believe
not that what God has taught through Christ will come to pass.'-Apol. 1.
18-19. Arnobius has stated very forcibly the favourite argument of many
later theologialls:-' Cum ergo haec sit conditio futurorum  ut teneri et
comprehendi nullius possint anticipationis attactu: nonne purior ratio est,
-ex duobus incertis et in ambigua expectatione pendentibus, id potius credere
quod aliquas spes ferat, quam  omnino quod nullas?  In illo enim periculi
nihil est, si quod dicitur imminere  cassum fiat et vacuum, In hoc
damnurn est masimum.' — Adv. Gentes, lib. i.
30




148           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN 3MORALS.
less valued than belief,1 and appeals to reason than appeals
to  fear.  In  philosophy  the  most comprehensive, but
in theology the most intolerant, system is naturally the
strongest.  To weak women, to  the young, the ignorant,
and the timid, to all, in a word, who  were doubtful of
their own judgment, the doctrine of exclusive salvation
must have come with an appalling power; and as no other
religion professed  it, it supplied  the Church with an in-'valuable vantage-ground, and doubtless drove multitudes
into its pale.  To this doctrine we may also, in a great degree, ascribe the agony of terror that was so often displayed
by the apostate, whose flesh shrank from  the present torture, but who was convinced that the weakness lhe  could
not overcome would be expiated by an eternity of torment.2   To the indignation excited by such teaching, was
probably due a law  of Marcus Aurelius, which  decreed
that'if any  one shall do anything  whereby  the  weak
minds of any should be terrified by superstitious fear, the
offender should be exiled into an island.'3
There can, indeed, be little doubt that a chief cause of
1 The continual enforcement of the duty of belief, and the credulity of
the Christians, were perpetually dwelt on by Celsus and Julian. According
to the first, it was usual for them to say I Do not examine, but believe only.'
According to the latter;' the sum of their wisdom was comprised in this single
precept, believe.' The apologists frequently notice this charge of credulity
as brought against the Christians, and some famous sentences of Tertullian
go far to justify it.  See Miiddleton's Free Inquiry, Introd. pp. xcii. xciii.
2 See the graphic. picture of the agony of terror manifested by the apostates as they tottered to the altar at Alexandria, in the Decian persecution,
in I)ionysius apud Eusebius, vi. 41.'Miraculous judgments (often, perhaps,
the natural consequence of this extreme fear) were said to have often fallen
upon the apostates. St. Cyprian has preserved a number of these in his
treatise D)e Lajpsis. Persons, when excommunicated, were also said to have
been sometimes visibly possessed by devils. See Church, On'Miraculous
Powers in the First Three Centuries, pp. 52-54.
3' Si quis aliquid fecerit, quo leves homninuml animi superstitione numinis
terrerentur, Divus Marcus hujusmodi homines in insulam relegari rescripsit.'
2)ig. xlviii. tit. 19, 1. 30.




THE CONVERSION OF ROlME.                    449
the hostility felt against the Christian Church was the
intolerant aspect it at that time displayed.   The Romans
were  prepared to tolerate almost any form  of religion
that would tolerate others.  The Jews, though quite as
obstinate as the Christians in refusing to sacrifice to the
emperor, were rarely molested, except in the periods im-:
mediately following their insurrections, because Judaism,
however exclusive and unsocial, was still an unaggressive
national faith.   But the Christian teachers taught that
all religions, except their own  and  that of the Jews,
were constructed by devils, and that all who dissented
from  their Church  must be  lost.  It was impossible
that men strung to the very highest pitch  of religious
excitement, and imagining they saw  in every ceremony
and oracle the direct working of a present damon, could
restrain their zeal, or respect in any degree the feelings of
others.  Proselytising with an untiring energy, pouring a
fierce stream of invective and ridicule upon the gods on
whose favour the multitude believed  all national prosperity to depend, not unfrequently insulting the worshippers, and defacing the idols,l they soon stung the Pagan
devotees to madness, and  convinced  them  that every
calamity  that fell upon the empire was the  righteous
vengeance of the gods.  NTor was the sceptical politician
more likely  to  regard  with  favour a  religion  whose
development was plainly  incompatible with the whole
religious policy of the' empire.  Tlhe new Church, as it
I A number of instances have been recorded, in which the punishment of
the Christians was due to their having broken idols, overturned altars, or in
other ways insulted the Pagans at their worship. - The reader may find
many examples of this collected in Cave's PrimiinftivCe Christianity, part i.
c. v.; Kortholt, Do Calutnniis contra CGkristianos; Barbeyrac, Morale des P~brcs,
c. xvii.; Tillemont, Mem. ecclesiast. tome vii. pp..54-355; Ceillier, -ist.
des Auteurs sacres, tonme iii. pp. 531-533.  The Council of Illiberis found it
necessary to make a canon refusing the title of' martyr' to those who were
executed for tlheir offences




o50       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN -MORALS.
was then organised, must have appeared to him essentially,
fundamentally, necessarily intolerant. To permit it to
triumph, was to permit the extinction of religious liberty
in an empire which comprised all the leading nations of
the world, and tolerated all their creeds.  It was indeed
true that in the days of their distress the apologists proclaimed, in high and eloquent language, the iniquity of
persecution, and the priceless value of a free worship;
but it needed no great sagacity to perceive that the language of the dominant Church would be very different.
The Pagan philosopher could not foresee the ghastly
histories of the Inquisition, of the Albigenses, or of St.
Bartholomew; but he could scarcely doubt that the
Christians, when in the ascendant, would never tolerate
rites which they believed to be consecrated to devils, or
restrain, in the season of their power, a religious animosity which they scarcely bridled when they were weak.
It needed no prophetic inspiration to anticipate the time,
that so speedily arrived, wbhen, amid the wailings of the
worshippers, the idols and the temples were shattered,
and when all who practised the religious ceremonies of
their forefathers were subject to the penalty of death.
There has probably never existed upon earth a coinmmunity whose members were bound to one another by
a deeper or a purer affection than the Christians; in the
days of the persecution. There has probably never existed a communaity which exhibited in its dealings with
crime a gentler or more judicious kindness, which co-mbine-d more happily an unflinchlling opposition to sin with
a boundless charity to the sinner, and which was in consequence more successful in reclaiming and transforming
the most vicious of mankind.  There has, however, also
never existed a community which displayed more clearly
the intolerance that would necessarily follow its triumph.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                     451
Very early tradition has related three anecdotes of the
apostle John which illustrate faithfully this triple aspect
of the Church.  It is said that when the assemblies of the
Christians thronged around him to hear some exhortation
from his lips, the only words he would utter were,' My
little children, love one another;' for in this, he said, is
comprised the entire law.  It is said that a young man he
had once confided to the charge of a bishop, having fallen
into the ways of vice, and become the captain of a band of
robbers, the apostle, on hearing of it, bitterly reproached
the negligence of the pastor, and, though in extreme old
age, betook himself to the mountains till he had been
captured by the robbers, when, falling with tears on the
neck of the chief, he restored him  to the path of virtue.
It is said that the same apostle, once seeing the heretic
Cerinthus in an establishment of baths into which he had
entered, immediately rushed forth, fearing lest the roof
would fall because a heretic was beneath it.'  All that
fierce hatred which during the Arian and Donatist controversies convulsed the empire, and which in later times
has deluged the world with blood, may be traced in the
Church long before the conversion of Constantine.  Already, in the second century, it was the rule that the
orthodox Christian should hold no conversation, should
interchange none of the most ordinary courtesies of life,
with  the  excommunicated  or the  heretic.2   Common
t The first of these anecdotes is told by St. Jerome, the second by St.
Clement of Alexandria, the third by St. Ireneeus.
2 The severe discipline of the early Church on this point has been amply
treated in Marshall's Penitential Disciplie of the Primitive Czurch (first
published in 1714, but reprinted in the library of Anglo-Catholic theology),
and in Bingharm's Antiquities of the C"hristian Ctkurch, vol. vi. (Oxford, 1855).
The later saints continually dwelt upon this duty of separation. Thus,
d St. Theodore de Phermen disoit, que quand une personne dont nous 6tions
amis estoit tombee dans la fornication, nous devions luy donner la main et
faire notre possible pour le relever; mais que s'il estoit tomb6 dans quelque




452           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MiORALS.
sufferings were impotent to  assuagye the  animosity, and
the purest and fondest relations of life were polluted by
the n'ew intolerance. 1 The Decian persecution had scarcely
closed,-when  St. Cyprian  wrote his treatise  to  maintain
that it is no more possible to be saved beyond the limits
of the Church, than it was during the deluge beyond the
limits of the ark;' that martyrdom  itself has no power to
efface the guilt of schism; and  that the heretic, who for
his  master's cause  expired  in  tortures upon  the  earth,
passed at once, by tlat master's decree, into an eternity of'
torment in hell!1   Even  in  the  arena the Catholic nmaityrs withdriew  firom  the Montanists, lest they should  be
mingled with  the heretics in  death.2   At a later period
St. Augustine relates'that when he was a Manichean, his
mother for a time refused  even to  eat at the same table
with her erring child.83   When  St. Almbrose not only defended the act of a Christian bishop, who had burnt down
a synagogue  of the  Jews,'but  denounced  as a deadly
crime' the decree of the Government which ordered it. to
be rebuilt,4 when the same saint, in advocating the plunder
erreur contre la foi, et qu'il ne voulust pas s'en corriger apres les premieres
remonstrances, il falloit l'abandonner prompltement et rompre toute amiti6
avec luy, de peur qu'en nous amusant A le vouloir retirer de ce gouffrie, il
noe nous y entrainast nous-memes.'- Tillemolt,.Men. ecclis. tome xii.
p. 367.'H Iabere jam non potest Deum patrem qui eccelesiam non habet matrem.
Si potuit evadere quisquLam qui extra arcam Noe fuit, et qui extra ecclesiam foris fuerit evadit..  hane unitatem qui non tenet... vitam non
tenet et salutem... esse martyr non potest qui in ecclesia non est....
CuLm Deo manere non possunt qui esse in ecclesia Dei unanimes noluerunt.
Ardeant licet flammlis et ignibus traditi, vel objecti bestiis animas suas
ponunt, non erit illa fidei corona, sed pcena perfidise, nec religiosa virtutis
exitus gloriosus sed desperationis interitus.  Occidi talis potest, coronari
non potest. Sic se Christianumr esse profitetur quo modo et Christum diabolus sSepe mentitur.'-Cyprian, De Unit. Ecclcs.
2 Eusebius, v. 16.
3 C'onfess. iii. 11. She was afterwards permitted by a special revelation
to sit at the same table with her son!' Ip. xl.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                453
of the vestal virgins, maintained the doctrine, that it is
crimiinal for a Christian State to grant any endowment to
the ministers of any religion but his own,1 which it has
needed all the efforts of modern liberalism to efface from
legislation, he was bit following in the traces of those
earlier Christians, who would not even wear a laurel
crown2 or join in the most innocent civic festival, lest
they should appear in some indirect way to be acquiescing
in the Pagan worship.  While the apologists were maintaining against the Pagan persecutors the duty of tolerance, the Sibylline books, which were the popular literature of the Christians, were filled with passionate
anticipations of the violent destruction of the Pagan
temples.3  And no sooner had Christianity mounted the
throne than the policy they foreshadowed became ascendant.  The indifference or worldly sagacity of some
of the rulers, and the imposing number of the Pagans,
delayed, no doubt, the final consummation; but, from the
time of Constantine, restrictive laws were put in force, the
influence of the ecclesiastics was ceaselessly exerted in
their favour, and no sagacious man could fail to anticipate the speedy and absolute proscription of the Pagan
worship.  It is related of the philosopher Antoninus, the
son of the Pagan prophetess Sospitra, that, standing one
day with his disciples before that noble temple of Serapis,
at Alexandria, which was one of the wonders of ancient
art, and which was destinedl soon after to perish by the
rude hands of the Christian monks, the prophetic spirit
of his mother fell upon him. Like another prophet before
another shrine, he appalled his hearers by the prediction' Ep. xviii.                       2 Tertull. -De Corona.
3 Milman's tist. of OCristianity, vol. ii. pp. 110-125. It is rarnaikable
that the Serapeum of Alexandria was, in the Sibylline books, specially
menaced with destruction.




154         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
of the approaching ruin.  The time would come, he said,
when the glorious edifice before them  would be overthrown, the carved images would be defaced, the temples
of the gods would be turned into the sepulchres of the
dead, and a great darkness would fall upon mankind! 1
And, besides the liberty of worship, the liberty of
thought and of expression, which was the supreme attainment of Roman civilisation, was in peril.  The new religion, unlike that which was disappearing, claimed to
dictate the opinions as well as the actions of men, and
its teachers stigmatised as an atrocious crime the free
expression of every opinion on religious matters diverging
from their own.  Of all the forms of liberty, it was this
which lasted the longest, and was the most dearly prized.
Even  after Constantine, the Pagans Libanius, Themistius, Symmachus, and Sallust enforcedl their views with
a freedom  that contrasts remarkably with the restraints
imposed upon their worship, and the beautiful friendships
of St. Basil and Libanius, of Synesius and Hypatia, are
among the most touching episodes of their time.  But
though the traditions of Pagan freedom, and the true
catholicism of Justin Martyr and Origen, lingered long, it
was inevitable that error, being deemed criminal, should
be made penal.  The dogTmatism  of Athanasius and Augustine, the increasing power of the clergy, and the fanaticism of the monks, hastened the end.  The suppression
of all religions but one by Theodosius, the murder of
Hypatia at Alexandria by the monks of Cyril, and the
l Eunapius, Lives of the Sophists. Eunapius gives an extremely pathetic
account of the downfall of this temple.  There is a Christian account
in Theodoret (v. 22). Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, was the leader
of the monks. The Pagans, under the guidance of a philosopher named
Olympus, made a desperate effort to defend their temple. The whole
story is very finely told by Dean MIilman. (Hist. of Christianity, vol. iii.
pp. 68-72.)




THE CONVEPSION OF RO3IE.            455
closing by Justinian of the schools of Athens, are the
three events which mark the decisive overthrow of intellectual freedom.  A thousand years had rolled away
before that freedom was in part restored.
The considerations I have briefly enumerated should
not in the smallest degree detract from the admiration
due to the surpassing courage, to the pure, touching, and
sacred virtues of the Christian martyrs, but they in some
degree palliate the conduct of the persecutors, among
whom must be included one emperor, who was probably,
on the whole, the best and most humane sovereign who
has ever sat upon a throne, and at least two others, who
were considerably above the average of virtue. When,
combined with the indifference to human suffering, the
thirst for blood which the spectacles of the amphitheatre
hlad engendered, they assuredly make the persecutions
abundantly explicable.  They show that if it can be
proved that Christian persecutions sprang from the doctrine of exclusive salvation, the fact that the Roman
Pagans, who did not hold that doctrine, also persecuted,
need not cause the slightest perplexity. That the persecutions of Christianity by the Roman emperors, severe as
they undoubtedly were, were not of such a continuous
nature as wholly to counteract the vast moral, social, and
intellectual agencies that were favourable to its spread, a
few dates will show.
We have seen that when the Egyptian rites were introduced into Romle, they were met by prompt and energetic measures of repression; that these measures were
again and again repeated, but that at last, when they
proved ineffectual, the governors desisted from  their
opposition, and the new worship assumed a recognised
place. The history of Christianity, in its relation to the
Government, is the reverse of this. Its first introduction




450           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
into Rome appears to have been altogether unopposed.
Tertullian asserts that Tiberius, on the ground of a report
from  Pontius Pilate, desired to enrol Christ among the
Roman gods, but that the Senate rejected the proposal;
but this assertion, which  is altogether unsupported  by
trustworthy, evidence, and is intrinsically extremely improbable, is now  generally recognised as false.'  An isolated  passage of Suetonius  states that in  the  time  of
Claudius'the Jews, being continually rioting, at the in-.stigation of a certain Chrestus,' 2 were expelled from  the
city; but no Christian writer speaks of his co-religionists
beincg  disturbed  in  this reign, while  all with  a perfect
unanimity, and with great emphasis, describe Nero as the
first persecutor.   His persecution began  at the close ot
A.D. 64.3   It was directed  against Christians, not ostensibly on the ground  of their religion, but because they
were falsely accused of having set fire to Rome, and it is
very doubtful whether it extended  beyond the city.4   It
Apology, v. The overwhelming difficulties attending this assertion are
well stated by Gibbon, ch. xvi. Traces of this fable may be found in
Justin 3Martyr. The fieedom of the Christian worship at Rome appears
not only from the unanimity, with which Christian- writers date their
troubles fron Nero, but also from the express statement in Acts xxviii.
31.
2'Judmos, impulsore Chresto, assidue tumultuantes, Roma expulit.'Sueton. Claud. xxv. This banishment of the Jews is mentioned in Acts
xviii. 2, but is not there connected in any way with Christianity. A passage
in Dion Cassius (lx. 6) is supposed to refer to the same transaction. Lactantius notices that the Pagans were accustomed to call Christus, COhrestus:
Eum immutata  litera Chrestum solent dicere.' —Div. Inst. iv. 7.
3 This persecution is fully described by Tacitus (Annal. xv. 44), and
briefly noticed by Suetonius (NTero, xvi.).
4 This has been a matter of very great controversy. Lookling at the
question apart from direct testimony, it appears almost inconceivable that
a persecution directed against the Christians on the charge of having burnt
Rome, should have extended to Christians who did not live near Rome.
On the other hand, it has been argued that Tacitus spealis of themn as
haud perinde in crimine incendii, quam odio humanlli generis convicti,' and
it has been maintained that'hatred of the human race' was treated as a




THE  CONVERSION  OF RO1E.                        457
had also this peculiarity, that, being directed  against the
Christians, not as Christians but as incendiaries, it was
impossible to  escape from  it by  apostasy.  Within  the
walls of Rome it raged with great fury.  The Christians,
who  had  been  for  many  years   proselytising  without
restraint in the great confluence of nations, and amid the
disintegration  of old  beliefs, had  become a formidable
body.   They were, we learn  from  Tacitus, profoundly
unpopular; but the hideous tortures to which Nero subjected them, and the conviction that whatever other crimes
they might have committed, they were not guilty of setting fire to the city, awoke general pity.   Some of them,
clad in skins of wild beasts, were torn by dogs.   Others,
crime, and punished in the provinces. But this is, I think, extremely farfetched, and it is evident from the sequel, that the Christians at Rome were
burnt as incendiaries, and that it was the conviction that they were not
guilty of that crime that extorted the pity which Tacitus notices. There
is also no reference in Tacitus to any persecution beyond the walls. If we
pass to the Christian evidence, a Spanish inscription referring to the
Neronian persecution, which was once appealed to as decisive, is now unanimously admitted to be a forgery. In the fourth century, however, Sulp.
Severus (lib. ii.) and Orosius (Hist. vii. 7) declared that general laws condemnatory of Christianity were promulgated by Nero; but the testimony
of, credulous historians who wrote so lono after the event is not of
much -value. Rossi, however, imagines that a fragment of an inscription
found at Pompeii indicates a general law against Christians. See his
Bulletino d' Arciheologia C#'istiana (Roma, Dec. 1865), which, however,
should be compared with the very remarkable Compte Renidu of M. Aub6,
Acad. des.nscrip. et Belles-lettres, juin 1866. These two papers contain
an almost complete discussion of the persecutions of Nero and Domitian.
Gibbon thinls it quite certain the persecution was confined to the city;
Mlosheiin (Eccl. Hist. i. p. 71) adopts the opposite view, and appeals to the
passage in Tertullian (Ap. v.), in which he speaks of Ileges istme..
quas Trajanus ex parte frustratus est, vitando inquiri Christianos,' as implying the existence of special laws against the Christians. This passage,
however, may, simply refer to the general law against unauthorised religions,
which Tertullian notices in this very chapter; and Pliny, in his famous
letter, does not show any knowledge of the existence of special legislation
about the Christians.
Ecclesiasical historians maintain, but not on very strong evidence, that
the Church of Rome was founded by St. Peter, A.D. 42 or 44. St. Paul
came to Rome A.D. 61.




4568         IIISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  31ORALS.
arrayed  ill shirts of pitch, were burnt alive in Nero's
garden.l   Others were affixel to crosses.  Great multitudes perished.   The deep  impression the  persecution
made on the Christian mind is shown in the whole literature of the Sibyls, which arose soon after, and in which
Nero is usually the central figure, and by the belief that
lingered for centuries, that the tyrant was yet alive, and
would return  once more as the immediate precursor of
Antichrist, to inflict the last great persecution upon the
Church.2
Nero died A.D. 68. From  that time, for at least twentyseven years, the Church enjoyed absolute repose. There
is no credible evidence  whatever of the smallest interference with its freedom  till the last year of the reign of
Domitian; and a striking illustration of the fearlessness
with which it exhibited itself to the world has been lately
furnished  in  the discovery, near Rome, of a large  and
handsome porch leading to a Christian  catacomb, built
above ground between the  reigns of Nero and Domitian,
in the immediate neighllbourhood of one of the principal
highways.3   The long reign of Domitian, though it may
have been surpassed iil ferocity, was never surpassed in
1 On this horrible punishment see Juvenal, Sat. i. 155-157.
2 Lactantius, in the fourth century, speaks of this opinion as still hell
by some'madmen' (De Mort. Persec. cap. ii.), but Sulp. Severus (Hist.
lib. ii.) speaks of it as a common notion, and he says that St. Martin, when
asked about the end of the world, answered,'Neronem et Antichristurn
puils esse venturos: Neronem in occidentali;, plaga regibus subactis decem,
imperaturum, persecutionem autem ab eo hactenus exercendam ut idola
gentium coli cogat.' —Dial. ii. Among the Pagans, the notion that Nero
was yet alive lingered long, and twenty years after his death an adventurer
pretending to be Nero was enthusiastically received by the Parthians.
(Sueton..Xero, lvii.)
3 See the full description of it in Rossi's Bulletino d' Arclheol. Crist. Dec.
1865; Eusebius (iii. 17) and Tertullian (Apol. v.) have expressly noticed the
very remarkable fact that Vespasian, who was so bitter an enemy to the Jews,
and who exiled all the leading stoical philosophers except Musonius, never
troubled the Christians.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                459
the Roman annals in the skilfulness and the persistence
of its tyranny.  The Stoics and literary classes, who upheld the traditions of political freedom, and who had
already suffered much at the hands of Vespasian, were
persecuted with relentless animosity.  Metius Modestus,
Arulenus Rusticus, Senecio, Helvidius, Dion Chrysostom,
the younger Priscus, Junius Mauricus, Artemidorus. Euphrates, Epictetus, Arria, Fannia, and Gratilla were either
killed or banished.' No measures, however, appear to
have been taken against the Christians till A.D. 95, when
a short and apparently not very severe persecution, concerning which our information is both scanty and conflicting, was directed against them.  Of the special cause
that produced it we are left in much doubt.  Eusebius
mentions, on the not very trustworthy authority of Hegesippus, that the emperor, having heard of the existence
of the grandchildren of Judas, the brother of Christ,
ordered them to be brought before him, as being of the
family of David, and therefore possible pretenders to the
throne; but on finding that they were simple peasants,
and that the promised kingdom  of which they spoke
was a spiritual one, he dismissed them  in peace, and
arrested the persecution he had begun.2  A Pagan historian states, that the finances of the empire being exhausted by lavish expenditure in public games, Domitian,
in order to replenish his exchequer, resorted to a severe
and special taxation of the Jews; that some of these,
in order to evade the impost, concealed their worship,
while others, who are supposed to have been Christians,
are described as following the Jewish  rites without
being professed Jews.3  Perhaps, however, the simplest
I See a pathetic letter of Pliny, lib. iii. Ep. xi. and also lib. i. PIp. v. and
the Aygricola of Tacitus.               2 Euseb. iii. 20.
s'Preter coeteros Judaicus fiscus acerbissime actus est. Ad quem




460           HISTORY OF EUROPEAN IMORALS.
explanation is the truest, and the persecution may be
ascribed  to  the  antipathy  which  a despot like Domitian must necessarily have  felt to  an institution  which,
though it did not, like Stoicism, resist his policy, at least
exercised a vast influence altogether removed from  his
control.   St. John, who was then a very old man, is said
to  have  been  at this time exiled  to Patmos.  Flavius
Clemens, a  consul, and  a relative of the  emperor, was
put to death. His wife, or, according to another account,
his niece, Domitilla, was banished, according to one account, to the island of Pontia, according to another,
to  the  island  of Pandataria,  and  many  others  were
compelled  to accompany her into  exile.1   Numbers, we
are told,  accused  of conversion to  impiety  or Jewish
rites,' were condemned.   Some  were killed  and  others
deprived of their offices.2  Of the cessation of the persecudeferebantar, cqui vel improfessi Judaicam intra urbem viverent vitam, vel
dissimulata origine imposita genti tributa non pependissent.' -Sueton.
Domit. xii. Suetonius adds, that when a young man, he saw an old man
of ninety examined before a large assembly to ascertain whether he was
circumcised.
1 Euseb. iii. 18.
2 See the accounts of these transactions in Xiphilin, the abbreviator of
Dion Cassius (lxvii. 14); Euseb. iii. 17-18. Suetonius notices. (Domit. xv.)
that Flavius Clemens (whom he calls a man'contemptissimme inertie')
was killed'ex tenuissima suspicione.' The language of Xiphilin, who
says he was killed for'impiety and Jewish rites;' the express assertion of
Eusebius, that it was for Christianity; and the declaration of Tertullian,
that Christians were persecuted at the close of this reign, leave, I think,
little doubt that this execution was connected with Christianity, though
some writers have questioned it. At the same time, it is very probable,
as Mr. Merivale thinks (lutst. of Rogze, vol. vii. pp. 381-384), that though
the pretext of the execution might have been religious, the real motive
was political jealousy. Pomitian had already put to death the brother of
Flavius Clemens on the charge of treason.:His sons had been recognised
as successors to the throne, and at the time of his execution another leading
noble named Glabrio was accused of having fought in the arena. Some
ecclesiastical historians have imagined that there may have been two
Domitillas-the wife and niece of Flavius Clemens. The islands of Pontia
and Pandataria were close to one another.




TILE CONVERSION OF ROME.                    461
tion  there  are  two  different versions.  Tertullian1 and
Eusebius 2 say that the tyrant speedily revoked his edict,
and restored those who had been banished; but according
to Lactantius, these measures were not taken till after the
death of Domitian,3 and this latter statement is corroborated by the assertion of Dion Cassius, that Nero, upon
his accession,'absolved those who were accused of impiety, and recalled the exiles.' 4
WVhen we consider the very short time during which
it lasted, and the very slight notice that was taken of it,
we may fairly, I think, conclude that this persecution was
not of a nature to check in any  appreciable degree a
strong religious movement like that of Christianity.  The
assassination of Domitian introduces us to the golden age
of the Roman Empire.  In the eyes of the Pagan historian, the period from  the accession of Nerva, in A.D. 96, to
the death of Marcus Aurelius, in A.D. 180, is memorable
as a period of uniform  good government, of rapidly advancing humanity, of great legislative reforms, and of a
peace which- was very rarely seriously broken.  To the
Christian historian it is still more remarkable, as one of
the most critical periods in the history of his faith.  The
Church entered into it considerable indeed, as a sect, but
not large enough to be reckoned an important power in
the  empire.   It emerged  from  it so  increased in its
numbers, and so extended  in  its ramifications, that it
might fairly defy the most formidable assaults. It remains,
1'Tentaverat et Domitianus, portio Neronis de crudelitate; sed qua et homo
facile ecepturn repressit, restitutis enim quos relegaverat.' (Ap1ol. 5.) It will
be observed that Tertullian malies no mention of any punishment more
severe than exile.
2 Euseb. iii. 20.                    3 De Mortl. Peisec. iii.
4 Xiphilin, lxviii. 1.  An annotator to Mosheim conjectures that the
edict may have been issued just before the death of the emperor, but not
acted on till after it.




462         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
therefore, to be seen whether the opposition against
which, during these eighty-four years it had so successfully struggled, was of such a kind  and intensity that
the triumph must be regarded as a miracle.
Nearly at the close of this period, during the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, St. Melito, Bishop of Sardis,
wrote a letter of expostulation to the emperor, in which
he explicitly asserts that in Asia the persecution of the
pious was an event which' had never before occurred,'
and was the result of'new and strange decrees;' that the
ancestors of the emperor were accustomed to honour the
Christian faith' like other religions;' and that' Nero and
Domitian alone' had been hostile to it.'  Rather more
than twenty years later, Tertullian asserted, in language
equally distinct and emphatic, that the two persecutors of
the Christians were Nero and Domitian, and that it would
be impossible to name a single good sovereign who had
molested them.  Marcus Aurelius himself, Tertullian refuses to number among the persecutors, and, even relying
upon a letter which was falsely imputed to him, enrols
him  among the protectors of the Church.2  About a
century later, Lactantius, reviewing the history of the
persecutions, declared that the good sovereigns who followed Domitian abstained from persecuting, and passes
at once from the persecution of Domitian to that of Decius.
Having noticed the proceedings of the former emperor,
he proceeds:'The acts of the tyrant being revoked, the
Church was not only restored to its former state, but shone
forth with a greater splendour and luxuriance; and a
period following in which many good sovereigns wielded
the Imperial sceptre, it suffered no assaults from  its
1 Euseb. iv. 26. The whole of this apology has been recently recovered, and
translated into Latin by Nl. Renan in the Spicileghitm Solesmense. 2 A4ol. 5.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.               463
enemies, but stretched out its hands to the east and to the
west;... but at last the long peace was broken. After
many years, that hateful monster Decius arose, who
troubled the Church.' 1
We have here three separate passages, from which we
may conclusively infer that the normal and habitual condition of the Christians during the eighty-four years we
are considering, and, if we accept the two last passages,
Cduring a much longer period, was a condition of peace,
but that peace was not absolutely unbroken.  The Christian Church, which was at first regarded simply as a
branch of Judaism, had begun to be recognised as a
separate body, and the Roman law professedly tolerated
only those religions which were expressly authorised. It
is indeed true that with the extension of the empire, and
especially of the city, the theory, or at least the practice,
of religious legislation had been profoundly modified.
First of all, certain religions, of which the Jewish was
one, were officially recognised, and then many others,
without being expressly authorised, were tolerated.  In
this manner all attempts to resist the torrent of Oriental
superstitions proving vain, the legislator had desisted
from his efforts, and every form of wild superstition was
practised with the utmost publicity and the most absolute
impunity.  Still the laws forbidding them  were unrevoked, although they were suffered to remain for the most
part obsolete, or were at least only put in action on the
occasion of some special scandal, or of some real or
apprehended political danger.  The municipal and provincial independence in the empire was, however, so
large, that very much depended on the character of the
local governor; and it continually happened that in one
L Lactant. De Mort,. Persec. 3-4.
31




464       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
province the Christians were unmolested or favoured,
while in the adjoining province they were severely persecuted.
As we have already seen, the Christians had for many
reasons become profoundly obnoxious to the people.
They shared the unpopularity of the Jews, with whom
they were confounded, while the general credence given
to the calumnies about the crimes said to have been perpetrated at their secret meetings, their abstinence from
public amusements, and the belief that their hostility to
the gods was the cause of every physical calamity, were
special causes of antipathy. The history of the period of
the Antonines continually manifests the desire of the
populace to persecute, restrained by the humanity of the
rulers. In the short reign of Nerva there appears to have
been no persecution, and our knowledge of the official
proceedings with reference to the religion is comprised in
two sentences of a Pagan historian, who tells us that the
emperor' absolved those who had been convicted of
impiety,' and' permitted no one to be convicted of impiety or Jewish rites.' Under Trajan, however, some
serious though purely local disturbances took place. The
emperor himself, though one of the most sagacious,
and in most respects humane of Roman sovereigns, was,
as we have seen, nervously jealous: of any societies or
associations among his subjects, and hhad propounded a
special edict against them; but the persecution of the
Christians appears to have been not so muchl political as
popular.  If we may believe Eusebius, local persecutions,
apparently of the nature of riots, but sometimes countenanced by provincial governors, broke out in several
quarters of the empire. In Bithynia, Pliny the Younger
was the governor, and he wrote a very famous letter to
Trajan, in which he professed himself absolutely ignorant




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.             465
of the proceedings to be taken against the Christians, who
had already so multiplied that the temples -were deserted,
and who were arraigned in great numbers before his
tribunal.  He had, he says, released those who consented
to burn incense before the image of the emperor, and to
curse Christ, but had caused those to be executed who
persisted in their refusal, and who were not Roman
citizens,'not doubting that a pertinacious obstinacy
deserved punishment.' He had questioned the prisoners as
to the nature of their faith, and had not hesitated to seek
revelations by torturing two maid-servants, but had' discovered nothing but a base and immoderate superstition.'
He had asked the nature of their secret services, and had
been told that they assembled on a certain day before
dawn to sing a hymn to Christ as to a god; that they
made a vow to abstain from every crime, and that they
then, before parting, partook together of a harmless feast,
which, however, they had given up since tilhe decree
against associations.  To this letter Trajan answered that
Christians, if brought before the tribunals and convicted,
should be punished, but that they should not be sought
for; that, if they consented to sacrifice, no inquisition
should be made into their past lives, and that no anonymous accusations should be received against them1' In
tlis reign there are two authentic instances of martyrdoml2
Simeon, Bishop of Jerusalem, an old man, it is said, of
one hundred and twenty, having been accused by the
heretics, was tortured during several days, and at' last
crucified. Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, was arrested,
brought to Rome, and by the order of Trajan himself
thrown to wild beasts.  Of the cause of this last act of
severity we are left in ignorance, but it has been noticed
I Pliny, 1Ep. x, 97-98.     Euseb. lib. iii.




466         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
that about this time Antioch had been the scene of one
of those violent earthquakes which so frequently produced
an outburst of religious excitement,1 and the character
of Ignatius, who was passionately desirous of martyrdom, may have very probably led him  to some act of
exceptional zeal. The letters of the martyr prove that
at Rome the faith  was openly and fearlessly professed;
the Government during the nineteen years of this reign
never appears to have taken any initiative against the
Christians, and in spite of occasional local tumults, there
was nothing resembling a general persecution.
During the two following reigns, of HIadrian and Antoninus the Pious, the Government was more decidedly
favourable to the Christians.  The former emperor, having
heard that the populace at the public games frequently
called for their execution, issued an edict in which he
commanded that none should  be punished  simply in
obedience to the outcries against' the Christians, or
without a formal trial and a conviction of some offence
against the law, and he ordered that all false accusers
should be punished.2  His disposition towards the Christians was so pacific as to give rise to a legend of his
having intended to enrol Christ among the gods;  but
it is probable that, although curious on religious matters,
he regarded  Christianity  with  the  indifference  of a
Roman freethinker; and a letter is ascribed to him  in
which he confounded it with the worship of Serapis.4
As far as the Government were concerned, the Christians
1 There is a description of this earthqua]ke in Merivale's Bist. of the.oomlns, vol. viii. pp. 155-1560. Orosius (Hist. vii. 12) thought it was a judgment on account of the persecution of the Christians.
Eusebius, iv. 8-9. See, too Justin Tartyr, Apol. i. 6S-69.
This is mentioned incidentally by Lampridius in his Life qf A. Severus,
4 See this very curious letter in Vopiscus, Satcrninuzs.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                   407
appear to have been entirely unmolested; but many of
them   suffered  dreadful tortures at the  hands of the
Jewish insurgents, who in this reign, with a desperate
but ill-fated heroism, made one last effort to regain their
freedom.'  The mutual hostility exhibited at this time
by the Jews and Christians contributed to separate them
in the eyes of the  Pagans, and it is said that when
Hadrian forbade the Jews ever again to enter Jerusalem,
he recognised the distinction by granting a full permission
to the Christians.2
Antoninus, who succeeded Hadrian, made new efforts to
restrain the passions of the people against the Christians.
He issued an edict commanding that they should  not
be molested, and when, as a consequence of some earthquakes in Asia Minor, the popular anger was fiercely
roused, he commanded  that their accusers should  be
punished.3  If we except these riots, the twenty-three
years of his reign appear to have been years of absolute
peace, which seems also to have continued during several
years of the reign of Marcus Aurelius; but at last persecuting edicts, of the exact nature of which we have no
knowledge, were issued.  Of the reasons which induced
one of the best men who have ever reigned to persecute
the Christians, we know  little or nothing.  That it was
1 Justin Mart. Ap. i. 31. Eusebius quotes a passage from Ilegesippus to
the same effect. (iv. 8.)
2'Preecepitque ne cui Judreo introeundi -Iierosolymnam esset licentia,
Christianis tantum civitate permissa.' —Oros. vii. 13.
3 A letter which Eusebius gives at full (iv. 13), and ascribes to Antoninus Pius, has created a good deal of controversy. Justin Mart. (Apol. i. 71)
and Tertullian (Apol. 5) ascribe it to Marcus Aurelius. It is now generally
believed to be a forgery by a Christian hand, being more like a Christian
apology than the letter of a Pagan emperor. St. Melito, however, writing
to Marcus Aurelius, expressly states that Antoninus had written a letter
forbidding the persecution of Christians. (Euseb. iv. 20.)




468        HISTORY OF ECTUROPEAN MORLS.
not any ferocity of disposition or any impatience of re.
sistance, may be confidently asserted of one whose only
fault was a somewhat excessive gentleness —who, on the
death of his wife, asked as a single favour from the Senate,
to console him  by sparing the lives of those who had
rebelled against him.  That it was not; as has been
strangely urged, a religious fanaticism resembling that
which led St. Lewis to persecute, is equally plain.  St.
Lewis persecuted because he believed that to reject his
religious opinions was a heinous crime, and that heresy
was the path to hell.  Marcus Aurelius had no such
belief, and he, the first Roman emperor who made the
Stoical philosophy his religion and his comfort, was also
the first emperor who endowed the professors of the
philosophies that were most hostile to his own.  The fact
that the Christian Church, existing as a State within a State,
with government, ideals, enthusiasms, and hopes wholly
different from those of the nation, was incompatible with
the existing system  of the empire, had become more
evident as the Church increased. The accusations of cannibalism and incestuous impurity had acquired a greater
consistency, and the latter are said to have been justly
applicable to the Carpocratian heretics, who had recently
arisen. The stoicism of Marcus Aurelius may have revolted
from the practices of exorcism or the appeals to the terrors
of another world, and the philosophers who surrounded
him probably stimulated his hostility, for his master and
friend Fronto had written a book against Christianity,1
while Justin Martyr is said to have perished by the
machinations of the Cynic Crescens.2  It must be added,
too, that while it is impossible to acquit the emperor of' It is allu led to by Minucius Felix,  2 Eusebius, iv. 16.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                  469
having issued severe edicts against the Christians,1 the
atrocious details of the persecutions in his reign were
due to the ferocity of the populace and the weakness
of the governors of distant provinces; and it is inconceivable that, if he had been a very bitter enemy of the
Christians, Tertullian, writing little more than twenty years
later, should  have been so ignorant of the fact as to
represent him as one of the most -conspicuous of their
protectors.
But whatever may be thought on these points, there
can, unhappily, be no question that in this reign Rome was
stained by the blood of Justin [Martyr, the first philosopher, and one of the purest and gentlest natures in the
Clurch, and that persecution was widely extended.  In
two far distant quarters, at Smyrna and at Lyons, it far
exceeded in atrocity any that Christianity had endured
since Nero, and in each case a heroism of the most transcendant order was displayed by the martyrs.  The persecution at Smyrna, in which St. Polycarp and many
others most nobly died, took place on the occasion of the
public games, and we may trace the influence of the
Jews in stimulating it.2  The persecution at Lyons, which
was one of the most atrocious in the whole compass of
ecclesiastical history, and which has supplied the Martyrology with some of its grandest and most pathetic figures,
derived its worst features from a combination of the fury
of the populace and of the subserviency of the governor.3
Certain servants of the Christians, terrified by the prospect
of torture, accused their masters of all the crimes which
St. Melito expressly notices that the edicts of MIarcus Aurelius produced the Asiatic persecution.
2 Eusebius, iv. 15.
3 See the most touching and horrible description of this persecution irn a
letter written by the Christians of Lyons, in Eusebius, v. 1.




47,0          HISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MORALS.
popular report attributed to them, of incest, of infanticide,
of cannibalism, of hideous impurity.  A fearful outburst of
ferocity ensued. Tortures almost too horrible to recount
were for hours and even days applied to the bodies of
old men and of weak women, who  displayed  amid their
agonies a nobler courage  than  has ever shone upon  a
battle-field, and  whose  memories are  immortal among
mankind.  ]1landina and  Pothinus wrote in  blood  the
first page of the glorious history of the Church of lFrance.l
But although,  during the closing years of Marcus Aurelius,
severe persecutions took place in three or four provinces,
there was no general and  organised  effort to  suppress
Christianity thlroutghout the empire.2
We may next consider, as a single period, the space of
time that elapsed from  the death of Marcus Aurelius, in
A.D. 180, to the accession of Decius, A.D. 249.  During
all this time Christianity was a great and powerful body,
exercising an important influence, and during a great part
of it Christians filled  high  civil and military positions.
The  hostility  manifested  towards them   began  now  to
1 Sulpicius Severus (who was himself a Gaul) says of their martyrdom
(It. B., lib. ii.),'Tunm primum intra Gallias 3Iartyria visa, serius trans
Alpes Dei religione suscepta.' Tradition ascribes Gallic Christianity to the
apostles, but the evidence of inscriptions appears to confirm the account of
S. Severus. It is at least certain that Christianity did not acquire a great
extension till later. The earliest Christian inscriptions found are (one of
each year) of A.D. 334, 347, 377, 405, and 409. They do not become common till the middle of the fifth century. See a full discussion of this in
the preface of M. Le Blant's admirable and indeed exhaustive work, Inscriptionzs cl7zetiennes de la Gacle.
2 It was alleged among the Christians, that towards the close of his
reign iMarcus Aurelius issued an edict protecting the Christians, on account
of a Christian legion having, in Germany, in a moment of great distress,
procured a shower of rain by their prayers. (Tert. Apol. 5.) The shower is
mentioned by Pagan as well as Christian writers, and is pourtrayed on the
column of Antoninus. It was' ascribed to the incantations of an Egyptian
nmagician, to the prayers of a legion of Christians, or to the favour of Jove
towards the best of mortals, according to the various prejudices of different
observers.' —Merivale's HIist. of Romie, vol. viii. p. 338.




THE COUN30VEPISI ON     OF ROM.NE.          471
assume a more political complexion than it had previously
done, except perhaps in the later years of Marcus Aurelius. The existence of a vast and rapidly increasing
corporation, very alien to the system of the empire, confronted every ruler.  Emperors like Commodus or leliogabalus were usually too immersed in selfish pleasures
to have any  distinct policy; but sagacious sovereigns,
sincerely desiring the well-being of the empire, either,
like Marcus Aurelius and Diocletian, endeavoured to repress the rising  creed, or, like Alexander Severus, and
at last Constantine, actively encouraged it. The measures
Marcus Aurelius  had  taken  against Christianity were
arrested  under  Commodus, whose  favourite  mistress,
Marcia, supplies one of the very few recorded instances of
female influence, which  has been the cause of so much
persecution, being exerted in behalf of toleration; i yet a
Christian philosopher named Apollonius, and at the same
time, by a curious retribution, his accuser, were in this
reign  executed at Rome.2  During the sixty-nine years
we are considering, the general peace of the Church was
only twice broken.  The first occasion was in the reign of
Septimus Severus, who was for some time very favourable
to the Christians, but who, in A.D. 202 or 203, issued an
edict, forbidding any Pagan to join the Christian or Jewish
faith; 3 and this edict was followed by a sanguinary perseI Xiphilin, lxxii. 4. The most atrocious of the Pagan persecutions were
attributed, as we shall see, to the mother of Galerius, and in Christian
times the Spanish Inquisition was founded by Isabella the Catholic; the
massacre of St. Bartholomew was chiefly due to Catherine of rMedicis, and
the most horrible English persecutions to Mary Tudor.
2 Euseb. v. 21. The accuser, we learn from St. Jerome, was a slave. On
the law condemning slaves who accused their masters, compare Pressens6,
Hi.st. des trois premiers Sibcles (2me s6rie), tome i. pp. 182-183, and Jereinie's
Cluzrch iHistory qf Second and Third Centuries, p. 29. Apollonius was of
senatorial rank. It is said that some other martyrs died at the same time,
3 6 Judoeos fieri sub gravi pcena vetuit. Idem etiam de Christianis sanxat.'




472          IIISTORY  OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
cution in Africa and Syria, in which the father of Origen,
and also St. Felicitas and St. Perpetua, perished. This
persecution does not appear to have extended to the west,
and was apparently rather the work of provincial governors, who interpreted  the Imperiall  edict as a sign of
hostility to the Christians, than the direct act of the emperor,l  who  issued  no  decree against Christians who
abstained  from  proselytising.  It is  worthy  of notice
that Origen  observed  that previous to  this time the
number of Christian martyrs had been very small.2  The
second persecution was occasioned  by the  murder of
Alexander Severus by Mlaximinus.  The usurper pursued
with great bitterness the leading courtiers of the deceased
emperor, among  whom  were some Christian  bishops,3
and about the same time severe earthquakes in Pontus
atnd Cappadocia produced the customary popular ebullitions.  But with  these  exceptions the  Christians were
undisturbed. Caracalla, Macrinus, and Heliogabalus took
no measures against them, while Alexander Severus, wvho
reigned for thirteen years, warmly and steadily supported
them.  A  Pagan historian assures us that this emperor
intended to build temples in honour of Christ, but was
dissuaded by the priests, who urged that all the other
temples would be deserted.  He venerated in his private
— Spartian. S. Severles. The persecution is described by Eusebius, lib. vi.
Tertullian says Severus was favourable to the Christians, a Christian named
Proculus (whom he, in consequence, retained in the palace till his death)
having cured him of an illness by the application of oil. (Ad Scapul. 4.)
1' Of the persecution under Severus there are few, if any, traces in the
west. It is confined to Syria, perhaps to Cappadocia, to Egypt, and to
Africa, and in the latter provinces appears as the act of hostile governors
proceeding upon the existing laws, rather than the consequence of any recent edict of the emperor.'-Milmau's Hist. of Chzristian. vol. ii. pp. ]56157.
2 Adv. Cels. iii. See Gibbon, ch. xvi.    s Eusebius, vi. 28.




THE CONVERSION OF ROMiE.            473
oratory the statues of Apollonius of Tyana, Abraham,
Orpheus, and Christ. He decreed that the provincial
governors should not be appointed till the people had
the opportunity of declaring any crime -they had committed, borrowing this rule avowedly from the procedure
of the Jews and Christians in electing their clergy; he
ordered the precept' Do not unto others what you would
not that they should do unto you' to'be engraven on the
palace and other public buildings, and he decided a dispute concerning a piece of ground which the Christians
had occupied, and which the owners of certain eatinghouses claimed, in favour of the former, on the ground
that the worship of a god should be most considered.'
Philip the Arab, who reigned during the last five years
of the period we are considering, was so favourable to
the Christians, that he was believed, thouYgh on no trustworthy evidence, to have been baptised.
We have now reviewed the history of the persecutions
to the year A.D. 249, or about two hundred years after
the planting of Christianity in Rome. We have seen that
although during that period much suffering was occasionally endured, and much heroism  displayed by the
Christians, there was, with the very doubtful. exception
of the Neronian persecution, no single attempt made to
suppress Christianity throughlout the empire.  Local persecutions of great severity had taken place at Smyrna
and Lyons, under lM~arcus Aurelius; in Africa and some
Asiatic provinces, under Severus; popular tumults, arising
in the excitement of the public games, or produced by
some earthquake or inundation, or by some calumnious
accusation, were not unfrequent; but there was at no time
that continuous, organised, and universal persecution by
1 Lampridius, A. Severezs. The historian adds, I Judeis privilegia reservavit. Christianos esse passus est'




4,4         HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
which, in later periods, ecclesiastical tribunals have again
and again suppressed opinions repugnant to their own;
and there was no part of the empire in which whole
generations did not pass away absolutely undisturbed.
No mnartyr had fallen in Gaul or in great part of Asia
Minor till Marcus Aurelius.  In Italy, after the death of
Nero, with the exception of some slight troubles under
Domlitian and Maximinus, probably due to causes altogether distinct from religion, there were, during the whole
period we are considering, only a few isolated instances of
martyrdom.  The bishops, as the leaders of the Church,
were the special objects of hostility, and several in different parts of the world had fallen; but it is extremely questionable whether any Roman bishop perished after the
apostolic age, till Fabianus was martyred under Decius.'
If Christianity was not formally authorised, it was, like
many other religions in a similar position, generally acquiesced in, and during a great part of the time we have
reviewed, its professors appear to have found no obstacles
to their preferment in the court or in the army. The
emperors were for the most part indifferent or favourable
to them.  The priests in the Pagan society had but little
influence, and do not appear to have taken any prominent
part in the persecution till near the time of Diocletian.
With the single exception of the Jews, no class held that
doctrine of the criminality of error which has been the
Compare Milmnan's History of Earl/y C0histianity (1867), vol. ii. p. 188,
and his History of Latin CGIristicaity (1867), vol. i. pp. 26-59. There are
only two cases of alleged martyrdom before this time that can excite any
reasonable doubt.  Irenmeus distinctly asserts that Telesphorus was martyred; but his martyrdom is put in the beginning of the reign of Antoninus
Pius (he had assumed the mitre near the end of the reign of Hadrian), and
Antoninus is represented, by the general voice of the Church, as perfectly free
from the stains of persecution. A tradition, which is in itself sufficiently
probable, states that Pontianus, having been exiled by Maximinus, was
killed in banishment.




THE CONVERSION OF ROMIE.                     475
parent of most modern persecutions; and although the
belief that great calamities were the result of neglecting
or insulting the gods furnished the Pagans with a religious motive for persecution, this motive only acted on
the occasion of some rare and exceptional catastrophe.1
In  Christian times, the first objects of the persecutor are
to control education, to prevent the publication of any
heterodox  works, to institute such a minute  police inspection as to make impossible the worship of the sect
he desires to suppress. But nothing of this kind was
attempted, or indeed was possible, in the period we are
considering. With the exception of the body-guard of
the emperor, almost the whole army, which was scarcely
half as large as the present army of France, was massed
along  the  vast frontier of  the  empire.   The  police
force was of the scantiest kind, sufficient only to keep
common order in the streets.  The Government had done
something to encourage, but absolutely nothing to control
education, and parents or societies were at perfect liberty
to educate the young as they pleased. The expansion of
literature, by reason of the facilities which slavery gave
to transcription, was very great, and it was for the most
part entirely uncontrolled.2   Augustus, it is true, had
Tacitus has, I thinlk, a very ingenious remark on this subject, which
illustrates happily the half-scepticism of the empire. After recounting a
number of prodigies that were said to have taklen place in the reign of Otho,
he remarls, that these were things habitually noticed in the ages of iknorance, but now only noticed in periods of terror.'Rudibus sieculis etiam
in pace observata, quse nune tantum in metu audiuntur.' —Hist. i. 86.
2 MI. de Champ1agny has devoted an extremely beautiful chapter (Les
Antonins, tome ii. pp. 179-200) to the liberty of the Roman Empire. See,
too, the fifty-fourth chapter of Mir. iMerivale's Iliostory. It is the custom
of some of the apologists for modern Cmsarism to defend it by pointing to
the Roman Empire as the happiest period in human history. No apology
can be more unfortunate. The first task of a modern despot is to central se
to the highest point, to bring every department of thought and action under
a system of police regulation, and, above all, to impose his shackling




476            HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
caused some volumes of forged  prophecies to  be burnt,'
and, under the  tyranny  of Tiberius  and Domitian, political writers  and  historians  who  eulogised  tyrannicide,
or vehemently opposed the empire, were persecuted; but
the extreme indignation  these  acts elicited  attests their
rarity, and  on  matters  unconnected  with  politics  the
liberty  of literature  was  absolute.2    In  a  word,  the
Church  proselytised in  a society in which toleration was
the  rule, and at a time when  municipal, provincial, and
personal independence  had  reached  the  higlhest point,
when the ruling classes were for the most part absolutely
indifferent to  religious  opinions, and when  an  unprecedented concourse of influences facilitated its progress.
tyranny upon the human mind.  The very perfection of the Rtoman Empire
was, that the municipal and personal liberty it admitted had never been
surpassed, and the intellectual liberty had never been equalled.
i Sueton. Aug. xxxi. It appears from a passage in Livy (xxxix. 16) that
books of oracles had been sometimes burnt in the republic.
2 Tacitus has given us a very remarkable account of the trial of Cremlutius Cordus, under Tiberius, for having published a history in which he had
praised Brutus and called Cassius the last of Romans.  (Annal. iv. 3435.)  HIe expressly terms this'novo ac tunc  primum audito crimine,' aln
he puts a speech in the mouth of the accused, describing the liberty previously accorded to writers. Cordus avoided execution by suicide.  His
daughter, Mcarcia, preserved some copies of his worl, and published it in the
reign and with the approbation of Caligula.  (Senec. Ad Marc. 1; Suet.
Calic. 16.)  There aie, however, some traces of an earlier persecution of
letters. Under the sanction of a law of the deceimvirs against libellers,
Augustus exiled the satiric writer Cassius Severus, and he also destroyed
the works of an historian named Labienus, on account of their seditious sentiments.  These writings were republished with those of Cordus.  Generally, however, Augustus was very magnanimous in his dealings with his
assailants. He refused the request of Tiberius to punish them (Suet. Autg.
51), ancl only excluded from his palace Timagenes, -who bitterly satirised
both him and the empress, and proclaimed himself everywhere the enemy
of the emperor.  (Senec. -De Ira, iii. 23.)  A similar mnagnanimity was
shown by most of the other emperors; among others, by Nero.  (Suet.
rexro, 39.)  Under Vespasian, however, a poet, named  Maternus, was
obliged to retouch a tragedy on Cato (Tacit. De Or. 2-3), and Domitian
allowed no writings opposed to his policy.  (Tacit. Agric.)  No attempt,
however, appears to have been made in the empire to control religious




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                      477
WhILen we reflect that these were the circumstances of
the Church till the middle of the third century,'we may
readily perceive the absurdity of maintaining that Christianity was propagated in the face of such a fierce and
continuous persecution that no opinions could have survived it without a miracle, or of arguing from  the history
of the early Church that persecution never has any real
efficacy in suppressing truth.  When, in addition to the
circumstances under which it operated, we consider the
unexampled means both of attraction and of intimidation
that were possessed by the Church, we can have no clfficulty in understanding  that it should have acquired a
magnitude that -Would  enable it to  defy the far more
serious assaults it was still destined to endure.  That it
had acquired this extension we have abundant evidence.
The language I have  quoted from  Lactantius is but a
feeble echo of the emphatic statements of writers before
the Decian  persecution.l'There  is nlo  race of men,
whether Greek or barbarian,' said Justin Martyr,' among
whom prayers and thanks are not offered up in thle hame
of the crucified.' 2' We are but of yesterday,' cried Tertullian,  and we fill all your cities, islands, forts, councils,
even the camps themselves, the tribes, the decuries, the
palaces, the  senate, and  the forum.' 3   Eusebius has
writings till the persecution of Diocletian, who ordered the Scriptures to be
burnt.  The example was speedily followed by the Christian emperors.
The writings of Arius were burnt in A.D. 321, those of Porphyry in A.D.
388. Pope Galasius, in A.D. 496, drew up a list of books which should not
be read, and all liberty of publication speedily became extinct. See on
this subject Peignot, Essai historique su-r la Liberte d'crire; Villemain,
lEtucles de Littedr. ancienne; Sir C. Lewis on the Credibility of:Roman Hist.
vol. i. p. 52; Nadal, M6nzoihe sur la liberte' qu'avoient les soldats roomains
de dire des vers styriqtues contre ceu.r qui tiriomploient. (Paris, 1725.): See a collection of passages on this point in Pressens6, Hist. des trois
premiers Sibcles (2me sdrie), tome i. pp. 3-4.
2 Trypho.                               Apol. Xxxvii.




478          HISTORY  OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
preserved a letter of Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, contain.
ing a catalogue of the officers of his Church at the time
of the Decian persecution. It consisted of one bishop,
forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, seven subdeacons,
forty-two acolytes, fifty-two  exorcists, readers, and janitors.   The  Church  also  supported  more  than  fifteen
hundred widows, and poor or suffering persons.l
The Decian persecution, which broke out in A.D. 249,
and was probably begun in hopes of restoring the empire
to its ancient discipline, and eliminating from it all extraneous and unpatriotic influences,2 is the first example
of a deliberate attempt, supported by the whole machinery
of provincial government, and extended over the entire
surface of the empire, to extirpate Christianity from  the
world.  It would be difficult to find language too strong
to paint its horrors.  The ferocious instincts of the populace, that were long repressed, burst out anew, and they
were not only permitted, but encouraged by the rulers.
Far worse than  the  deaths which  menaced those who
shrank from  the idolatrous sacrifices, were the hideous
and prolonged tortures by which  the magistrates often
sought to subdue the constancy of the martyr, the nameless outrages that were sometimes inflicted on the Christian virgin.3  The  Church, enervated  by a long  peace,' Euseb. vi. 43.
2 Eusebius, it is true, ascribes this persecution (vi. 39) to the hatred
Decius bore to his predecessor Philip, who was very friendly to the Christians, But although such a motive might account for a persecution lile
that of Maximin, which was directed chiefly against the bishops who had
been about the court of Severus, it is insufficient to account for a persecution as general and as severe as that of Decius. It is remarlable that
this emperor is uniformly represented by- the Pagan historians as an eminently wise and humane sovereign. See l)odwell, De Paucitate Mlartyrum, lii.
3 St. CyprianI (P7p. vii.) and, at a later period, St. Jerome (Fit. Papuli),
both notice that during this persecution the desire of the persecutors was
to subdue the constancy of the Christians by torture, without gratifying
their desire for martsyrdomn. The consignment of Christian virgins to houses




THE CONVERSION  OF ROME.                    479
and  deeply infected with the vices of the age, tottered
beneath the  blow.   It had long since arrived at the
periocl when men were Christians not by conviction, but
througli family relationship; when  the  more  opulent
Christians vied in luxury with th.e Pagans among   whom
they mixed, and when  even the bishops, in many instances, were worldly aspirants after civil offices.  It is
not, therefore, surprising that the defection was very large.
The Pagans marked with  triumphant ridicule, and the
fathers with a burning indignation, the thousands who
throngced  to  the altars  at the  first commencement of
persecution, the sudden collapse of the most illustrious
churches, the eagerness with which the offer of provincial governors to  furnish  certificates of apostasy, without exacting a compliance with the conditions whlich those
certificates attested, was accepted by multitudes.1   The
question whether those who abandoned the faith should
afterwards be readmitted to communion, became the chief
question that divided the Novatians, and it was one of
the questions that divided the Montanists from  the Catholics, while the pretensions of the confessors to furnish
indulgences, remitting  the  penances imposed  by  the
bishops, led to a conflict in which St. Cyprian victoriously represented the latter, and which contributed very
largely to establish the  undisputed  ascendancy of the
Episcopacy. But the Decian persecution, though  it exhiof ill famne was one of the most common incidents in the later acts of
martyrs which were invented in the middle ages. Unhappily, however,
it must be acknowledged that there are some undoubted traces of it at an
earl.er date. Tertullian, in a famous passage, speaks of the cry   Ad
Lenonem' as substituted for that of'Ad Leonem;' and St. Ambrose
recounts some strange stories on this subject in his treatise De Firginibus.
St. Cyprian has drawn a very highly coloured picture of this general
corruption, and of the apostasy it produced, in his treatise De Lapsis, a, most
interesting picture of the society of his time., See) too, thei/oe of St. Gregory
Thaumaturgus, by Greg. of Nlyssa.
32




480           IIISTORY  OF EUROPEAN  MIORALS.
bits tle Church  in a somewhat less noble attitude than
those which preceded and which followed it, was adorned
by many examples of extreme courage and devotion, displayed in  not a few  cases by those who were physically
among the  frailest of mankind.   It was of a kind  eminently fitted  to crush  the  Church.   Had  it taken  place
at an earlier period, had it been  continued  for a long
succession  of years, Christianity, without a miracle, must
have perished.  But the Decian persecution fell upon a
Church which had existed for two centuries, and it lasted
less than  two  years.l  Its intensity varied  much  in  different provinces.   In  Alexandria  and  the neighbouring
towns, where a popular tumult had  anticipated the menaces of the Government, it was extremely horrible.2   In
Carthage, at first, the proconsul being  absent, no capital
sentence was passed, but on the arrival of that functionary,
the penalty of death, accompanied by dreadfutl tortures,
was substituted for those of exile or imprisonment.3   The
rage of the people  was especially  directed  against the
L'La persecution de Dkce ne dura qu'environ un an dans sa grande
violence. Car S. Cyprien, dans les lettres 6crites en 251, das devant Pasque,
et mesme dans quelques-unes 6crites apparemment des la fin de 250,
t6moigne que son 6glise jouissoit deja de quelque paix, mais d'une paix
encore peu affermie, en sorte que le moindre accident eust pu renouveler
le trouble et la persecution. 11 semble mesme que l'on n'eust pas encore
la libert6 d'y tenir les assembldes, et nganmoins il paroist que tous les confesseurs prisonniers a Carthage y avoient est6 mis en libert6 des ce tempsl.' —Tillemont, Mifnm. d'Tist. ecclesiastique, tome iii. p. 324.
2 Dionysius the bishop wrote a full account of it, which Eusebius has
preserved (vi. 41-42). In Alexandria, Dionysius says, the persecution produced by popular fanaticism  preceded the edict of Decius by an entire
year. He has preserved a particular catalogue of all who were put to death
in Alexandria during the entire Decian persecution. They were seventeen
persons. Several of these were hilled by the mob, and their deaths were
in nearly all cases accompanied by circumstances of extreme atrocity.
Besides these, others (we know not how many) had been put to torture,
3Many, Iionyisius says, perishedl in other cities or villages of Egypt.
s See St. Cyprian, Ep. viii.




THE CONVERSION OF PiOME.                         481
bishop St. Cyprian, who  prudently retired till the storm
had past.1   In general, it was observed that the object of
the  rulers was much  less to  slay than  to vanquish  the
Christians.  IHorrible tortures were continually employed
to  extort an  apostasy, and when  those tortures proved
vain, great numbers were ultimately released.
The Decian persecution is remarkable in Christian archmology as being, it is believed, the first occasion in which
the Christian catacombs were violated.   These vast subterranean corridors, lined with tombs and expanding very
frequently into small chapels adorned with paintings, often
of no mean beauty, had for a long period been an inviolable  asylum   in  seasons  of persecution.   The  extreme
sanctity which the Romans were accustomed to attach to
the place of burial repelled the profane, antd as early, it is
said, as the very  beginning  of the  third  century, the
catacombs were recognised  as legal possessions of the
Church.    The Roman legislators, however unfavourable
1 There was mauch controversy at this time as to the propriety of bishops
evading persecution by flight. The AMontanists maintained that such a
conduct was equivalent to apostasy. Tertullian had written a book, -De
Fgtca Persecutione, maintaining this view; and among the orthodox, the
conduct of St. Cyprian (who afterwards nobly attested his courage by his
death) did not escape animadversion.  The more moderate opinion prevailedl, but the leading bishops found it necessary to support their conduct
by declaring that they had received special revelations exhorting them
to fly.i St. Cyprian, who constantly appealed to his dreams to justify himl
in his controversies (see some curious instances collected in 3Middleton's
Free Enquiry, pp. 101-105), declared (Ep. ix.), and his biographer and
friend Pontius reasserted (Vii. Cyprianis), that his flight was'by the
command of God.' 1)ionysius, the Bishop of Alexandria, asserts the same
thing of his own flight, and attests it by an oath (see his own words in
-Euseb. vi. 40); and the same thing was afterwards related of St. Gregory
Thaumaturgus.  (See his Life by Gregory of Nyssa.)
2' E veramente che almeno fineo dal secolo terzo i fedeli abbiano posseduto
cimiteri a nome commune, e che il loro possesso sia stato riconosciuto dagl' imperatori, e cosa impossibile a ne gare.' —Rossi,.Romna Sotterranea, tomeo L
p. 103.




482          HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
to the formation of guilds or associations, made an exception in favour of burial societies, or associations of men
subscribing a certain  sum  to ensure to each  member
a decent burial in ground which belonged to the corporation.  The Church is believed to have availed itself of
this privilege, and to hbave attained, in this capacity, a
legal existence. The tombs, which were originally the properties of distinct families, became in this manner all
ecclesiastical domain, and the catacombs were, froln perhaps the first, made something more than places of burial.1
The chapels with which they abound, and which are of
the  smallest dimensions and  utterly unfit for general
worship, were probably mortuary chapels, and may have
also been employed in the services commllemorating the
martyrs, while the ordinary worship was probably at first
conducted in the private houses of the Christians.  The
decision  of Alexander Severus, which I have already
noticed, is the earliest notice we possess of the existence
of buildings specially devoted to the Christian services;
but we cannot tell how  long before this time they may
have existed in Rome.2  In serious persecution, however,
they would doubtless have to be abandoned; and as a last
resort, the catacombs proved a refuge from the persecutors.
The reign of Decius only lasted about two years, and
before its close, the persecution had almost ceased.3  On
the accession of his son Ga.llus, in the last nmonth of A.D.
251, there was for a short time perfect peace; but Gallus
resumed the persecutiol. in the spring of the following
1 This is all fully discussed by Rossi, nzoma Sotterrnea, tomo i. pp. 101108. Rossi thinks the Church, in its capacity of burial society, whs known
by the name of' ecclesia fratrum.'
2 See, on the history of early Christian churches, Cave's.Primitive Chl'istianitny, part i. c. vi. 
3 I)odwell (De l'aucit. Martylr. lvii.) has collected evidence of the subsilence of the persecution in the last year of the reign of Decius.




THE CONVERSION  OF ROME.                       483
year, and  althoucgh  apparently  not very severe, or very
general, it seems to have continued till his death, which
took place a year after.'  Two Roman  islhops, Cornelius,
who  had  succeeded the martyred Fabianus, and his successor Lucius, were at this time put to  death.    Valerian, who ascended the throne A.D. 254, at first not only
tolerated, but warmly  patronised  the  Christians,  and
attracted  so many to his court, that his house, in the
language of a contemporary, appeared'the church of the
Lord.' 3  But after rather more than four years his disposition  changed.  At the  persuasion, it is said, of an
Egyptian magician, named Macrianus, he signed in A.D.
258 an edict of persecution condemning Christian  ecclesiastics and  senators to  death, and  other Christians to
exile, or to the forfeiture of their property, and prohibiting
them  from  entering the catacombs.4   A  sanguinary  and
This persecution is not noticed by St. Jerome, Orosius, Sulpicius
Severus, or Lactantius. The very little we know about it is derived from
the letters of St. Cyprian, and from a short notice by Dionysius of Alexandria, in Eusebius, vii. 1. Dionysius says, Gallus began the persecution when
his reign was advancing prosperously, and his affairs succeeding, which
probably means, after he had procured the departure of the Goths from
the Illyrian province, early in A.D. 252 (see Gibbon, chap. x.). The disastrous position into which affairs had been thrown by the defeat of Decius
appears, at first, to have engrossed his attention.
2 Lucius was at first exiled and then permitted to return, on which occasion St. Cyprian wrote him a letter of congratulation (Ep. lvii.). He was,
however, afterwards rearrested and slain, but it is not, I think, clear
whether it was under Gallus or Valerian. St. Cyprian speaks (Ep. lxvi.) of
both Cornelius and Lucius as martyred. The emperors were probably at
this time beginning to realise the power the Bishops of Rome possessed.
We know hardly anything of the IDecian persecution at Rome except the
execution of the bishop; and St. Cyprian says (Ep-. li.) that Decius would
have preferred a competitor to the throne to a Bishop of Rome.
3 Dionysius, Archbishop of Alexandria; see Euseb. vii. 10.
4 Eusebius, vii. 10-12; Cyprian, PEp. lxxxi. Lactantius says of Valerian,' Maltum  quamvis brevi tempore justi sanguinis fudit.' —De Mort.
Persee.. v.




484        HIISTORP  OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
general persecution ensued.  Among the victims were
Sixtus, the Bishop of Rome, who perished in the Catacombs,l  and Cyprian, who was exiled, and afterwards
beheaded, and was the first Bishop of Carthage who
suffered martyrdom.2  At last, Valerian  having been
captured by the Persians, Gallienus, in A.D. 260, ascended
the throne, and immediately proclaimed a perfect toleration of the Christians.3
The period from the accession of Decius, in A.D. 249, to
the accession of Gallienus, in A.D. 260, which I have now
very briefly noticed, was by far the most disastrous the
Church had yet endured.  With the exception of about
five years in the reigns of Gallus and Valerian, the persecution'was continuous, thoughl it varied much in its
intensity and its range.  During the first portion, if
measured not by the number of deaths, but by the
atrocity of the tortures inflicted, it was probably as severe
as any upon record. It was subsequently directed chiefly
against the leading clergy, and, as we have seen, four Romanl bishops perished.  In addition to the political reasons
that inspired it, the popular fanaticism caused by great
calamities, which were ascribed to the anger of the gods
at the neglect of their worship, had in this as in former
periods a great influence. Political disasters, which foreshadowed clearly the approaching downfal of the empire,
were followed by fearful and general famines and plagues.
St. Cyprian, in a treatise addressed to one of the persecutors
who was most confident in ascribing these things to the
Christians, presents us with an extremely curious picture
both of the general despondency that had fallen upon the
empire, and of the manner in which these calamities were
1 Cyprian, Ep. lxxxi.
See his Iife by the deacon Pontius, which is reproduced by Gibbon.
3 Eusebius, vii. 13.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                  485
regarded by the Christians.  Like most of his co-religionists, the saint was convinced that the closing scene of the
earth was at hand.  The decrepitude of the world, he said,
had arrived, the forces of nature were almost exhausted, the
sun had no longer its old lustre, or the soil its old fertility,
the spring time had grown less lovely; and the autumn
less bounteous, the energy of man had decayed, and all
things were hastening rapidly to the end.  Famines and
plagues were the precursors of the day  of judgment.
They were sent to warn and punish a rebellious world,
vwhich, still bowingc down before idols, persecuted the
believers in the truth.' So true is this, that the Christians are never persecuted without the sky manifesting
at once the Divine displeasure.'  The conception of a converted empire never appears to have flashed across the
mind of the saint;1 the only triuinph he predicted for the
Church was that of another world; arid to the threats of
the persecutors he rejoined by fearful menaces.'A burnincg, scorching fire will for ever torment those who are condemned; there will be no respite or end to their torments.
We shall through eternity contemplate in their agonies
those who for a short time contemplated us in tortures,
and for the brief pleasure which the barbarity of our
persecutors took inlfeasting their eyes upon an inhuman
spectacle, they will be themselves exposed as an eternal
spectacle of agony.' As a last warning, calamity after
calamity broke upon the world, and with the solemnity
of one on whom the shadow of death' had already fallen,
St. Cyprian adjured the persecutors to repent and to be
saved.2
1 Tertullian had before, in a curiouis passage, spoken of the impossibility
of Christian Caesars.'Sed et Cesares credidissent super Christo si anut
Ceesares non essent seculo necessarii, aut si et Christiani potuissent esse
Czesares.' —Apol. xxi.
2 Contsra Demetrianum.




HIISTOR~Y OF EUROPEAN  JMOORALS.
The accession of Gallienus introduced the Church to a
new period of perfect peace, which with a single inconsiderable exception  continued  for no less than  forty
years.  The exception was furnished by Aurelian, who
during nearly the whole of his reign had been exceedingly
favourable to the Christians, and had even been appealed
to by the orthodox bishops, who desired him to expel from
Antioch a prelate they had excommunicated for heresy,'
but who, at the close of his reign, intended to persecute.
He was assassinated, however, according to one account,
when he was just about to sign the decrees, according
to another, before they had been  sent through  the
provinces; and if any persecution actually took place, it
was altogether inconsiderable.2  Christianity, during all
this time, was not only perfectly free, it was also greatly
honoured.  Christians were appointed Governors of the
provinces, and were expressly exonerated from  the duty
of sacrificing.   The bishops were treated by the  civil
authorities  with  profound  respect.   The  palaces  of
the emperor were filled with Christian servants, who
were authorised freely to profess their religion, and were
greatly valued for their fidelity.  The popular prejudice
seems to have been lulled to rest; and it has been noticed
that the rapid progress of the faith excited no tumult
or  iostility.  Spacious churches were erected in every
quarter, and they could scarcely contain the multitude of
worshippers.3  In Rome itself, before the outburst of the
Diocletian persecution, there were no less than forty
churches.4  The Christians may  still have been  out1 Eusebius, vii. 30. Aurelian decided tlhat the cathedral at Antioch
should be given up to whoever was appointed by the bishops of Italy.
2 Co0mpare the accounts in Eusebius, vii. 30, and Lactantius, De M1ort.
c. vi.
3 See the forcible and very candid description of Eusebius, viii. 1.
4 This is noticed by Optatus.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.              487
numbered by the Pagans; but when we consider their
organisation, their zeal, and their rapid progress, a speedy
triumph appeared inevitable.
But before that triumph was to be achieved, a last and
a terrific ordeal was to be undergone. Diocletian, whose
name has been somewhat unjustly associated with a
persecution the responsibility of which belongs far more
to his colleague Galerius, having left the Christians in
perfect peace for nearly eighteen years, suffered himself
to be persuaded to make one more effort to eradicate the
foreign creed. This emperor, who had risen by his
merits from the humblest position, exhibited in all the
other actions of his reign a moderate, placable, and
conspicuously humane nature, and although he greatly
magnified the Imperial authority, the simplicity of his
private life, his voluntary abdication, and, above all, his
singularly noble conduct during many years of retirement,
displayed a rare magnanimity of character. As a politician,
lie deserves, I think, to rank very high. Unlike Antoninus
and Marcus Aurelius, who were too fascinated by the
traditions of the republic, and by the austere teaching
and retrospective spirit of the Stoics, to realise the
necessity of adapting institutions to the wants of a
luxurious and highly civilised people, and who therefore
had little permanent influence upon the destinies of the
empire, Diocletian invariably exhibited in his legislation
a far-seeing and comprehensive mind, well aware of the
condition of the society lhe ruled, and provident of distant
events. Perceiving that Roman corruption was incurable,
lie attempted to regenerate the empire by creating new
centres of political life in the great and comparatively
unperverted capitals of the provinces; and Nicomedia,
which was his habitual residence, Carthage, Milan, and
Ravenna, all received abundant tokens of his favour.




483       IHISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
He swept away or disregarded the obsolete and inefficient institutions of republican liberty that still remained,
and indeed gave his government a somewhat Oriental
character; but, at the same time, by the bold, and, it
miust be admitted, very perilous measure of dividing the
empire into four sections, he abridged the power of each
ruler, ensured the better supervision and increased authority of the provinces, and, what was still more important,
devised the first effectual check to those military revolts
which had for some time been threatening the empire
with anarchy.  With the same energetic statesmanship,
we find him re-organising the whole system of taxation,
and attempting, less wisely, to regulate conimmercial transactions.  To such an emperor, the problem presented by
the rapid progress and -the profoundly anti-national character of Christianity must have been a matter of serious
consideration, and the weaknesses of his character were
most unfavourable to the Church; for Diocletian, with.
many noble qualities of heart and head, was yet superstitious, tortuous, nervous, and vacillating, and was too
readily swayed by the riude and ferocious soldier, who
was impetuously inciting him'agfainst the Christians.
The extreme passion  which  Galerius displayed on
this subject is ascribed, in the first instance, to the influence of his mother, who was ardently devoted to
the Pagan worship.  He is himself painted in dark
colours by the Christian writers as a man of boundless
and unbridled sensuality, of an imperiousness that rose
to fury at opposition, and of a cruelty which had long
passed the stage of callousness, and become a fiendish
delight, in the infliction and contemplation of suffering.'
His strong attachlment to Paganism made him at length
1 See the vivid pictures in Lact. De Mlfort. Persec.




TtIE CONVERSION OF RIOME.             486
the avowed representative of his party, which several
causes had contributed to strengthen.  The philosophy
of the empire had by this time fully passed into its Neoplatonic and Pythagorean phases, and was closely connected with religious observances.  Hierocles and Porphyry, who were among its most eminent exponents, had
both written books against Christianity, and the Oriental
religions fostered much fanaticism among the people.
Political interests united with superstition, for the Christians were now  a very formidable body in the State.
Their interests were supposed to be represented by the
Cesar Constantius Chlorus, and the religion was either
adopted, or at least warmly favoured, by the wife and
daunghter of Diocletian, (the latter of whom was married to Galerius,l) and openly professed by some of the
leading officials at the court.  A  magnificent church
crowned the hill facing the palace of the emperor at
Nicomedia.  The bishops were, in most cities, among the
most active and influential citizens, and their influence
was not always exercised for good.  A few cases, in whichl
an ill-considered zeal led Christians to insult the Pagan
worship, one or two instances of Christians refusing to
serve in the army, because they believed military life
repugnant to their creed, a scandalous relaxation of
morals, that had arisen during the long peace, and the
fierce and notorious discord displayed by the leaders of
the Churcl, contributed in different ways to accelerate
the persecution.2
For a considerable time Diocletian resisted all the
urgency of Galerius against the Christians, and the only
measure taken was the dismissal by the latter sovereign
of a number of Christian officers from  the army.  In
I Lactant. BDe Mort. Persec. 15.  1 Eusebius, viii.




490        HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORlALS.
A.D. 303, however, Diocletian yielded to the entreaties
of his colleague, and a fearful persecution, which many
circumstances conspired to stimulate, began.  The priests,
in one of the public ceremonies, had declared that the
presence of Christians prevented the entrails from showing
the accustomed signs.  The oracle of Apollo, at Miletus,
being consulted by Diocletian, exhorted him to persecute
the Christians.  A  fanatical Christian, who avowed his
deed and expiated it by a fearful death, tore down the
first edict of persecution, and replaced it by a bitter taunt
against the emperor.  Twice, after the outburst of the
persecution, the palace:at Nicomedia, where Diocletian
and Galerius were residing, was set on fire, and the act
was ascribed, not without probability, to a Christian hand,
as were also some slight disturbances that afterwards
arose in Syria.'  Edict after edict followed in rapid succession.  The first ordered the destruction of all Christian churches and of all Bibles, menaced with death the
Christians if they assembled in secret for divine worship,
and deprived them  of all civil rights.  A second edict
ordered all ecclesiastics to be thrown into prison, while a
third edict ordered that these prisoners, and a fourth
edict that all Christians, should be' compelled by torture
to sacrifice.  At first Diocletian refused to permit their
lives to be taken, but after the fire at Nicomedia this
restriction was removed. Many were burnt alive, and
the tortures by which the persecutors sought to shake
their resolution were so dreadful that even such a death
seemed an act of mnercy. The only province of the
empire where the Christians were at peace was Gaul,
which had received its baptism  of blood under Marcus
Aurelius, but was now governed by Constantius Chlorus,
1 These incidents are noticed by Eusebius in his History, and in his /ife
of Constantine, and by Lactantius, De Mortibus Peersee.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                   491
who protected them  from  personal molestation, though
he  was compelled, in  obedience  to  the  emperor, to
destroy their churches.  In Spain, which was also under
the government, but not under the direct inspection, of
Constantius, the persecution was moderate, but in all
other parts of the empire it raged with fierceness till the
abdication of Diocletian in 305, which almost immediately
restored peace to the western provinces,1 but greatly
aggravated the misfortunes of the Eastern Christians, who
passed under the absolute rule of Galerius. Horrible,
varied, and prolonged tortures were employed to quell
their fortitude, and their final resistance was crowned by
the most dreadful of all deatlas, roasting over a slow fire.
It was not till A.D. 311, eight years after the commencement of the general persecution, ten years after the first
measure  against the Christians, that the Eastern persecution ceased. Galerius, the arch-enemy of the Christians, was struck down by a fearful disease.  His body
became a mass of loathsome, mortifying, and foetid sores
-a living corpse, devoured by countless worms, and exhaling the odour of the charnel-house.   He who had
shed so much  innocent blood shrank  himself from  a
Roman death.  In his extreme anguish he appealed in
turn to physician after physician, and to temple after
temple. At last ]he relented towards the Christians. HIe
issued a proclamation restoring them  to liberty, permitting them  to rebuild their churches, and asking their
prayers for his recovery.2  The era of persecution now
1'Italy, Sicily, Gaul, and whatever parts extend towards the WVest, —
Spain, Mauritania, and Africa.'-Euseb. llfort. Palest. ch. xiii.  But in
Gaul, as I have said, the persecution had not extended beyond the destruction of churches; in these provinces the persecution, Eusebius says, lasted
not quite two years.
2 The history of this persecution is given by Eusebius, ist. lib. viii., in
his work on the 3clartyrs of Pealestine, and in Lactantius, De Mort. Persec.




~92a       IHISTORY OF EUR.OPEAN MORALS.
closed.   One brief spasml  indeed, due to  the  Cxsar
Maximian, shot through the long afflicted Church of Asia
Minor;  but it was rapidly allayed.  The accession of
Constantine, the proclamation of lilan, A.D. 313, the
defeat of Licinius, and the conversion of the conqueror,
speedily followed, and Christianity became the religion of
the empire.
Such, as far as we can trace it, is the outline of the
last and most terrible persecution inflicted on the early
Church.   Unfortunately we can place little reliance on
any information we possess about the number of its
victims, the provocations that produced it, or the objects
of its authors.  The ecclesiastical account of these matters
is absolutely unchecked by any Pagan statement, and it
is derived almost exclusively from the history of Eusebius,
and from the treatise' On the Deaths of the Persecutors,'
whicll is ascribed to Lactantius.  Eusebius was a writer
of great learning, and of critical abilities not below the
very low level of his time, and he had personal knowlecdge of some of the events in Palestine which he has
recorded; but he had no pretensions whatever to impartiality. He has frankly told us that his principle in writing
history was to conceal the facts that were injurious to the
reputation of the Church;2 and although his practice was
sometimes better than his principles, the portrait he has
drawn of the saintly virtues of his patron Constantine,
which we are able to correct from  other sources, abundantly proves with how  little scruple the courtly bishop
The persecution in Palestine was not quite continuous; in A.D. 308 it had
almost ceased; it then revived fiercely, but at the close of A.D. 309, and in
the beginning of A.D. 310, there was again a short lull, apparently diue to
political causes. See Mlosheimn Eccles. HTist. (edited by Soames), vol. i. pp.
286-287.
I Eusebitus.
2 See two passages, which Gibbon justly calls remarkable. (H. F. viii. 2;
Martyrs of Palest. ch. xii.)




THE CONVERSION OF ROMEE.                    493
could stray into the paths of fiction. The treatise of Lactantius, which has been well termed'a party pamphlet,'
is much more untrustworthy.  It is a hymn of exultation
over the disastrous ends of the persecutors, and especially
of Galerius, written in a strain of the fiercest and most
passionate invective, and bearing on every page unequivocal signs of inaccuracy and exaggeration.  The whole
history of the early persecution was soon enveloped in a
thick cloud of falsehood.  A  notion, derived from  prophecy, that ten great persecutions must precede the day
of judgment, at an early period stimulated the imagination
of the Christians, who believed that day to be imminent;
and it was natural that as time rolled on men should
magnify the sufferings that had been endured, and that
in credulous and uncritical ages a single  real incident
should be often multiplied, diversified, and exaggerated
in many distinct narratives.  Monstrous fictions, such as
the crucifixion of ten thousand Christians upon AMount
Ararat under Trajan, the letter of Tiberianus to Trajan,
complaining  that he was weary  of ceaselessly  killing
Christians in Palestine, and the Theban legion  of six
thousand men, said to have been massacred by Maximilian,
were boldly propagated and readily believed.'  The virtue
supposed to attach to  the  bones of martyrs, and  the
custom, and, after a decree of the second Council of Nice,
in the eighth century, the obligation, of placing saintly
1 There is one instance of a wholesale massacre which appears to rest on
good authority. Eusebius asserts that, during the Diocletian persecution, a
village in Phbrygia, the name of which he does not mention, being inhabited
entirely by Christians who refused to sacrifice, was attacked and burnt
with all that were in it by the Plagan soldiery. Lactantius (Inst. Div. v.
11) confines the conflagration to a. church in which the entire population
was burnt; and an early Latin translation of Eusebius states that the people
were first summoned to withdraw, but refused to do so. Gibbon (ch. xvi.)
thinks that this tragedv took place when the decree of Diocletian ordered
the destruction of the churches.




494       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIORALS.
remains under every altar, led to an immense multiplication of spurious relics, and a corresponding demand for
legends. Almost every hamlet soon required a patron
martyr and a local legend, which the nearest monastery
was usually ready to supply.  The monks occupied their
time in composing and disseminating innumerable acts of
martyrs, which purported to be strictly historical, but
which were, in fact, deliberate, though it was thought
edifying, forgeries, and pictures of hideous tortures, enlivened by fantastic miracles, soon became the favourite
popular literature. To discriminate accurately the genuine
acts of martyrs from the immense mass that were fabricated by the monks, has been attempted by Ruinart, but
is perhaps impossible.  Modern criticism has, however,
done much to reduce the ancient persecutions to their
true dimensions.  The famous essay of Dodwell, which
appeared towards the close of the seventeenth century,
though written, I think, a little in the spirit of a special
pleader, and not free from its own exaggerations, has had
a great and abiding influence upon ecclesiastical history,
and the still more famous chapter which Gibbon devoted
to the subject rendered the conclusions of Dodwell familiar
to the world.
Notwithstanding the great knowledge and critical acumen displayed in this chapter, few persons, I imagine,
can rise from its perusal without a feeling both of repulsion and dissatisfaction. The complete absence of all sympathy with the heroic courage manifested by the martyrs,
and the frigid and, in truth, most unphilosophical severity
with which the historian has weighed the words and
actions of men engaged in the agonies of a deadly struggle,
must repel every generous nature, while the persistence
with which lie estimates persecutions by the number of
deaths rather than by the amount of suffering, diverts




TIHE CONVERSION OF ROME.                    405
the mind from  the  really  distinctive  atrocities  of the
Pa.gan persecutions.  He has observed, that while the
anger of the persecutors was at all times especially directed
against the bishops, Nwe know  from  Eusebius that only
nine bishops were put to death in the entire Diocletian
persecution, and that the particular enumeration, which
the historian made on the spot, of all the martyrs who
perished during this persecution in Palestine, which was
under the government of Galerius, and was therefore
exposed to the full fury of the storm, shows the entire
number to have been  ninety-two.  Starting  from  this
fact, Gibbon, by a well-known process of calculation, has
estimated the probable number of martyrs in the whole
empire, during the Diocletian persecution, at about two
thousand, which happens to be the number of persons
burnt by the Spanish Inquisition during the presidency of
Torquemadca alone,' and about one twenty-fifth of the
number who are said to have suffered for their religion in
the Netherlands in the reign of Charles V.2 But'although,
if measured by the number of martyrs, the persecutions
inflicted by Pagans were less terrible than those inflicted
by Christians, there is one aspect in which the former
appear by far the more atrocious, and a truthful historian should suffer no false delicacy to prevent him  from
unflinchingly stating  it.  The conduct of the provincial
governors,  even when they were compelled by the Imperial edicts to persecute, was often conspicuously merciful.
M1 ariana (,De Rebus; Ilispaninc, xxiv. 17). Llorente thought this number perished in the single year 1482; but the expressions of Mariana,
though he speaks of'this beginning,' do not necessarily imply this restriction. Besides these martyrs, 17,000 persons in Spain recanted, and endured
punishments less than death, while great numbers fled. There does not
appear to have been, in, this case, either the provocation or the political
damnger which stimulated the Diocletian persecution.
2 This is according to the calculation of Sarpi. Grotius estimates the
%victims at 100,000i-G.ibbon,. cl. xvi.
33




406       HIISTORY OF EUROPEAN MIOPRALS.
The Christian records contain several examples of rulers
who refused to search out the Christians, who discountenanced or even punishel their accusers, who suggested ingenious evasions of the law, who tried by earnest
and patient kindness to overcome what they regarded as
insane obstinacy, and who, when their efforts had proved
vain, mitigated by their own authority the sentence they
were compelled to pronounce.  It was only on very rare
occasions that any, except conspicuous leaders of the
Church, and sometimes persons of a servile condition,
were in danger; the time that was conceded them before
their trials gave them great facilities for escaping, and
even when condemned, Christian women had usually full
permission to visit them  in their prisons, and to console
them by their charity.  But on the other hand, Christian
writings, which it is impossible to dispute, continually
record barbarities inflicted upon converts, so ghastly and
so hideous that the worst horrors of the Inquisition pale
before them.  It is indeed true that burning heretics by
a slow lfire was one of the accomplishments of the inquisitors, and that they were among the most consummate
masters of torture of their age.  It is true that in one
Catholic country they introduced the atrocious custom
of making the spectacle of men burnt alive for their
religious opinions an element in the public festivities.l
It is true, too, that the immense majority of the acts of
the martyrs are the transparent forgeries of lying monks;
but it is also true that among the authentic records of
Pagan persecutions there are histories which display,
perhaps more vividly than any other, both the depth of
cruelty to which human nature may sink, and the heroism
of resistance it may attain.  There was a time when it
1 See some curious information on this in Ticknor's ilist. of Spanish
Literature (3rd American edition), vol. iii. pp. 236-237.




THE CONVERSION OF ROME.                497
was the just boast of the Romans, that no refinement of
cruelty, no prolongations of torture, were admitted in
their stern but simple penal code.  But all this was
changed. Those hateful games, which made the spectacle
of human suffering and death the delight of all classes,
had  spread  their brutalising  influence wherever the
RPoman name was known, had rendered millions absolutely indifferent to the sight of human suffering, had
produced in many, in the very centre of an1 advanced
civilisation, a relish and a passion for torture, a rapture
and an exultation in watching the spasms of extreme
agony, such as an African or an American savage alone
can equal.  The most horrible recorded instances of
torture were usually inflicted, either by the populace, or
in their presence, in the arena.1  We read of Christians
bound in chairs of red-hot iron, while the stench of their
half-consumed flesh rose in a suffocating cloud to heaven;
of others who were torn to the very bone by shells, or
hooks of iron; of holy virgins given over to the lust of
the gladiator or to the mercies of the pander; of two hundred and twenty-seven converts sent on one occasion to
the mines, each with the sinews of one leg severed by a
red-hot iron, and with an eye scooped from its socket; of
fires so slow that the victims writhed for hours in their
agonies; of bodies torn limb from limb, or sprinkled with
burning  lead; of mingled salt and vinegar poured over
the flesh that was bleeding from the rack; of tortures
prolonged and varied through entire days.  For the love
of their Divine BM[aster, for the cause they believed to be
true, mlen, and even weak girls, endured these things withI This was the case in the persecutions at Lyons and Smyrna, under
Marcus Aurelius. In the Diocletian persecution at Alexandria the populace were allowed to torture the Christians as they pleased. (Eusebius, viii,
10.)




498       HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.
out flinching, when one word would have freed them
from their sufferings. No opinion we may form of the
proceedings of priests in a later age should impair the
reverence with which we bend before the martyr's tomb.
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