toward their destiny in the sea, though all have changed their beds many times and widened their valleys. When we meditate on the part played by bridges and roads in the rise and fall of ambitious nations, we should choose a fit environment, such as a Roman bridge crippled by three forms of war: floods, winds, and human strife. France has three or four Roman bridges of this kind, but let us take an Italian example. Brangwyn has chosen the Ponte Rotto, at Rome, and the great ruins of the bridge at Narni. It was Augustus Cæsar who erected Narni Bridge, in order to join two hills together across the valley of the Nera, on the Flaminian Way, in the Sabine country. There were four arches of white marble, and the finest one had a span of 142 feet. The others varied much in breadth.[5] The Romans plumbed the river and chose the best natural foundations for their piers; stability was more to them than a sequence of uniform arches. At the present time only one arch remains; but under its great vault, as you stand on the left bank, you will feel alone with the pity and terror that history brings to those who see past events as clearly as painters behold their concepts. [Illustration: RUINS OF THE GREAT ROMAN BRIDGE OVER THE NERA AT NARNI, ITALY] Under this arch at Narni many types of society have passed, with their customs, religions, fears, hopes, ambitions, predatory trades and pillaging armies; have passed one after the other, and vanished. _Tempus edax_ devoured them; and now they are studied in relics of their arts and crafts, their mute historians. What permanent social good did they do? Ought we to be as forgetful of them as they were of their buried generations? Do they merit any praise at all? They were proud, of course, and looked upon change as abiding progress, yet the more they altered the more their egotism was the same thing, either intensified and developed, or slackened and degraded; for the ruling motive powers of their life were but variations of the aboriginal war between the enfeebled and the strengthened. The social rule tried to prove that “Each for All, yet Each for Himself,” was the only sane doctrine for men to be guided by in their civil competitions. Everybody had to do much for the commonweal, but yet he was taught to believe that astuteness, even more than upright ability, would enable him to gain control over a number of slaves, or serfs, or servants, whose lot would be what he thought fit to make it. This habitual struggle for Dominion over others was a friend to the fortunate classes only: it bred microbes in the body social and produced fever and disruption. Is it surprising that civilizations withered away? Their autopsies have a horrible sameness; but from their mute historians--their books, pictures, sculpture, potteries, bridges, roads, and other relics of a lasting communism--we learn to have faith in useful work done thoroughly. In all that endures there is some altruism. Who would care