Of course our observer would see much in the social system he was examining which he would rightly regard as morally detestable and politically pernicious. But the real question before him would not be ‘are these things good or bad?’ but ‘are these things getting better or getting worse?’ And surely in most cases he would be obliged to answer ‘getting better.’ Many things moreover would come under his notice fitted to move his admiration in a much less qualified manner. Few governments have been more anxious to foster an alien and higher culture, than was the Roman Government to foster Greek civilisation. In so far as Rome inherited what Alexander conquered, it carried out the ideal which Alexander had conceived. In few periods have the rich been readier to spend of their private fortunes on public objects. There never was a community in which associations for every purpose of mutual aid or enjoyment sprang more readily into existence. There never was a military monarchy less given to wars of aggression. There never was an age in which there was a more rapid advance in humanitarian ideals, or a more anxious seeking after spiritual truth. There was much discussion, there was, apart from politics, but little intolerance. Education was well endowed, and its professors held in high esteem. Physical culture was cared for. Law was becoming scientific. Research was not forgotten. What more could be reasonably expected? According to our ordinary methods of analysis it is not easy to say what more _could_ be reasonably expected. But plainly much more was required. In a few generations from the time of which I am speaking the Empire lost its extraordinary power of assimilating alien and barbaric elements. It became too feeble either to absorb or to expel them: and the immigrants who in happier times might have bestowed renewed vigour on the commonwealth, became, in the hour of its decline, a weakness and a peril. Poverty grew as population shrank. Municipal office, once so eagerly desired, became the most cruel of burdens. Associations connected with industry or commerce, which began by freely exchanging public service for public privilege, found their members subjected to ever increasing obligations, for the due performance of which they and their children were liable in person and in property. Thus while Christianity, and the other forces that made for mercy, were diminishing the slavery of the slave, the needs of the Bureaucracy compelled it to trench ever more and more upon the freedom of the free. It was each man’s duty (so ran the argument) to serve the commonwealth: he could best serve the commonwealth by devoting himself to his calling if it were one of public necessity: this duty he should be required under penalties to perform, and to devote if necessary to its performance, labour to the limits of endurance, fortune to the last shilling, and family to the remotest generation. Through this